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Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

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Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#101

Post by verteu »

ljsprague wrote: post #45
siliconc0w wrote: post #5

It's pretty sad that is these sort of ticky-tacky lawsuits are really the only mechanism we seem have of holding these "news" networks responsible for brazen repeated lies that are hugely damaging to our society (like saying a election was stolen). And that wasn't even the problem, it's that their lies created damages for another corporation.

[flagged]

The Russian collusion was real - that's why Trump's campaign chairman, foreign policy adviser, personal lawyer, and National Security Adviser were all found guilty in court.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#102

Post by bradleybuda »

notatoad wrote: post #49
bradleybuda wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment comes up a lot On The Internet and it tells me that the commenter has never worked at a company that has lost a massive lawsuit. As someone who has worked at one of those companies, I can tell you that losing a suit like this will absolutely lead to huge operational changes to avoid it happening again. Whether or not those changes actually change the "character" of the company is a different ques…

i think it's unclear whether newsmax is a "real" company or not. is there any indication that they're trying to make money, or are they trying to push their agenda? because they pretty clearly do have an agenda to push. if they're a real company designed to make a profit, then sure, 1/3 of their annual revenue is plenty of incentive to make a real change, and could even be a company-ending event. If they're just a ri…

It's a publicly-traded company (and was private for 16 years prior to going public) so it seems likely that actually making money is at least somewhere on their list of priorities...

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#103

Post by FireBeyond »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #89
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID - when massive developing countries like India that are still struggling with basic things like sanitation have long ago solved this problem - is nothing short of embarrassing. There are people in rural India that live in straw huts tha…

> The solution, if this problem exists as they say, is to get everyone proper ID. That's not the solution because lack of ID isn't really the problem. These problem is that the Republican party's goal is to disenfranchise people who demographically tend to vote Democratic. The difficulty in getting an ID is not an accidental feature of the system — it is an intentional policy choice made to prevent people from exerci…

> state constitution to enfranchise felons, legislatures will invent procedural reasons to re-disenfranchise them

"Funnily", Donald Trump, a convicted felon, was allowed to vote in Florida, who typically bars convicted felons from voting, because "he had not yet been sentenced, therefore the conviction was not yet complete".

I guarantee any other Floridian in the same position will be laughed at if they try to vote using this (non) precedent.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#104

Post by triceratops »

mapt wrote: post #27
siliconc0w wrote: post #5

It's pretty sad that is these sort of ticky-tacky lawsuits are really the only mechanism we seem have of holding these "news" networks responsible for brazen repeated lies that are hugely damaging to our society (like saying a election was stolen). And that wasn't even the problem, it's that their lies created damages for another corporation.

Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change in an environment where right-wing journalism has turned into a defamation pipeline and then a defamation -> moral-panic -> stochastic-terror cannon that would impress Gerald Bull. These are supposed journalistic institutions, and that used to mean something, legally and culturally speaking. Maki…

> Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change

Sandy Hook v Jones was not "political". It was deeply, profoundly personal.

The Gawker lawsuit was also about settling personal scores. Obviously Hogan wasn't as sympathetic of a plaintiff as the Sandy Hook parents. But it was more odious because Thiel wanted to punish Gawker simply for hurting his feelings, not lying about him.

> So all we need now is an angry left-wing billionaire

Is there such a thing?

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#105

Post by byronic »

baggy_trough wrote: post #66
kristopolous wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sanctity of the voting booth"?! > More than one in five polling places have closed over the last decade, according to an ABC News and ABC Owned Stations analysis of data from the Election Administration and Voting Survey, the Center for New Data and the Center for Public Integrity. https://abcnews.go.com/US/protecting-vote-1-5-election-day-p... This is after Shelby County v. Holder, and now states are shutting down…

Yes that’s right, the sanctity of the voting booth. The ability, and indeed the requirement, to vote in private so as to avoid all influence is an important value. Of course, one may prepare beforehand.

Polling places aren't open during a plurality of hours in which people who work irregular hours can vote -- the Alabama example above affected me personally but generally is true in most of the southeastern United States. We don't get the day off, there isn't a means of transport unless you already live in a city that provides "rides to the polls," and lines are often long and slow to move.

I'm not saying that to deride your instinct here that a polling place being a private booth is kind of Cool™, just that providing accessibility (or, if I had my druthers, making voting _mandatory_ and giving everyone the day off to do it) sometimes requires we open the idea book and consider how we can make sure everyone who has the right to vote can do it.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#106

Post by yibg »

bradleybuda wrote: post #22
alistairSH wrote: post #2

~1/3 of their annual revenue. Not nothing, but likely small enough that it’s just a cost of doing business and not a real deterrent. IMO.

This kind of comment comes up a lot On The Internet and it tells me that the commenter has never worked at a company that has lost a massive lawsuit. As someone who has worked at one of those companies, I can tell you that losing a suit like this will absolutely lead to huge operational changes to avoid it happening again. Whether or not those changes actually change the "character" of the company is a different ques…

Taken in isolation this might be true, but these types of relatively small monetary damage don't seem to provide a good deterrent in general. Newsmax (as well as fox etc) is still airing provably false or at best misleading information and classifying it as "opinion". e.g. the other country pays the tariffs.

On a more society scale, if the damage from outright lies about an election costs on the order of 67m, what's to deter any of the billionaires from funding orgs like Newsmax to help win elections by spreading lies? It's a fraction of what Musk spent for 2024.

I don't have a good answer though that doesn't also have abuse potential the other way.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#107

Post by platevoltage »

CharlesW wrote: post #68
snickerbockers wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im so old I can remember when this used to be a common left-wing opinion. BTW, Dominion is actually diebold amalgamated with a couple other "voting" machine vendors into a single corporation.

Yep, it's disconcerting to see HN'ers demand that their federal government trump states' rights and issue mandatory centralized digital IDs.

We are already forced to use our social security number as some sort of personal serial number when doing things that don't involve a government funded pension.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#108

Post by mandeepj »

siliconc0w wrote: post #5

It's pretty sad that is these sort of ticky-tacky lawsuits are really the only mechanism we seem have of holding these "news" networks responsible for brazen repeated lies that are hugely damaging to our society (like saying a election was stolen). And that wasn't even the problem, it's that their lies created damages for another corporation.

> holding these "news" networks responsible for brazen repeated lies that are hugely damaging to our society

But that moron in WH is still spreading lies about that election; he has no shame, no remorse, no nothing. On the contrary, he was successful in portraying himself a victim and win people’s sympathy. Even though he’s the one who called insurrection. There’s no accountability for him.

Look at South Korea, who indicted their politician who did same act. As well at Brazil, who’s rogue politician is in house arrest. But, fking only here, they are awarded with a 2nd term.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#109

Post by byronic »

litoE wrote: post #82
FridayoLeary wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterargument is that mail in ballots help increase voter turnouts and that requiring id will turn people away. It's a weak argument because you shouldn't try to increase turnout by making voting less secure. Any other solution should be found instead.

I've never understood why elections are held on a Tuesday. Why aren't they held on a Sunday, which would eliminate the excuse of "I have to go to work"?

If you work at someplace other than Chik-Fil-A you're not guaranteed Sundays off either

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#110

Post by [deleted] »

jltsiren wrote: post #81
Volundr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. I don't know that it's that unpopular. I disagree with the 100% fool proof and verifiable claim though. I can think of lots of interesting ways of screwing with it, e.x. manipulating the chain of custody or tampering with the ballots to make errors likely. Everything is a balance. Paper ball…

> I happen to think the pros aren't worth the cons and that most of the handwringing around mail in ballots and machines are FUD rather than measured concerns. You can't trust the machines. You can't trust the election authorities. You can't trust the post office. Those are fundamental assumptions, not FUD or measured concerns. Elections should be designed for bad situations, because the results don't matter that muc…

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