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US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

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31–40 of 233 posts

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#31
post #17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But U.S. judges don't do this all the time. Meanwhile, a number of European countries (notably the U.K.) are famous for dragging foreigners into defamation cases for conduct that happened entirely outside the country. The U.S. tends to invoke jurisdiction only when you do something quite targeted at the U.S.

Kim Dotcom?

Aside from the fact that he made most of his money hosting infringing copies of American content, and serving ads to subscribers in the America, there was the more basic hook that he hosted some of the infringing content on servers in Virginia.

That's the problem most of the copyright infringement sites have. They deal primarily in content that is produced by Americans and considered a property right in America. The U.S. wouldn't give a shit if they were just trading foreign music and movies to each other. Even then, it was e.g. the Swedes that went after Pirate Bay (based on a criminal complaint filed by the MPAA in Sweden).

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#32
Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

Especially when it comes to crooked banks or politicians. France is a strange country that likes to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world, but when you look at things closer, France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy.

Everything is so centralised that information usually comes from an single source of truth, that journalist dont even bother questioning since they are all married with politicians (literally).

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#34
post #21
post #19

Hilarious. It baffles me how this country continues to operate given the massive public spending/benefits, delightful reforms (e.g. proposed 80% tax rate for high-earners) and pretty xenophobic view on immigration. ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

Printed money is a helluva drug.

France is part of the Euro, and it's pretty much the Germans who decide when new Euros get printed. They haven't proven sympathetic to the idea of printing many recently.

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#35
post #32

Not surprising, there is no free speech in France. Especially when it comes to crooked banks or politicians. France is a strange country that likes to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world, but when you look at things closer, France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy. Everything is so centralised that information usually comes from an single source of truth, that journalist dont even bother ques…

I would very much be interested in the source describing this media-politics marriage dynamic that you mention.

>> Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

I don't see this as a free speech thing. I could argue there's no free speech in X. This kind of thing happens everywhere. People with money has power.

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#36
post #24

UK banks are just as bad. A company I worked for previously gave a bank's investment products a high risk rating because of poor investments/compliance and they sent all sorts of nasty shit out. Every bank has a "send people nasty shit" department by the looks. The answer is as always: "fuck off".

I think the better answer is to not reply at all or ever acknowledge receipt of said 'nasty shit'. Make every step a challenge for the opponent, it's a war of attrition. And never get mad at the lawyer, s/he usually bills by the hour and they are delighted to send out useless letters all day long. Informing the bank that this is a waste of time is bad for job security.

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#37

This coverage is going to get him more than 8KE worth of blog visitors. Particularly the "hey, this little blogger was sharp enough to uncover some real weird stuff on the part of SG" angle. Blog readers eat that up.

While Mish isn't as well known as Drudge, he isn't a little blogger. Just because he doesn't write about growth hacking his angular startup into YC doesn't mean he has no reach.

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#38
post #19

Hilarious. It baffles me how this country continues to operate given the massive public spending/benefits, delightful reforms (e.g. proposed 80% tax rate for high-earners) and pretty xenophobic view on immigration. ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

While the situation in TFA is spectacularly ridiculous and shameful for me as a french I don't think it warrants this kind of gratuitous french bashing. Unless of course you want to explain to us what the french taxation laws have to do with this particular court decision.

Also it's 75%, not 80%. That might not be very significant overall but it makes me doubt you really know what you're talking about.

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#39
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printed money is a helluva drug.

France is part of the Euro, and it's pretty much the Germans who decide when new Euros get printed. They haven't proven sympathetic to the idea of printing many recently.

Since when does french-bashing need to be factually correct ?

Re: US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

#40
post #24

UK banks are just as bad. A company I worked for previously gave a bank's investment products a high risk rating because of poor investments/compliance and they sent all sorts of nasty shit out. Every bank has a "send people nasty shit" department by the looks. The answer is as always: "fuck off".

Nasty Shit Sender would be an interesting job title.
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