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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

#81

Post by jltsiren »

Volundr wrote: post #9
whatsupdog wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

> 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 much when things are good. Maybe a civil war is likely, or maybe it just ended and people are trying to rebuild trust. In any case, people don't trust each other, and they don't trust the authorities, but they are still trying to have legitimate elections.

The goal is not 100% security, 100% correctness, or something equally silly. The goal is a system where either every major party has a justified belief that the elections were legitimate and fair, the reported results are mostly correct, and there was no substantial fraud. Or at least one party questions the results due to widespread fraud. You want to trust the results, even when you can't trust the people running the elections.

Many paper ballot systems have been designed under such assumptions. The system assumes that the people running the elections cannot be trusted, but they also can't trust each other. You can't trust the people, but you trust that the system will detect and report any attempts at large-scale fraud.

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

#82

Post by litoE »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #10
whatsupdog wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

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"?

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

#83

Post by jibal »

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…

The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.

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

#84

Post by jibal »

pstuart wrote: post #75
mapt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I remain convinced that Rather was set up by Karl Rove -- it fits in with his other dirty tricks.

The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.

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

#85

Post by FridayoLeary »

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.

Wouldn't that damage the right to free speech? Regulating what the media is and isn't allowed to say is a very slippery slope and it is open to abuse. If the government was responsible for this task what would prevent Trump and the republicans from hijacking it? It might be frustrating but free speech is one of the cornerstones of democracy and we are much better off with it then without it.

> And that wasn't even the problem, it's that their lies created damages for another corporation

That's the first time i've ever seen anyone on HN sympathize with a billion dollar company:)

But that is exactly what the article was about! Dominion was libelled by Newsmax, so they was able to claim damages from them in a court of law. The law didn't allow them to get away with it. The First Amendment is working as inteneded. Some damage to society is tolerated to protect a much bigger and longer term benefit.

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

#86

Post by tw04 »

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]

You’re talking about the literal Russian collusion by Trump campaign officials that happened?

You might want to* read up on the actual case and stop listening to fox entertainment’s summaries if you think that was defamation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/senate-russia-report-p...

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

#87

Post by CharlesW »

jeltz wrote: post #76
CharlesW wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual argument by anyone who cares about voting rights concerns structural barriers to obtaining ID (hint: doesn't include stupidity). India's Aadhaar ID system, which still struggles with duplicate and missing voter records, doesn't magically solve any of the problems you mention. > Not "let's have just anyone vote and we'll trust their word". That's not how it works here. Voter registration requires proof of e…

> Voter registration requires proof of eligibility, poll books, signatures, and address checks are used for verification. And how is that less of a barrier than requiring an ID? Just fix so that it is easy to get an ID like most other countries have.

It's less of a barrier because there are many good options already. The specifics vary by state, but in addition to many kinds of government IDs (drivers licenses, military IDs, recognized tribe IDs, birth certificates in some states, etc.), it can include things like utilities bills, bank statements, paychecks, etc.

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

#88

Post by preinheimer »

whatsupdog wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

I don't think that in person voting with ID is a fool proof way to guarantee that only the people who "should be voting" get to vote.

I also think you disenfranchise too many people when you do that.

- People who work on oil rigs won't get to vote

- People who do shift work covering the hours the polls are open wont get to vote

- People who are of sound mind, but too unwell to travel to a polling location wont get to vote

- November is Red/blue king crab season in Alaska, guess those people don't get to vote

- Flight attendants & pilots might be away from home that day.

- People in the military might be on exercise that day, we're cutting them off (though I'll assume deployed service members will get to vote wherever they are)

- Long haul truckers are out of luck

- Anyone on vacation is missing their chance

- College students are always a wildcard, do they cast a ballot where they are (ID could be from a different state) or go home for the weekend?

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

#89

Post by jakelazaroff »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #26
marstall wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments pro and con are purely motivated by partisan concerns. its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id, therefore voter id laws supposedly favors republicans. that supposed fact is at the heart of the entire debate and as far as i know there is nothing more to it.

> 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 exercising their right to vote.

Until this root problem is fixed, any bureaucratic solutions are simply a game of whack-a-mole. If you make IDs easy to obtain, legislatures will enact rules preventing people from using them [1]. If you amend the state constitution to enfranchise felons, legislatures will invent procedural reasons to re-disenfranchise them [2].

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/stat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_F...

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

#90

Post by mrangle »

temp0826 wrote: post #50
kg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we really want to increase turnout, we can just make voting mandatory like other countries have. Requiring ID is a problem given that a lot of people don't have easy access (or access at all) to legal ID, for various reasons, some as simple as cost. Having a license costs money on an ongoing basis and you need to have access to documents to prove your identity like a birth certificate, and some citizens don't have…

Enforced compulsory voting and ranked-choice voting (along with term limits and ending citizens united) would be pretty great.

Compulsory voting is what regimes do when their government is so obviously corrupt that a strong voter turnout is the only thing left that lends an air of democracy. Most often suggested if flagging voter turnout might be seen as a possible public indictment of the system's democratic legitimacy. Now we can't have that sort of protest. The People will be enthusiastic! lol.
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