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Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#191

Post by mcguire »

Strom wrote: post #138
shellac wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

England?

If you want them to say United Kingdom, then say it. Obscure one word comments aren't useful or transparent.

Well, the ancestor has a point, sort of. England conquered Wales, Scotland, and a bunch of other parts of the Earth, and only grudgingly became the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Historically, its relationship with everyone else in Britain, much less the rest of the world, have been somewhat strained.

By the way, any news on the Scottish independence thing?

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#192

Post by GavinMcG »

shellac wrote: post #186
GavinMcG wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damages is a legal term of art that implies a finding of fault in a judicial proceeding and a corresponding award by the court/arbitrator/etc. This is not that: no fault/guilt need be admitted (though it was here). It's just a contract to accept a certain amount of money and in exchange to not proceed with a lawsuit.

If you look up the many settlements made by newspapers in the UK concerning hacking phones etc you will see 'damages'. To give one example: "Rather than fight the claims against the Sun in court, when they would have been set out in more detail in front of a judge, Murdoch’s company has instead agreed to pay substantial damages to settle the case. " https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/10/sun-publisher-...

Yes, "agreed...to settle the case" tells us what's going on there. Without such language, we'd be left with the default understanding. As in the headline.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#193

Post by shkkmo »

45ure wrote: post #187
shkkmo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment seems entirely unrelated to what it is responging to... You seem to be accusing the person you are responding to of being Brewdog? Or were you trying to say Brewdog uses defamation to silence criticism of their marketing tactics? Or are you trying to promote Brewdog by publicising their deliberate controversies? I just can't figure it out.

>You seem to be accusing the person you are responding to of being Brewdog? Or are you trying to promote Brewdog by publicising their deliberate controversies? There is no such implication on both counts. I am flabbergasted by how you have arrived at your conclusion.

I was not drawing want conclusions. I was struggling to understand your comment and those were the only three plausible (and mutually exclusive) interpretations i could come up with.

I presume you had a point you were trying to make, but i could not figure out what it was from your comment as written.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#194

Post by guerrilla »

AQuantized wrote: post #177
vl wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially it's a piece curved out of a country where descendants of occupants exceed in number native population. Of course it's occupied for so long that now it's "their own", still doesn't change the fact that it was occupied and not treated equally historically in the first place.

Not to be pedantic, but isn't that true of almost any place if you go back far enough? There's a reason those with 'British' ancestry are called Anglo-Saxons; The Angles (French) and Saxons (Germans) that conquered and occupied the land of the Celts eventually become the de facto inhabitants. Of course the Celts themselves didn't evolve there, but also dominated pre-Celtic peoples.

> Angles (French) and Saxons (Germans)

The Angles are not French nor were the Saxons Germans but both were Germanic, specifically Nordic, coming from what is now Denmark.

There were "French" who ruled Britain called the Normans, from Normandy, which was also settled by Scandinavians and mixed with Franks (Germanics) and Gallo-Roman (post-Romans) (explaining why they spoke French.)

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#195

Post by ceejayoz »

n4bz0r wrote: post #174
ceejayoz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only that sounds ridiculous... I'm not sure why. Doxxing is quite easy to do in many cases. Upload a photo that's geotagged, have an unusual name, analysis of your network of friends/followers, linkages to other social profiles, etc.

Although possible, it doesn't make much sense to use a personal account in this scenario, especially given the political nature of the messages which the article fails to mention along the other contextual details. I'm assuming a perfect offender here, who is sitting on a throwaway account, on a burner phone, and behind a VPN or three, all via public WiFi spot. Why? Because it makes sense, but most importantly becaus…

> I'm assuming a perfect offender here, who is sitting on a throwaway account, on a burner phone, and behind a VPN or three, all via public WiFi spot.

These are very silly assumptions, IMO.

I've seen an enormous number of trolly comments directed at public figures via long-running Facebook accounts under what appear to be real names. My local legislator gets harassed incessantly by a local business owner I've encountered in person.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#196

Post by ctack »

ipaddr wrote: post #124
didericis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of concrete definitions and examples makes it a warning to everyone.

What's the warning? Twitter will sell you out to the bbc? The BBC in northern Ireland is pushing unionist views and the BBC will crush anyone who calls them out. Don't mess with the BBC? Use a vpn and/or tor? Without the actual story it becomes an abuse of power story. A bully pushing around the little guy. If it were racist, sexist or homophobic we would have about heard that. The lack of message is very telling.

It seems like the agreement to pay could be read as the money being more or less extorted from the twitter troll.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#198

Post by mcguire »

Barrin92 wrote: post #31
akersten wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the US gets this right, and this case would be thrown out promptly were it in American jurisdiction (well, presumably - I don't know the extent of the "trolling" since the article is scant on detail, but I assume it's nothing over-the-top or they would have brought it to light to support their case). There's a much higher bar to establish defamation against Public Figures in the US -- as there should be. They are…

I'm not really sure why being famous is supposed to diminish your rights in regards to defamation, or really in regards to anything. If someone spreads falsehoods against another person in a way that damages their reputation they ought to have legal means at their disposal to set that straight. I don't really see why the US gets this right at all, it's just part of Americas culture where lies and truth are treated as…

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation

For defamation, you need four things: a false statement of fact made to a third party causing actual harm, that demonstrates at least negligence. For public figures, the "at least negligence" rises to "actual malice"; I believe the intention is to prevent public figures from abusing defamation suits.

Note that "lying", saying something that you know to be false or with "reckless disregard" for whether it is false, is pretty much the definition of "actual malice" in this case. You cannot lie without repercussion.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#199

Post by trhway »

ctack wrote: post #197

Am I crazy or could it be read that the money is being more or less extorted from the payer?

according to that reddit (as originals seem to be gone) about the payer https://www.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/nmzp90/wha...

"His Nolan guest analysis showed nationalist views are represented 6% of the time while unionist views get 65% of the airtime. "

I suppose saying such things in North Ireland is like criticizing the Chechen President Kadyrov in Russia - you get very specific people visiting you and "explaining" to you that you have to apologize, and you do happily apologize publicly after that, very similar like the supposed "troll" did here.

One can also notice how all the wording around that settlement is all about threats to any future "trolls", and with the "personal security" words present in the context the message is hardly can be made more clear.

Re: Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum

#200

Post by mcguire »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #54
AlexandrB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamation is a great way for those with money to silence dissent and avoid any consequences. Say our product sucks? Defamation. Claim you were sexually assaulted? Defamation. Even if what you said is true, would you be willing to spend the money to go to court and try to fight a defamation lawsuit?

I'm not sure that's true - or rather, I think it's exaggerated. First, truth is generally a defence to defamation, and costs follow the cause in the UK so a losing party would generally be required to pay both parties' costs. Now, defamation suits can still be costly and painful even if you are in the right, so they do surely have some chilling effect. But the risk and likely cost of trying to silence legitimate crit…

That has partially changed in the last 10 years.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/...

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