Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#151

Post by remarkEon » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #149

remarkEon wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I meant policing Turkey's internal behavior. If they attacked another NATO country then obviously it would mean Article 5 gets invoked. The "political purpose" of NATO, as written, has to do with cooperating on defense related matters. I don't know where one would get the idea that it gives NATO the authority to tell other members how to run their internal domestic affairs.

> NATO promotes democratic values

Still not following. Do you think this phrase extends beyond ensuring cooperation on defense?

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#152

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

CodeSgt wrote: post #117

etchalon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a concept in our courts called "punitive damages", which exists specifically to punish someone beyond the scope of the "real" damage caused.

Ah neat, I'd heard that term before but didn't know it's real meaning. Thanks! How are punitive damages determined though? Surely there's still some methodology to follow when calculating them, I don't see how any reasonable methology would have arrived at $1b.

Punitive damages have to be large enough to discourage the harmful behavior. That means they need to be scaled to the budget of the person doing the harm, not to the harm itself. Maybe the State should keep whatever of the punitive part seems too much larger than the actual damage.

The alternative is that the fine is just "cost of doing business". Rich people park any old place, any old time, and just pay their parking fines. OK for city government revenue, but bad for public safety, and worse for fairness and civic life.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#153

Post by caeril » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #64

CodeSgt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is especially an issue as certain forms of medical care gets politicized. If a doctor is obviously telling people that cigarettes are healthy and alcohol abuse if the key to a long life then of course they probably should have their license revoked. If a doctor isn't certain of the literature or has moral objections to prescribing hormones to trans teenagers, well that one is up for debate. Similarly see A…

The whole situation with Alex Jones has undermined the confidence I have with our court system and our government. Initially I thought there was some Mandela Effect going on because I could have sworn I remembered Alex Jones losing a Sandy Hook civil suit case multiple times before. Turns out, he’s being sued multiple times by different sets of parents and from what I understand, this latest case isn’t the last one.…

> The whole situation with Alex Jones has undermined the confidence I have with our court system

If it makes you feel any better, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family was fined SIX TIMES more than Alex Jones. 800k people dead for $6B versus a dozen families' feelings hurt for $1B.

Our court system recognizes that the value of a human life is $7.5K, but the value of precious feelings is $83MM.

This seems pretty fair to me.

The good news is that punitive damages haven't been awarded yet. Hoping that the cost for hurt feelings rises north of $100M. Looking forward to suing everyone who said false statements about me in public. It's going to be an incredible payday, and I can parlay the winnings into running a drug operation and killing rural Americans with opioids and only pay a rounding error for everyone I murder.

Can't wait.

Edit: Apologies, HackerNews, are my numbers off? Am I factually incorrect? Are we seriously supporting the position that the Allies should have just hit Hitler with a $45B fine for the whole "Holocaust Thing" and called it even? I know addressing downvotes is frowned upon, but I'm genuinely curious why HN thinks feelings are worth eleven thousand times more than lives.

Edit 2: Understood. Feelings really are worth four orders of magnitude more than lives, on this forum. Got it.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#154

Post by hbrn » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #108

CodeSgt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly think Alex Jones's speech inflicted a billion dollars worth of damage? I'd love to see an itemized bill demonstrating that. If he actually did cause that much real damage, sure, it would be fair. But I can't possibly conceive how he would have caused even $100k in real damages, much less a billion. It's equally, if not more dangerous, to fine people ludicrously large, arbitrary amounts of money because t…

> Do you truly think Alex Jones's speech inflicted a billion dollars worth of damage? I urge you to read up on Alex's conduct before, during, and after the trial(s). He spent most of his time mocking the process, attacking the judge, and continuing to defame the parents while failing to comply with basic discovery in a timely way. He also hired incompetent legal representation[1] - probably because they shared his wo…

> if Alex had taken the lawsuit seriously and treated it with the gravitas most people would assign to a lawsuit like this, the judgement would be nowhere near $1B

What do you think it would have been?

I don't mind the "asshole tax" in courts, but I feel like it should be limited. The guy is an idiot, but all the more reason to judge him fairly.

$1B fine looks like a political decision (especially to his audience), and will probably give even more power to him.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#155

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #88

rlpb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, because this is a civil matter and not a criminal one, there is no protection against double jeopardy. He can keep getting sued over and over for the same thing. Not by the same people, though. If he damaged ten people, he might owe damages to each of those ten people. That doesn't sound like a problem to me. > Second, fining someone a billion dollars is just ludicrous. It seems like your argument is that…

As for your first point, I suspect the parents and their attorneys have decided to split the lawsuits up strategically. I do not know how civil suit reform could address something like this. As for your second point, it is indeed true that I don’t think Alex Jones caused a billion dollars worth of damage. I simply cannot envision the specifics of this case warranting a billion dollars of restitution. If this was a ca…

Murderers generally don't have access to a billion dollars. Alex Jones does.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#156

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

jhauris wrote: post #104

CodeSgt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is especially an issue as certain forms of medical care gets politicized. If a doctor is obviously telling people that cigarettes are healthy and alcohol abuse if the key to a long life then of course they probably should have their license revoked. If a doctor isn't certain of the literature or has moral objections to prescribing hormones to trans teenagers, well that one is up for debate. Similarly see A…

I almost choked when I saw the headline with that judgement, and I haven't looked into it, but I suspect part of the reason it went so high is because he and his lawyers got caught withholding evidence in discovery and perjurying themselves. My optimistic belief is the high judgement was due to those extra factors, but maybe a lawyer can correct me.

You charge enough to discourage the behavior. Evidently, a smaller amount did not suffice.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#157

Post by rayiner » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #129

rayiner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? The secularist moderates and liberals suppressed the Muslim majority for nearly a century. They repeatedly banned Islamist political parties. This is a Muslim majority country where headscarves were banned for decades.

Headscarves were not banned in general, they were only banned for public servants during work (because Turkey was a secular country, not an Islamic country, and the population wasn't Islamist, a solid 40% don't wear headscarves at all), they were banned from public institutions only after 1980, which isn't anywhere close to a century ago, and by the military, not Erdogan's political opponents. I suppose we'll disagre…

Banning Muslim religious attire in public institutions is “oppression.” It’s especially galling when it’s happening in your own, majority Muslim country. And let’s be clear here. The folks you’re calling “extremists” are the majority in Turkey. The secularists are an elite minority.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#158

Post by Rapzid » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #85

CodeSgt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure if I see how this changes the fundamental nature of the lawsuit. "Spreading disinformation", whether you profit from it or not, is really just "Speaking your incorrect opinion out loud" in a more negative light. The basis of the lawsuit was "This man said things that made me upset". And yeah, they were rightfully upset, but it's something that I think any court in a count…

The basis of the lawsuit was defamation which is different than spreading disinformation. A lot of the legal documents can be found here [1] but I already know you aren't going to both yourself with the specifics of the case. The short version is, if somebody sues you, you need to go through the legal motions otherwise you lose by default and then their side is considered factual when determining damages regardless o…

It would be nice if people didn't barf their uninformed opinions all over HN with the excuse of, basically, "idk what I'm talking, come at me bro(with citations pls)".

Then expect people to drip-feed them basic legal education.

I guess doing some basic research on libel, defamation, punitive damages, and IDK.., the case at hand?, isn't contentious enough. Hard to get into an argument with Wikipedia.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#159

Post by dmix » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

Kukumber wrote: post #132

They don't want the US/Israel to plot a 2nd coup [1], just like with China/Russia they want to split Turkey since it's too big Erdogan knows that very well, hence he tried to play double face with NATO/Russia (BRICS) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Foreign boogiemen tend to be behind a lot of bad laws.

The coup failed without having to jail people for arbitrary wrongthink and I doubt this will be useful for anything but crushing domestic opposition and silencing whistleblowers.

Re: Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

#160

Post by dmix » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

potatototoo99 wrote: post #53

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it genuinely depends on how extreme the speech is. Alex Jones arguably profited by spreading lies knowing it would ruin the lives of specific people who already had tragedy happen to them. I genuinely don’t know how to defend that behavior on principles of free speech and genuinely wished Alex Jones was stopped years earlier. Michelle Carter convinced her boyfriend to commit suicide over text messages and was…

Alex Jones spouting some conspiracy theories didn't ruin any person's lives. The chilling effect of attacking "desinformation" on the other hand, does.

Plus human societies has survived and thrived for a long time and it has always had a fringe group of conspiracy theorists nipping at the heels of the mainstream.

There's really no justification for extreme measures to deal with this problem, especially when the potential side-effects largely outweigh any potential gains.

People try to say that things are different now with tech, that conspiracies are spreading faster. But what is also spreading faster and is 10x more popular than conspiracy theories is alarmist news and pearl clutching that society won't be able to deal with it without widespread censorship.

People need to step away from Twitter and take a deep breath. We can handle it.