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

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

#141

Post by icebraining »

nknighthb wrote: post #70
alan_cx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, was wondering that myself. Quite ironic that small fact being utterly missed in all this. Also like the anti French language ignorance. The letter came in French and the recipient couldn't be arsed to spend a few mins on google translate, and some how we are supposed to have some sympathy. On top of that, he also says that he knew there was a legal thing happening, so subsequent letters in French should have go…

Why would anyone, upon receiving a letter from a foreign country in a language they do not understand, spend any time at all trying to get it translated? I'd just toss it in the trash, since someone obviously screwed up and sent me a message intended for someone else.

From TFA:

I received one more express letter from France, in English, telling me subsequent letters would be in French (...)

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

#142

Post by astrobe_ »

mpclark wrote: post #77
camus2 wrote: 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…

This is sort of true. I ran a publication there for a few years and there are a lot of lines you cannot cross, lines that don't exist in the UK or the US. One I particularly remember (though I can't quote it exactly) is that you can (could?) be hauled into court for criticising heads of state, domestic or foreign.

Probably a misunderstanding. French press criticize the President 24/7. You can't insult the president or any other official in public, or any other French citizen.

Just like in most other European countries, France lets you say what you want, as long as you don't spread lies or hatred.

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

#143

Post by aktiur »

declan wrote: post #103
Xylakant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "no jurisdiction over someone?" If a crime was committed in france they can ask for extradition. That would probably not result in anything in this case, but as long as it's a crime by french law committed in france the case may as well be valid. So all the court will check whether a punishable crime was committed in france. They could collect the fine when the blogger enters france or maybe, depe…

France has no jurisdiction. U.S. courts will not enforce this civil judgment. Our 1A precludes them from doing so. And the blogger in question said he's not going to France. (BTW, a civil judgment is not "a crime by French law.")

It was not a civil judgment but a public one handled by an independant administrative authority with the power to pronounce sanctions (French public law is separate from both criminal and civil law and includes administrative law).

It is not so much about free speech: the two guys have been fined for publishing incorrect information about the financial situation of a bank. It is more about financial regulation than free speech. I'm not so familiar with american law, but I'm pretty sure you got related situations (for example concerning the handling of sensitive financial information, or insider trading, etc.)

Disregarding the question of the reality of what they've been accused of, the fine against Mish is illegal considering the right of defendants to translation and an interpretor has not been respected. This decision will be very probably striken down by any real judge that get her hands on this case.

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

#144

Post by rayiner »

bausson wrote: post #129
rayiner wrote: 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.

To be fair, U.S. judges often don't have the time. How many time did I see "SUSPECTED Al-Quaida member and his family and some of his neighbors were killed in an explosion while a drone coincidentally flew over his house" in the news this month? I lost count. A few points: * French are fed up with US agencies, nothing against US judges. * This was a civil deliberation, and will probably be nuked if said blogger make…

> How many time did I see "SUSPECTED Al-Quaida member and his family and some of his neighbors were killed in an explosion while a drone coincidentally flew over his house" in the news this month? I lost count.

How does this relate? Bombing someone in a foreign country is not an exercise of legal jurisdiction. It's an exercise of a country's sovereign right to exercise military power abroad.

There are two ways to interact with a country. If you're within its legal jurisdiction, you act through legal process. This is where words like "suspected" versus "guilty" have meaning. The other way is the interactions in the state of nature. This is a state of war.

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

#145

Post by rayiner »

wpietri wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That seems essentially similar to the view of the French body here: if somebody somewhere harms somebody in our country, we can go after them, without regard to the law elsewhere.

If the guy had published the material on a French server, the analogy might be more apropos.

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

#146

Post by rvkennedy »

thekevan wrote: post #75
Mithaldu wrote: post #33

That guy managed to instantly go from slightly above zero respect to negative, when i copy-pasted stuff and noticed that his site saw fit to add spam onto that in the buffer.

So you copied his content and were mad that he included text which noted you copied his content?

Ctrl+C means copy the text, with optional formatting. It doesn't mean "run a script", and this little trick implies two things: first, that the author is going to assume that anyone who copies text is trying to steal the content without attribution; secondly, that having been corrected in your naughty ways, you'll blithely accept the link he's pasted in there.

It's a web faux-pas, the equivalent of having your whole site in Flash, or trying to disable right-click for fear that someone might steal your precious, precious content.

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

#147

Post by bmelton »

doe88 wrote: post #101
witek wrote: 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.

That baffles me how some people are so much bitter toward France they take any occasion to take a cheap shot. > xenophobic view on immigration. Given this ranking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo... I don't think we have any advice to receive from anybody on the question of immigration. Granted there are some problems ampiflified by the economic crisis but given the rates of immigration we…

Why does one have to be in a free-bordered country to critique another nation's immigration policies?

As an American, I disagree with American immigration policies, and also disagree with France's. Is my opinion discounted because I'm an American?

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

#148

Post by bausson »

renang wrote: post #80
sebkomianos wrote: post #57

I would be more happy to read something like "Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french justice department for criticizing a bank". Now it sounds like the people of France decided to fine just an American blogger.

Looks like a bad choice of re-title. But I don't think it was intended to highlight the fact the blogger was American. > Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french justice department for criticizing a bank You missed the point where they were fining a non-French blogger that was giving straight facts and practicing his free speech.

Well, those are both bad title, since french justice has nothing to do with it.

"Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french assholes for criticizing a bank" is the closest to reality.

"Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french independent authority for criticizing a bank" is close enough to reality and politically correct.

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

#149

Post by aktiur »

cantankerous wrote: post #91
Xylakant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "no jurisdiction over someone?" If a crime was committed in france they can ask for extradition. That would probably not result in anything in this case, but as long as it's a crime by french law committed in france the case may as well be valid. So all the court will check whether a punishable crime was committed in france. They could collect the fine when the blogger enters france or maybe, depe…

> it's a crime by french law committed in france Was this actually a crime or just a civil dispute?

Neither criminal nor civil! French has a separate body of law called public law that includes administrative law.

In this case, the fine was pronounced by an independent administrative authority in charge of the regulation of financial markets. No judge was involved in the sentencing.

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

#150

Post by mercurial »

axlez wrote: post #86
epsylon wrote: post #47

The comments here are atrocious. I expected more from HN than senseless French-bashing and 'Murica flag-waving. A few informations for context: - Two bloggers were fined, one French, and the American one for quoting the French. - The fine emanated from the Commission des Sanctions (sanction committee) of the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers), the French stock market regulator. - It's supposed to be independent, b…

I think most reasonnable people in France, both left and right wing, find it ridiculous. That being said, being french, the level of defiance and incomprehension the people in charge in France show for the internet is beyond ridiculous, and border on dangerous.

By and large, there is a feeling that French politicians are disconnected from both modern realities and their electorate. I think it is, in most instance, correct. Their lack of understanding of technology (the famous "OpenOffice firewall incident", for instance) is partly a result of the lack of renewal of the French political class. Like many people from older generations who grew up without it, they don't necessarily have the ability or the interest in engaging with modern technology.

This certainly does nothing to help with the record level of discontentment the government is experiencing.

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