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Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

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Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#81

Post by gnopgnip »

mbg721 wrote: post #5
tptacek wrote: post #2

Fascinating: this is a defamation case that could conceivably turn on the conventional interpretation of specific tarot cards. You can make up a completely batshit but purely subjective reason to accuse someone of a crime, and the "subjective" part insulates you from liability, but if there's a shred of objectivity in the claim to latch onto, and you lied about it, you can be liable.

I don't have anywhere near the background expertise that you do, but surely there's some kind of "reasonable person" standard at some point, right? Or is that just for juries in criminal trials?

Yes in some cases this is a factor. In CA, from the 1703 Defamation per quod civil jury instruction notes,

That [this person/these people] reasonably understood that the statement(s) [was/were] about [name of plaintiff]

And

“If [a] defamatory meaning would appear only to readers who might be able to recognize it through some knowledge of specific facts and/or circumstances, not discernible from the face of the publication, and which are not matters of common knowledge rationally attributable to all reasonable persons, then the libel cannot be libel per se but will be libel per quod.” (Palm Springs Tennis Club, supra, 73 Cal.App.4th at p. 5, internal citation omitted.)

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#82

Post by adalacelove »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

I’m confused by the idea that “Professor Scofield plotted and ordered the murders” is a statement of opinion. It seems like a clear example of what I’d consider a factual claim; it’s objectively true or false based on what happened in the physical world. Why does the factualness of her reasons for speaking the claim affect whether the claim itself is defamatory?

My opinion exactly.

I don't think she is going to accomplish too much by suing her. If she is is a crackpot it will reinforce her and her crackpot followers. It would be better to sue TikTok.

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#83

Post by bowsamic »

system2 wrote: post #79
tarotuser wrote: post #44

Greetings. I'm rather new here and a friend steered me towards here. I'm a pagan, and unfortunately this has caused a rather ugly stir in our communities. In recent (last 1.5 years), TikTok has been the primary contributing 'terrible occultists, witches, and pagans'. Their practices equate to what we would describe as cargo cultism, commercialism, and general lack of any understanding what we do. Most of us look down…

I don't mean to disrespect but there is absolutely no difference between rolling dice then adding meanings to the results and tarot deck shuffling and picking randomly. It sure looks fun though.

I don’t think you’re adding anything to anyone’s comment with that. Do you think they aren’t constantly told this?

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#84

Post by niemandhier »

Interestingly the statement that “ defamation requires a provably false statement of fact “ is not true in all jurisdictions.

German law makes a distinction between „Verleumdung“ which is indeed like defamation and “üble Nachrede“, which only requires a statement to not be probably true.

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#85

Post by system2 »

bowsamic wrote: post #80
system2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is fascinating to see HN people using tiktok.

Why?

Tiktok is aimed at 13 year-olds or younger people who waste 8+ hours on their phone. Lot's of screaming, cringy repetitive video creations (same video recorded by millions), people proudly admit the algorithm of tiktok is the best because it keeps the user's dopamine levels high. And on top of that, blatant Chinese data collection with likely evil intend. I will not say more than this because whenever I criticize tiktok or twitter I get flagged. It is detrimental to our society on many levels. Seeing educated and technically sound people using tiktok especially on HN is surprising to me.

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#86

Post by bagels »

system2 wrote: post #77
bagels wrote: post #55

I took a look at some of the videos on the tik tok. One video in, I see the a bunch of factual claims about a relationship between the professor and one of the students (which the professor denies) with no reference to them being opinion or even derived from tarot cards (though there are out of cards appearing on a table). https://www.tiktok.com/@ashleyisinthebookoflife/video/717838... I'm curious if one of the other…

It is fascinating to see HN people using tiktok.

It's certainly not a habit for me, but the story is about things posted to tiktok, might as well go to the source.

But besides that... many people on HN are employed at social media companies, including tiktok. It does not surprise me at all.

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#87

Post by system2 »

bowsamic wrote: post #83
system2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to disrespect but there is absolutely no difference between rolling dice then adding meanings to the results and tarot deck shuffling and picking randomly. It sure looks fun though.

I don’t think you’re adding anything to anyone’s comment with that. Do you think they aren’t constantly told this?

Since the parent comment mentions science maybe I can get a response to my scientific observation.

I do not think they are constantly told this. This is my first interaction with a tarot believing person online. I wrote my comment with the hope that I can learn their scientific approach to tarot. If not, what makes them believe it is even remotely real.

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#88

Post by causality0 »

niemandhier wrote: post #84

Interestingly the statement that “ defamation requires a provably false statement of fact “ is not true in all jurisdictions. German law makes a distinction between „Verleumdung“ which is indeed like defamation and “üble Nachrede“, which only requires a statement to not be probably true.

[flagged]

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#89

Post by sebosp »

Kindof off-topic, but I had to giggle, recently I bought the tarot from Pixel Spirit, on one side there's a printed shape and on the other side there's a shader code used to generate such shape, I started thinking of "interpretations" as "how else can I achieve this shape with geometry or with other shader functions", its a pretty interesting exercise

Re: Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?

#90

Post by maxbond »

pvg wrote: post #64
kortilla wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines what we’re exclusively allowed to talk about when a story comes up? I missed that one in the HN guidelines.

It's in there Avoid generic tangents.

I don't think generic tangents should be taken to include relevant tangents. I read this part of the guidelines (in context, with the surrounding language about flamebaits & tropes) as being about using something tangentially related as an excuse to pivot the conversation to your pet issue, not as forbidding you to add color to a conversation. That doesn't seem at all compatible with promoting curious conversation. I looked at a handful of times when dang cited this rule, and it always included the part before (Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.) and was in response to flamebait comments.

I think it's interesting & provokes my curiosity to hear about how this observation doesn't hold in different jurisdictions. I don't see how it should detract from anyone else's experience of the thread.

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