Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 74 posts

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#41

Post by j-c-hewitt »

analyst74 wrote: post #12
nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly. That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing instit…

There's a difference between stating an opinion ("The Exeter police are corrupt") and making a statement like "Police Chief John Doe took a bribe to overlook a crime." You can write an op-ed insinuating that based on your sources, the corruption at the Exeter Police Department goes to the top. It's something else to defame an individual specifically. For example, it's defamation to say "analyst74 raped and murdered a girl in 1993" unless I have at the minimum a good faith belief that that was the case.

To reiterate, it'd be protected speech to say like you just said that "corruption is a massive problem in American police forces." It's not so much protected speech if you accuse Officer John Doe of specific criminal acts in public if the statement isn't true.

For other reasons, this is not the best defendant just from a character perspective the ACLU could pick for this kind of situation (https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20180531/exeter-man-char...). To actually challenge the law, they'd have to somehow reframe what he said as an opinion.

Obviously the cops aren't going to bring charges for the vast majority of these kinds of instances, but they did against Frese because he's a felon with a history of harassing the local police. And not a cute and cuddly felon either: he ran over a traffic worker after threatening to run him over. It's fine for the ACLU to take this as a test case but this is not this sort of situation that is a great test case.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#42

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

digianarchist wrote: post #33
coldtea wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to their viewers. Other countries with stronger libel laws (like the UK) don't have nearly as bad a problem Ever read the Daily Mail, the SUN and co? (Or for that matter the Guardian, for left-sided BS).

Did you just throw the Guardian in the same list as some of Britain's worst tabloids? The Morning Star would have been a better example...

Sorry, but The Guardian is garbage. It’s not as obviously garbage as the DM et al, but they publish Laurie Penny. That’s pretty bad.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#43

Post by stevenwoo »

analyst74 wrote: post #12
nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly. That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing instit…

I think there's a difference between corruption and unaccountability. Due to the way the justice system is set up in the USA plus the history of using police forces to subdue to population prosecutors have generally little to gain/incentive/motivation to prosecute law enforcement even in the most infamous cases.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#44

Post by basilgohar »

roenxi wrote: post #39
nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

I have more objections to that than I am going to fit into a single comment, so I'll try to summarise the top few: 1) The incentive structures around libel laws are horrible. If you give the US Congress moral and constitutional authority to pass something like what the UK has they will make it very hard to criticise US politicians. 2) "especially on the right, but also the left" is wrong. All media organisations are…

>2) "especially on the right, but also the left" is wrong. All media organisations are routinely wrong on all issues - there was an anecdotal named law for this but I've forgotten the name of it, where if the media reports on something that the viewer understands it is obvious all the reporting is wrong, but then the viewer assumes that reporting on subjects they know nothing about is correct. One subgroup can't be more wrong when all of the group is basically all wrong - there is news that is wrong the way the consensus is wrong and then there is news that is wrong in radical new ways.

What you are referring to here I believe is the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect [0] cited by Michael Crichton.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#46

Post by saghm »

roenxi wrote: post #39
nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

I have more objections to that than I am going to fit into a single comment, so I'll try to summarise the top few: 1) The incentive structures around libel laws are horrible. If you give the US Congress moral and constitutional authority to pass something like what the UK has they will make it very hard to criticise US politicians. 2) "especially on the right, but also the left" is wrong. All media organisations are…

For 2), I think you're thinking of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

EDIT: Looks like a sibling comment beat me to it

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#47

Post by PhasmaFelis »

umvi wrote: post #35
analyst74 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly. That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing instit…

> There is also massive corruption problem in the police force Is this really true or just the impression given by cherry-picking the worst possible cases nation wide and amplifying them via media? Define "massive". If you got pulled over, would you be legitimately worried about being tazed or abused?

I'd be more likely to believe that the publicly-repeated abuse cases are flukes if the officers involved didn't seem to get off with a slap on the wrist the majority of the time.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#48

Post by briandear »

nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

The problem with libel and slander laws is that you have to prove damages. Without an “injury” there is no case. They’re civil torts.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#49

Post by briandear »

darkpuma wrote: post #13
nsedlet wrote: post #10

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…

If the UK's notion of libel were applied to the scenario of the article, Robert Frese would be required to prove that his statements were truthful, rather than the police/prosecution proving Robert knew he was lying. That's obscene. Think about how hard each of those would be to prove. To prove he knew he was lying would almost require that he admitted it in writing or was recorded admitting it. But for a man like Ro…

If you are going to defame someone, ought truth be a basic requirement? How can you prove a negative; how can cops prove they aren’t corrupt? Much easier to prove something happen rather than proving something didn’t happen, unless there is a specific incident in question.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#50

Post by darkpuma »

yayana wrote: post #37
darkpuma wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminal libel laws are at the discretion of law enforcement and prosecutors. Anybody can bring a civil suit for libel. Only 23 states have criminal defamation laws. The problems with defamation being criminal is what the article is about.

I don't see what you think I missed. It's annoying to always use Trump, but it makes sense to use the person in the position of President to demonstrate that the law without discretion would net big fish. IMO, law enforcement/DA discretion is ALWAYS a violation of civil rights. Laws would be less prevalent and less severe if they had to be applied equally. If you go through the mental exercise in obvious cases then y…

What you're missing is that civil defamation suits are not at the discretion of prosecutors.
Post reply on HN