[HN Gopher] John Stossel sues Facebook for allegedly defaming hi...
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John Stossel sues Facebook for allegedly defaming him with fact-
check
Author : temp8964
Score : 167 points
Date : 2021-09-24 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| NYTimes versus Sullivan needs to be overturned. It was decided in
| an entirely different era where yellow journalism was an
| exception rather than the rule.
| perihelions wrote:
| Opinion based on disclosed facts is protected speech [0]. Hard to
| be defamatory when the facts under dispute (the text of Stossel's
| post) are public.
|
| [0] https://www.rcfp.org/two-courts-reaffirm-protections-
| opinion...
| xondono wrote:
| To use that defense, Facebook would have to label their fact
| checks as opinions, something that AFAIK they do not.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > To use that defense, Facebook would have to label their
| fact checks as opinions, something that AFAIK they do not.
|
| Cause these "fact checks" ARE opinions and Facebook should
| start labelling their own "fact checks" as "Facebook
| opinion". The cowardice of that system as well... like
| Facebook can be an arbiter of truth at first place? They are
| trying to have their cake and eat it too, by still profiting
| from content they deem "falsehoods" while trying to get off
| the hook regarding mass media critical of Facebook.
| rasengan0 wrote:
| "In other words, to the question of whether a user was defamed
| through the announcement that content failed a "fact-check," this
| Delaware court didn't see a problem."
|
| John Stossel, defamed? Who is that fool? What a fall from 20/20
| TV entertainment days.
| mplewis wrote:
| In his own words: "Give me a break!"
| varelse wrote:
| Before they were against an unregulated free market they were
| certainly for it...
| djoldman wrote:
| > Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing,
| pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in
| physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes
| a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a
| person in his/her business or profession. [0]
|
| This is interesting as it seems that platforms like Twitter and
| Facebook have avoided liability through Section 230 for content
| posted on their websites as the platform did not create the
| content.
|
| However, now that they seem to be automatically "fact-checking"
| and/or otherwise creating content with people as subjects, the
| platforms may be opening the door to liability.
|
| [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel
| eli wrote:
| That assumes anything they did was actually libelous which
| is... unlikely.
| justinlink wrote:
| Claiming a journalist makes "false claims" and is
| "misleading" could be injurious to their reputation as a
| journalist. Which would hurt them in their business or
| profession.
|
| It's not a slam dunk for him by any means, but I can
| understand why he filed.
| tssva wrote:
| Ironically John Stossell has actually been caught making
| false and misleading claims previously. He had to know
| filing this would bring those episodes back up, so I don't
| know why he filed.
| eli wrote:
| Same reason Trump filed so many pointless libel suits. So
| that we would talk about them.
| eli wrote:
| The bar for libel is high in the US. Something could be
| false, misleading and injurious to reputation and not be
| libel. Particularly if the person in question is a public
| figure, which is defined very broadly.
| myfavoritedog wrote:
| What's the difference between creating content directly vs
| fine-tuning what content is available on your platform through
| automatic and manual moderation rules that promote some
| messages and curtail others?
| newacct583 wrote:
| That's... not what 230 is about at all. This myth just recycles
| itself again and again. Why do people insist on repeating it?
|
| Section 230 immunizes a web content company from liability for
| statements made _ON ITS SERVICE BY THIRD PARTIES_ (to wit: you
| can 't sue Facebook for what its users say on it).
|
| No one here thinks Facebook is immune to a liability claim for
| its own speech. No one is invoking 230 to defend it. 230 is not
| applicable. Why do people keep insisting it's some kind of
| boogeyman that can be "revoked" to get "big tech" in line? It
| doesn't apply here.
| lmilcin wrote:
| That is interesting.
|
| So... basically we are waiting until they get their fact
| checking wrong against a wrong person?
|
| This must happen eventually.
|
| But you could argue that so many public persons openly lie and
| even declare that "they can lie to public since they are not
| under oath", that it is hard to punish a company that tries to
| do right by fact checking a lot of falsehoods. It is reasonable
| to assume that when you correct a million falsehoods you will
| make some mistakes.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Certain famous persons are expected to lie, so it wouldn't
| injure their reputation in the way that (the above)
| defamation is defined. A politician, for example, might
| pursue such a case only for publicity.
| thugthrasher wrote:
| To be clear, if it's a public figure, then just getting the
| fact checking wrong is not enough to be defamation. There has
| to be "actual malice" which BASICALLY just means they knew
| they were wrong or should have known they were wrong. If they
| can show that they were just following the information that
| was publicly available then they can make mistakes without
| losing a lawsuit.
| wpasc wrote:
| Wow, this is a great point that I hadn't previously considered.
| These platforms can even conceivably get away with content
| removal more easily as ToS violations without stepping over the
| line to become publishers. But if one considers a fact-check as
| its own content, then that may become a defining point in a
| future ruling or examination of 230.
|
| I imagine there's a great case to be made that fact checks are
| platform sponsored content (if a fact check is viewed as an
| analysis of the content along with verdict [ie. "Misleading"],
| easy to view that similarly to the plethora of analysis content
| [reviews, summaries, etc] populating all social media
| platforms). I'm fascinated to see how this will play out.
| cronix wrote:
| > But if one considers a fact-check as its own content, then
| that may become a defining point in a future ruling or
| examination of 230
|
| I believe that is why they, and other platforms in a similar
| position, use 3rd party "fact checkers." To try to legally
| skirt that. "It's not _our_ content /fact check, it's from
| this unbiased third party. Don't look at us." They seem to
| have borrowed "plausible deniability" from some 3 letter
| agencies since it legally works well for them.
|
| > To fight the spread of misinformation and provide people
| with more reliable information, Facebook partners with
| independent third-party fact-checkers that are certified
| through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network
| (IFCN). Since we do not believe that a private company like
| Facebook should be the arbiters of truth, we rely on fact-
| checkers to identify, review and rate potential
| misinformation across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Their
| work enables us to take action and reduce the spread of
| problematic content across our apps.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/journalismproject/programs/third-
| pa...
| temp8964 wrote:
| Do Facebook pay for those "third-party" "fact-checks"?
| [deleted]
| jefftk wrote:
| I doubt they'd need to: the third parties get traffic and
| prestige from participating
| ch4s3 wrote:
| There is no platform/publisher distinction in the law.
| Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 [1] was
| originally meant to be a carve out to allow websites to host
| comment sections without being considered the "speaker" of
| those comments and thereby being subjected to the speech
| restrictions in the rest of the law. The rest of the law has
| since been struck down.
|
| When people are mad about 230, what they're really mad about
| is the 1st Amendment.
|
| Is Facebook the speaker when it applies a fact check? Maybe
| but it doesn't matter much with respect to 230 offers minimal
| protection beyond the 1st Amendment. And as others have
| stated, the bar for libel against public figures is VERY high
| in the US.
|
| [1]https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
| pjc50 wrote:
| > When people are mad about 230, what they're really mad
| about is the 1st Amendment.
|
| Exactly. Facebook are exercising their 1A rights to call
| him misleading. This is not complicated.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah the whole 230 discussions is at best naive and at
| worst a cynical attack on 1A rights by no nothing dead
| enders and authoritarian leftists. The same coalition
| that brought you the drug war, the satanic panic, and the
| global war on terror.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| There are some infamous blog posts that will tell you that 230
| protects websites no matter what happens. But when bad things
| happen and the law protects bad actors, then it's a bad law.
| danShumway wrote:
| The current case doesn't really have anything to do with
| Section 230 that I can see. Section 230 protects Facebook
| from being sued for what other people post on their website.
| It doesn't impact content that they themselves create. If
| Facebook publishes an illegal blog post or attaches its own
| content... I mean, it would at least need to make a case that
| it wasn't making the fact check itself, that this was an API
| or something.
|
| I'm not sure if they could pull that off or not. But in any
| case, Section 230 has never been a blanket law that says
| websites can't be sued for anything. It shields them from
| liability for 3rd-party content, that's it.
|
| Realistically, the reason this lawsuit is probably going to
| fail is because it doesn't look like the fact check in
| question is actually defamation. I'm not a lawyer, maybe
| Stossel will surprise me. But my immediate take is that I
| think he has a weaker case than Owens', and her defamation
| claims got pretty solidly rejected, and not for any 230
| reasons.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The current case doesn't really have anything to do with
| Section 230 that I can see.
|
| It does. Though _NY Times v. Sullivan_ maybe has more to do
| with it, and the basic definition of defamation may have
| the most do with it.
|
| > Section 230 protects Facebook from being sued for what
| other people post on their website. It doesn't impact
| content that they themselves create.
|
| Facebook's fact-check annotation facility, like its
| newsfeed, is, as I understand it, algorithmically-driven
| promotion of third-party submitted content.
|
| It is not, in any case, first-party content (well, I mean
| the actual standarized portion of the annotation that links
| the article to the thing fact-checked is, but its
| association with a particular bit of content is driven by
| the third-party submission.)
|
| > Realistically, the reason this lawsuit is probably going
| to fail is because it doesn't look like the fact check in
| question is actually defamation.
|
| That's the most likely reason why it will fail against the
| creator of the fact check article. It's failure against
| Facebook os overdetermined.
| djoldman wrote:
| I'm interested as to whether the courts would consider
| this fact checking content as Facebook's or a third-
| party's. If the third party did not explicitly cause the
| content to be put in this specific "fact check" area, did
| they create it for the purpose of libel?
|
| Going to an extreme: if Facebook pays Acme Fact check for
| some text that says "John is a bad lawyer" and facebook
| then posts that text on John's page, isnt Facebook liable
| whether or not they actually created the text? The text
| wasn't posted by Acme, it was posted by FBook.
| danShumway wrote:
| My bad, I didn't realize that Facebook's fact-checking
| worked that way, I thought this stuff was an in-house
| decision just using 3rd-party sources to help inform it.
| Thanks for the correction.
|
| Given that information, I should revise: Section 230
| _will_ protect Facebook from liability for a 3rd-party-
| driven fact check, but even if it didn 't this still
| doesn't look like it rises to the level of defamation for
| Facebook. So even if Section 230 was repealed, Facebook
| would still likely win this case (although Section 230
| applicability will probably allow them to dismiss it
| faster).
|
| I don't want people to think that this is obviously
| defamation, but Section 230 happens to be blocking
| Facebook from consequences. This being 3rd-party content
| makes Facebook's position much stronger, but I still
| think they would most likely win this case even if
| Zuckerberg himself had labeled the article as misleading
| under the direction of Facebook's board.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Rights protect everyone - including bad actors. Any
| definition of a bad law that includes rights as such is
| euphemistically referred to as a "different understanding".
|
| Does nobody remember Blackstone's Principles these dats in
| their zeal to collect scalps? A good law is one which does
| not punish innocents - that should be where the lines are
| always drawn.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| 230 is not a right, it's a special exception afforded to
| some businesses, and not to others (newspapers). i dont
| think it should be held that highly. It was a temporary
| measure to help the internet grow, now the internet IS the
| media of mass manipulation
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >230 is not a right, it's a special exception afforded to
| some businesses
|
| Yes, section 230 is not a right. But it is afforded to
| _everyone_ [0]:
|
| _There is nothing in Section 230 that applies solely to
| big tech. Indeed, it applies to every website on the
| internet and every user of those websites. That means it
| applies to you, as well, and helps to protect your
| speech. It 's what allows you to repeat something someone
| else said on Facebook and not be liable for it. It's what
| protects every website that has comments, or any other
| third-party content. It applies across the entire
| internet to every website and every user, and not just to
| big tech._
|
| [0] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/2332544461
| 7/hello...
| [deleted]
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Whether the content is third-party or first-party is
| nowadays the same in the eyes of the end user. They 'll
| believe a moderated story on facebook or a moderated
| story on nytimes.com with almost equal frequency.
| Technicalities of the law aside, why the first is more
| equal then the other is baffling to me
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Whether the content is third-party or first-party is
| nowadays the same in the eyes of the end user.
|
| Is it? As an end user, I am acutely aware that the above
| is from "cblconfederate" and not Hacker News.
|
| >They 'll believe a moderated story on facebook or a
| moderated story on nytimes.com with almost equal
| frequency.
|
| The question isn't whether or not "they" (whoever "they"
| might be) believe it, the question is "Who is the
| _source_ of the story. "
|
| If I say that you are a wife-beating, child-molesting,
| puppy-kicking monster, do you assume that Hacker News is
| responsible for that?
|
| Once you answer that question, perhaps you'll understand
| things a little better.
|
| Edit: Added context.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > If I say that you are a wife-
|
| If you sent the content to a newspaper and they posted it
| in the relevant section the newspaper would be liable.
| Those things aren't as distinct as they were made to be.
|
| What i had in mind is the fact that on facebook you have
| a mix of posted newspaper articles (which are first-party
| elsewhere and thus someone may be legally liable for
| them) along with official/governmental first parties,
| politicians, heads of state, scientists , and random
| users most of which cannot be legally challenged, at all.
| And this is done intentionally because facebook has made
| great effort to get its users to read / post news
| articles so as to make itself a news source. Plus they
| apply filters and annotation to give the false impression
| that the information they provide is the "correct one".
| This is "publishing via moderating"
|
| I think 230 makes a very basic ontological distinction
| between "people whose opinion matters/has impact and
| therefore must be regulated (press)" and "people whose
| opinion doesnt matter (random users)". That is not so.
| This allows malicious actors to hide behind "i'm just a
| user".
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >If you sent the content to a newspaper and they posted
| it in the relevant section the newspaper would be liable.
| Those things aren't as distinct as they were made to be.
|
| You ignored the point. Which is _I_ am responsible for
| what _I_ say, regardless of where it 's published online,
| not the platform that hosts my words.
|
| >What i had in mind is the fact that on facebook you have
| a mix of posted newspaper articles (which are first-party
| elsewhere and thus someone may be legally liable for
| them) along with official/governmental first parties,
| politicians, heads of state, scientists , and random
| users most of which cannot be legally challenged, at all.
| And this is done intentionally because facebook has made
| great effort to get its users to read / post news
| articles. If it was just user posts people would have
| left.
|
| Who says that "official/governmental first parties,
| politicians, heads of state, scientists , and random
| users" can't be legally challenged?
|
| All section 230 does is keep you from suing the third
| party. You can sue any or all of the folks you mention
| every day of the week and twice on Sundays (okay,
| probably not at all on Sundays, as most civil courts in
| the US are closed on Sunday, but I trust you take my
| point).
|
| >These assymetries no longer make sense imho. This is a
| new era where everyone, personally is a publisher.
|
| And you can sue anyone and everyone for defamation if you
| wish. I'm sure your lawyer will absolutely adore you if
| you do. Just make sure that retainer check doesn't
| bounce!
|
| >I think 230 makes a very basic ontological distinction
| between "people whose opinion matters/has impact and
| therefore must be regulated (press)" and "people whose
| opinion doesnt matter (random users)".
|
| Actually, Section 230 makes no such distinction. If you
| are the party making the statement, Section 230 does not
| apply. Please see here[0] for more details.
|
| [0] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/2332544461
| 7/hello...
| [deleted]
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| But 230 wouldn't even come into this discussion because the
| standard of libel for Stossel, as a public figure, is
| significantly higher. He has to prove that Facebook/the fact
| checkers had actual malice in stating its claims. Meaning, the
| Facebook/fact checkers had to be intentionally lying or acting
| in reckless disregard for whether the statement was true or
| not.
|
| It's a more interesting situation if he wasn't a public figure,
| but even then, I doubt Facebook would be the one deemed
| responsible for the so-called libel, it would come down to the
| fact checked. In fact, in the similar Candace Owens lawsuit
| (which the court threw out), she sued USA Today and the fact-
| checking company, not Facebook. And her claims were still
| thrown out, both because she couldn't show there was actual
| malice involved or that the claims that her statement was
| "false" was untrue. That opinion is here:
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21068070-owens Owens is
| of course a public figure, but that wasn't even a large part of
| the reason her lawsuit was thrown out on its face.
|
| Stossel is getting press time by suing but he's a public figure
| and suing Facebook because a fact checking service elicited an
| opinion/notation that didn't have the nuance he wanted is
| laughable.
| JPKab wrote:
| The fact checking services are wrong, a LOT. They are not
| ideologically neutral, particularly the ones used by
| Facebook.
|
| For a specific example of the abusive and censorious nature
| of this business model, see Glenn Greenwald's recent article
| on the subject, specifically in regards to the blanket
| denunciation of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story
| as Russian disinformation. Greenwald isn't a right-wing hack,
| and in fact he is aggressively pro-Palestinian, anti-war, and
| has been a loud critic of Bolsonaro despite being a resident
| of Brazil.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/new-proof-emerges-of-the-
| bi...
|
| Edit:
|
| Yes, a parade of downvotes without any refutations. Pay no
| attention to the fact that the guy in charge of censoring and
| fact checking operations at Facebook is a lifelong Democratic
| Party operative who literally worked for the Democratic House
| Majority PAC, and before that Senator Barbara Boxer, before
| going to work for Facebook.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-stone-7575b34a
| justinzollars wrote:
| I'm receiving downvotes too, but keep sharing your thoughts
| with details! I provided a life experience based on
| changing political parties, and people obviously aren't
| comfortable that they have created an illiberal web.
| gorwell wrote:
| Narrative violation detected. -4 applied to your social
| credit score. Have a good day, comrade.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Stossel is getting press time by suing but he's a public
| figure and suing Facebook because a fact checking service
| elicited an opinion/notation that didn't have the nuance he
| wanted is laughable.
|
| Really? From his filing it sounds like Stossel has explicit
| evidence that the fact checkers admitted that he didn't make
| any false claims and still refused to correct their speech.
|
| We'll see if that counts as "deliberate malice" or no, but it
| does seem to be a case with much stronger claims than Owens'
| mcguire wrote:
| On the other hand, from the evidence presented in the
| filing I would guess Facebook _didn 't_ act with deliberate
| malice; some automated or sound-bite-level manual system
| caught a bit of the video that did make a false statement
| and hit the label button. (I haven't seen the original
| video, but from what I have read I don't think it could be
| done without a "some people believe X but they're wrong"
| style statement, X being the false statement.)
|
| So the question is, does Facebook's gross incompetence at
| fact-checking satisfy the negligence part of the malice
| definition?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| he s a journalist, like the fact-checkers, no? how does
| 'public figure' work? So, it's like a barber libeling another
| barber?
|
| (btw it's ridiculous to call them 'fact-checkers' -- all
| journalists are factcheckers, some are good some bad)
| smoe wrote:
| In news organizations fact-checkers are separate roles or
| department to independently check the statements made by
| journalists in their work. It's an additional layer. Same
| as there are grammar and style checkers although journalist
| can write correctly, some better some worse. And
| journalists work is not limited to checking facts alone.
|
| At least that was the case before the checkers started to
| get fired to save cost because online you can easily change
| errors after publication.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| in this case the fact-checkers are acting as journalists,
| though i dont know where that distinction lies. Otherwise
| , facebook would look very much like a news organization
| with a fact-checking team
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| He's a famous person who has been a prominent television
| anchor, his being a journalist has nothing to do with it.
|
| The definition of public figure is nebulous, and sometimes
| it can even be argued a regular person becomes a "limited
| purpose public figure" if they are involved in a public
| controversy.
|
| Stossel isn't even an argument because again, he used to
| host 20/20 on ABC and has been a broadcaster for 30 some
| odd years. He's a public figure. But using a real world
| example, I'm not famous, but by any legal standard, I would
| be considered a public figure because I have a Wikipedia
| page, I'm verified on every major social network, I've
| appeared on television, and I'm recognized as a prominent
| person in the various industries that I have worked in. I
| know this, not because I've ever wanted to sue someone for
| libel or defamation, but because there have been a few
| isolated incidents where I received harassment/death
| threats/rape threats via my work addresses (which obligates
| me to report them to law enforcement), and the amount of
| fucks police in the US are willing to give about idle
| threats to public figures are almost zero. I'm generally OK
| with this (I have only ever reported threats when I've been
| required to do so my company policy), but it is what it is.
|
| Even taking legal protections out of it and just looking
| policy enforcement, according to Facebook's terms of
| service, people can call for my death on their platform,
| provided they don't tag me. But if someone says, "Christina
| Warren should just die already," that's completely fine
| according to Facebook's own terms of service, because they
| consider me a public figure. Now if someone directly tags
| me, that may or may not be harassment, but even though
| Facebook isn't the same as legal requirements, it shows
| their own rules are different for public figures.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| how is this public figure thing relevant when facebook is
| a public figure itself ? Isn't it actively damaging the
| journalist's reputation. So it would be OK if e.g. CNN
| claimed that "scientists say that iphones cause heart
| attacks"
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Assuming a scientist actually said that, that would be
| fine. CNN doesn't need to fact-check the scientists
| statement. Now, if evidence comes out that iPhones don't
| cause cancer and CNN refuses to mention that there are
| refutations or disputes about that OR if CNN finds out
| affirmatively that those claims are false (the scientist
| admits they lied or retracts their statement) and doesn't
| issue an on-air clarification or retraction (and if it
| was found that the scientist admitted to lying, that
| would almost certainly necessitate a retraction), CNN
| could be sued for defamation. That's actually essentially
| what Dominion and others are doing with their lawsuits
| against Fox News and Newsmax and OANN.
|
| You're not wrong that there could be a damage done to the
| public figure/journalist's reputation. There could. But
| on the basis of New York Times vs Sullivan (a landmark
| Supreme Court decision and one of the most important
| first amendment cases), that doesn't outweigh the free
| speech rights of the press. Moreover, the public figures
| by their nature, have more access and ability to respond
| to a defamatory claim, because they gave their own
| platform and reach. That's why the standards of actual
| malice and reckless disregard are so high.
|
| This is from a website with a very good definition of
| libel law (https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-
| amendment-center...):
|
| > The different standards exist because public figures
| are at the center of matters of public concern-matters
| that the press should report on as part of its "watchdog"
| role on the government. If journalists could be punished
| for every error published about a public figure, they
| might avoid reporting on controversial subjects that
| concern the public. The public would lose access to
| crucial information. > > Also, public figures generally
| have greater access to the media in order to counter
| defamatory statements, and to a certain extent seek out
| public acclaim and assume the risks of fame.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| yeah i m talking about the case when it's a lie (which is
| what stossel claims). Also it seems the case you mention
| applies to public officials or people running for office,
| which doesnt seem to be the case here
| xxpor wrote:
| It's highly fact specific.
|
| "Determining who is a public or private figure is not
| always easy. In some instances, the categories may overlap.
| For example, a blogger who is a well-known authority on
| clinical research involving autism may be considered a
| public figure for purposes of controversies involving
| autism, but not for other purposes. "
|
| https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/proving-fault-actual-
| malice...
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| This is correct, but by any standard or definition,
| Stossel is a public figure. He's a television host (and
| was a correspondent and then co-anchor for one of the
| biggest newsmagazine programs in the US), he's been an
| author, a syndicated columnist, he's won 19 Emmys. He's
| an incredibly famous libertarian (I would argue he was
| probably the most prominent libertarian commentator in
| the media until he left television). He's a public
| figure. The fact that he's on this website with a
| headline that includes his name is proof that he's a
| public figure.
|
| But yes, it can be very fact specific.
| Aerroon wrote:
| While this might not work in the US, it might work elsewhere.
| Other countries have legal protections for platforms from
| their users too, but that usually have lower standards for
| proving defamation of public figures than the US.
| willis936 wrote:
| >acting in reckless disregard
|
| Negligence is a motive. Considering the influence facebook
| has a compelling argument could be made on the chilling
| effects of a "sleepy code writer".
| tschwimmer wrote:
| I feel like the malice standard makes libel essentially
| impossible to prove in the US. Are there any cases where
| malice has been proven? I imagine they would have had to look
| at private conversations by the accused indicated that they
| really didn't like alleged victim or something.
| phrz wrote:
| "Actual malice" is a confusing term for a layperson because
| it doesn't mean what it sounds like. It doesn't mean "not
| liking" the plaintiff. Instead, it is the defendant's
| knowledge or reckless disregard of the statement's falsity.
| burkaman wrote:
| Facebook is careful about this. On the fact check in question,
| Facebook only says "Missing Context" and "Independent fact-
| checkers say this information is missing context and could
| mislead people." Only if you click through to the independent
| site do you see a specific claim labeled as misleading:
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-fores...
| temp8964 wrote:
| If Facebook paste "this information is missing context and
| could mislead people" under every single post/story, it would
| still stand true but it would be bad for the business.
| burkaman wrote:
| That's true, I guess, but we're discussing legal issues
| here. I think that would still be legal even though it
| would be dumb.
| nickff wrote:
| If they were to do it to every post, they probably
| wouldn't be libeling anyone, but if they do it
| selectively, I think they may be guilt of libel.
|
| As an example, imagine that Yelp or AngelList posted
| "beware: this business may be perpetuating a fraud". If
| they did it to every business, it would be a general
| warning, not singling it out; but if they did it to a
| small proportion of businesses, and it turned out that
| many of the 'targets' were not committing fraud, it would
| be libel.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Only if there was evidence of malice.
| nickff wrote:
| It seems like there would be evidence of willful
| blindness, which is more or less equivalent to malice.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| This is probably not up to the legal standard, but I
| suspect you know that. There are valid reasons to not
| support big tech, but is this case really one that you
| want to advocate?
| nickff wrote:
| I don't have anything in particular against 'big tech',
| but this (Facebook) case does seem like an example of
| (enabling) libel via willful blindness to me. I also
| think Yelp and other sites are close to, or past that
| line as well (in how they enable extortion of many small
| businesses by fraudulent 'reviews').
|
| Merriam-Webster defines "Willful Blindness" as:
|
| > _" deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of
| wrongdoing (as drug dealing in one's house) despite
| suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its
| existence"_
|
| The case law would also appear to go against Facebook: ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Aimster_Copyright_Litig
| a...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| So he then proceeds to sue the fact-checkers. There is
| definitely liability here from which social media have been
| shielded so far
| shkkmo wrote:
| The fact checker is included in the lawsuit.
| mwcremer wrote:
| Apparently not? See 'If you said "Once a company like that
| starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a
| publisher"' here:
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| they dont need to be a publisher to be sued for defamation
| mwcremer wrote:
| I suppose that depends on whether the courts agree that
| "flagging" is a form of original content, and is
| defamatory.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| i wonder if the courts take into account how things have
| changed since 230 became law
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >i wonder if the courts take into account how things have
| changed since 230 became law
|
| One would hope that the courts follow the law. Anything
| else would be inappropriate, don't you think?
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Via proprietary and non-transparent algorithmic content
| recommendation engines, they have all been publishers for a
| while now.
| mwcremer wrote:
| FTFA: _To be a bit more explicit: at no point in any court
| case regarding Section 230 is there a need to determine
| whether or not a particular website is a "platform" or a
| "publisher." What matters is solely the content in
| question. If that content is created by someone else, the
| website hosting it cannot be sued over it._
| hartator wrote:
| Yes, it seems pretty obvious they are free to fact check if
| they want to but they also become responsible of all these new
| fact check contents they push.
| [deleted]
| iszomer wrote:
| Aren't fact-checkers another semantic for censors?
| president wrote:
| Fact check: While it's true that oftentimes fact-checkers use
| carefully crafted semantic arguments and an appeal to authority
| to validate or invalidate certain claims to sway opinion, they
| do not perform any censoring themselves.
|
| My favorite is this one, quoted directly from Snopes:
|
| > Hillary Clinton used a hammer to smash her mobile phone
| during an FBI investigation.
|
| > What's True: One of Hillary Clinton's aides told the FBI that
| on two occasions he disposed of her unwanted mobile devices by
| breaking or hammering them.
|
| > What's False: Hillary Clinton did not personally destroy her
| phone with a hammer.
|
| Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-
| smash-phon...
| scohesc wrote:
| Lying by omission is the nastiest, dirtiest, disgusting-est
| (lol) type of lying and misdirection.
|
| It's the worst because the people that do it know they're
| doing it and they know they're doing it to hide the truth in
| a weaselly-worded way.
| readams wrote:
| This sort of thing is sadly very frequent. The thumb is
| definitely on the scales. Fact checkers show their bias not
| only in things like this where they bend over backwards to
| say something is false, but also in what they choose to fact
| check.
| kmonsen wrote:
| No, fact checkers gives data and hopefully sources and explain
| why a statement is believed to be true or false. The original
| statement can still be seen.
|
| Censoring usually completely removes the statement with usually
| no justification (perhaps national security or whatever).
|
| Not saying this is the case here, but in general these days
| (mostly?) right wingers completely mistake what censorship
| means. It seems like someone ignored my opinion is the new
| standard on censorship.
| justinzollars wrote:
| > Not saying this is the case here, but in general these days
| (mostly?) right wingers completely mistake what censorship
| means. It seems like someone ignored my opinion is the new
| standard on censorship.
|
| You should create a separate twitter, and tweet moderately
| conservative ideas, and see what happens to that user, and
| your experience.
|
| I have the unique life perspective of changing political
| parties from Hillary Clinton (Elected DNC Delegate) ->
| Libertarian based on my life experience in San Francisco, and
| personal perception that my original thoughts may have been
| wrong.
|
| The way I'm treated on Twitter is entirely different. My
| comments, while not angry or aggressive, or extreme, find
| themselves hidden below the fold. When just a few years ago
| they were highlighted and never hidden. Trends I'm not
| interested in are suggested, I provide feedback to the AI and
| they are still suggested. I hide terms and they are
| highlighted. It is very Amorphous, but I suspect there is a
| machine learning categorization behind the scenes. It's more
| than coincidence.
| justinzollars wrote:
| ^ and of course, downvoted. This community isn't very
| friendly anymore.
| jandrese wrote:
| In theory a fact checker is a censor that can only censor
| content found to be not true.
|
| A regular censor can remove content for any reason, most
| commonly because it violates community standards or is
| politically inconvenient for the people in power.
|
| This distinction is important so calling fact checkers a censor
| is potentially misleading.
| iammisc wrote:
| Censors only censor content found to be not true by their
| political operatives. Do you honestly think there has even
| been a government filled with bureaucrats maliciously
| censoring what they themselves believe are truth? What kind
| of comically evil villain do you think were censors in other
| regimes?
|
| After reading and hearing what Americans think about
| censorship, I am forced to conclude a significant portion of
| the population believes that -- so long as someone doesn't
| look like a childhood disney villain -- they're probably a
| noble person with noble goals and noble results.
| MrZongle2 wrote:
| It's soft censorship with extra steps.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| Opinions can't be fact-checked. You can only fact-check stuff
| that is objective (and the percentage of objective stuff in news
| is 0)
| kmonsen wrote:
| In my opinion that is obviously false and extremely silly. So
| if a news channel says for example the 49ers lost and another
| won there is a fact there and it is in the news. Similar for
| budgets, elections etc. Most of news are facts. Plane went
| missing, new shooting etc.
| iammisc wrote:
| Absolutely, but calling the man with the opinion a misleader is
| defamation.
| vmception wrote:
| Can he sue in the UK for a higher probability of success than the
| US
| [deleted]
| rdtsc wrote:
| It seems "Independent Fact Checkers" simply parrot whatever other
| mass media outlets say regardless of facts.
|
| Facebook gets to say "look, someone else verified it", knowing
| that "someone else" here thinks and acts accordingly. If they
| don't they probably get fired and replaced.
|
| Given that this about 2020 California fires, I suspect this had
| to do with Trump or someone from his administration blaming
| forest management. And then, naturally, most of the media made
| fun of that and quickly went to debunk it, including the
| aforementioned "Independent Fact Checkers". Had Stossel waited a
| year, and applied the article to the 2021 fires, the fact
| checkers might have given him a pass.
| grayhatter wrote:
| > simply parrot whatever other mass media outlets say
| regardless of facts.
|
| bias aside, are you asserting that generally mass media news is
| more lies than truths?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "Independent Fact Checkers" is a rhetorical persuasion play. If
| you think about it, what does "Independent" actually mean? Does
| it really matter if a cohort of "fact checkers" aren't owned by
| the same conglomerate when they are cut from the same
| ideological cloth?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bob229 wrote:
| Facebook is trash. Delete it now
| pharmakom wrote:
| I was once a fan of Stossel as a more mainstream libertarian
| voice. However, the segment he did where he slept rough for one
| night to "prove" that homelessness wasn't so bad after all was so
| deeply offensive to me that I haven't viewed any of his content
| since.
| philovivero wrote:
| I personally know a guy who was homeless for over 15 years. He
| would soundly agree with Stossel's take. His opinion is... if I
| can attempt to summarise in a few words, that homeless people
| nearly universally choose that lifestyle, and if you ever give
| them a 100% guaranteed way out of it, they will run the other
| direction as fast as they can. I suggest you re-think your
| opinion of Stossel based on that segment.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| A quick google suggests that his opinion is strictly
| incorrect and its a myth.
|
| The largest reason for homelessness is addiction.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > I personally know a guy who was homeless for over 15 years.
| He would soundly agree with Stossel's take. His opinion is...
| if I can attempt to summarise in a few words, that homeless
| people nearly universally choose that lifestyle, and if you
| ever give them a 100% guaranteed way out of it, they will run
| the other direction as fast as they can. I suggest you re-
| think your opinion of Stossel based on that segment.
|
| ---
|
| > that homeless people nearly universally choose that
| lifestyle,
|
| I'm sorry but I can't really let that slide. A lot of
| homeless people aren't homeless because they chose that
| lifestyle and your anecdote doesn't change that fact. A lot
| of homeless people (roughly half of them) have serious
| psychological issues that make them barely able to function
| normally in society, this is why a significant number of war
| veterans are homeless. Don't make me started on people of all
| sorts or people that are unable to have a home because of
| their history (former criminals, illegal aliens, ...).
|
| https://www.bbrfoundation.org/blog/homelessness-and-
| mental-i...
|
| Few people would chose that lifestyle willingly, certainly
| not "universally".
|
| I slept rough 2 times in my life, in dangerous places, and it
| was already bad, I can't imagine having to do that for months
| or years.
| barbacoa wrote:
| Anecdote warning:
|
| My experience living in a city with a non-trivial homeless
| population is most homeless -- at least the visible ones --
| are predominantly able-body young men (and increasing women
| too) in their 20-30s. We're not talking factory workers who
| got laid off after 15 years due to outsourcing. They strike
| me more like urban, drug addled version of Chris McCandless
| from 'into the wild'.
|
| Of course this experience may not reflect other regions.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That claim is beyond ignorant. I'd suggest reading up on the
| topic beyond individual anecdotes. There are hundreds of
| organizations dealing with that topic so there is more than
| enough information out there you can learn from. I recommend
| searches like
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=study+reasons+for+homelessness to
| get started.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Seems good for society that Stossel will be taking this to court.
|
| Relevant quotes from article: "According to Stossel's complaint
| (read here), he published on Facebook a video titled "Government
| Fueled Fires," where he took on "sensational media reporting
| about a so-called 'climate apocalypse,' and explored a scientific
| hypothesis ... that while climate change undoubtedly contributes
| to forest fires, it was not the primary cause of the 2020
| California fires.""
|
| "[On facebook] Further information told readers: "Claim --
| 'forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate
| change.' Verdict: misleading.""
|
| If Stossel never said "Not by climate change", and then Facebook
| falsely attributed that statement to him and rated it false, they
| certainly seem guilty of defamation.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| I have seen the video and it is pretty sensible and definitely
| helps the debate around the fire. Either ways what caused fires
| is far from settled, the fact that climate change has anything
| to do with it is also disputed "fact".
| burkaman wrote:
| I would recommend reading the fact check as well to get a
| full sense of what happened here.
|
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-
| fores...
|
| https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-stossel-tv-
| video-o...
| cwkoss wrote:
| This doesn't effectively refute Stossel's claims in my
| opinion.
|
| To claim Stossel was being misleading, they'd need to
| successfully argue that climate had a greater impact than
| forest management practices. This rebuttal article only
| "This is at odds with the majority of wildfire scientists,
| who suggest that both are major factors in driving the
| changes we are seeing".
|
| This is an NPO whose full reason to exist is to increase
| climate awareness, so I'm sure they don't like the idea
| that climate wasn't the primary factor, but I don't see a
| good argument for why we should consider climate the
| primary factor vs forest management.
|
| Their rebuttal reads like someone scrambling after their
| hand was caught in the cookie jar overstepping their
| bounds.
|
| EDIT (to reply because max thread depth): "They are
| rebutting the claim that climate change is not a factor at
| all, which Stossel does claim in his video" - What? I
| watched the video - you linked it. He absolutely did not
| claim "climate change is not a factor at all" - he
| explicitly said that it IS a factor it just isn't the main
| one.
| burkaman wrote:
| They did not say at any point that climate change is the
| primary factor. They are rebutting the claim that climate
| change is not a factor at all, which Stossel does claim
| in his video (although the fact check was not written to
| specifically address that video). Stossel also says that
| climate change has made things worse, but the fact that
| his video contradicts itself does not make the fact check
| invalid.
| danShumway wrote:
| > To claim Stossel was being misleading, they'd need to
| successfully argue that climate had a greater impact than
| forest management practices.
|
| No. _Stossel_ would need to prove that forest management
| practices had a greater impact than climate change, and
| that the fact checkers knew that, and that they
| deliberately lied.
|
| You don't have to prove that you're correct if someone
| sues you for defamation. The standards for defamation are
| a lot higher than that.
|
| To take this a step further, they don't even need to
| prove Stossel actually made that claim. The fact that a
| reasonable person could interpret Stossel as having made
| the claim that climate change was not a contributing
| factor (evidenced by multiple scientists chiming in that
| they felt the label was appropriate) would be enough of a
| defense.
|
| Finally, they probably don't even need to prove that they
| thought Stossel made the claim, because calling someone
| misleading or saying that their statements are missing
| context likely doesn't rise to the level of defamation
| regardless of any of the above points.
| pstuart wrote:
| Stossel saying "sensational media reporting about a so-
| called 'climate apocalypse'" reads to me that he's a
| climate denier and his reporting was to enforce that (and
| double down on his favorite hate: "government").
| danShumway wrote:
| I want to make it really clear though; it doesn't matter
| whether or not Stossel is a climate denier, it's still
| probably not defamation. The fact checkers don't need to
| prove that Stossel is a climate denier.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The phrase "climate apocalypse" comes from his interview
| of Michael Shellenberger, a pro nuclear environmentalist.
| Shellenberger's core points aren't climate denial, but
| instead optimism that we as a species will prevail
| against the challenges posed by climate change, and that
| the apocalyptic rhetoric of some environmentalists hurts
| that effort.
| adolph wrote:
| _Stossel complains that we should not have rated his post
| using a claim review of a quote that does not appear in his
| video. This is a misunderstanding of how fact-checking
| partners operate on Facebook. Given that many pieces of
| content posted on Facebook can separately make the same
| claim, it is not necessary to create a separate claim
| review article for each post we rate. It is, of course,
| necessary that the claim we reviewed is representative of
| the claim in each post we rate, which is true in this
| case._
|
| https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-stossel-tv-
| video-o...
| readams wrote:
| It's pretty scary that an advocacy organization gets to be
| an "independent" fact checker. The ones that are at least
| nominally independent definitely show their biases but this
| is really egregious.
| grayhatter wrote:
| they're unaffiliated which makes them independent but why
| are you concerned about them being an advocacy
| organization? do you think that means they're going to
| lie or have a vested interest in misrepresenting the
| truth?
| burkaman wrote:
| Why do you call them an advocacy organization?
| temp8964 wrote:
| The responses are laughably long. If John Stossel made
| false claims, a few paragraphs should be sufficient. If you
| need to write two full length articles to explain what
| happened, you don't get to label other people as
| false/misleading.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| While I don't disagree that the responses may be
| overlong, I think it harms your argument to criticize the
| format of the response rather than the content.
|
| If we're to have productive discourse, we must all act in
| good faith and look at opposing arguments with the most
| charitable interpretation reasonably possible, otherwise
| we risk arguing against an interpretation of viewpoint
| that others may not have or agree with.
|
| EDIT: having looked closer at the fact check website
| referenced, most of the length seems to be from
| references to research and expert testimony. The actual
| rebuttal is indeed a paragraph or two at the very top of
| the page.
|
| Is the presentation of the data here your primary
| objection?
| temp8964 wrote:
| Long is not about format. The content has to be long.
| This means simple label is wrong. This is a very easy
| point in my previous comment.
| burkaman wrote:
| It was not labeled as false, it was labeled as missing
| context, and this is the context. You can see the label
| here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1
| 015712197...
| hackcasual wrote:
| > If Stossel never said "Not by climate change"
| Masson v. New Yorker Magazine
|
| Libel in the US requires more than just inaccuracy, it looks at
| the substantial truth. So "not by climate change" vs "not only
| by climate change" is irrelevant for establishing libel
| hartator wrote:
| I think the big red "Misleading" is the libel.
| hackcasual wrote:
| Misleading is opinion though, which in the US can never be
| libel
| grayhatter wrote:
| never is a strong word but even so I could prove
| something is misleading making it an objective assessment
| which wouldn't be covered under opinion exclusive.
| microtherion wrote:
| > Seems good for society that Stossel will be taking this to
| court.
|
| It's good for society that he's taking somebody to court with
| ample resources to defend themselves against this utterly
| frivolous lawsuit.
|
| "Disagreeing with an easily triggered blowhard" is not
| actionable under US law. And, much as you might think it
| _should_ be in this particular case, I suspect you would find
| that libel laws more favorable to plaintiffs (as they exist,
| e.g. in the UK) would often be used against people with whose
| political views you are sympathetic.
| dimgl wrote:
| Stossel is far from an easily triggered blowhard.
| coding123 wrote:
| "Misleading" seems to be the current politically motivated way
| to handle the fact checker's tie to either liberal or
| democratic politics. A fact check should be either true or
| false.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| His shtick is to express a contrarian viewpoint on anything and
| everything. It was mostly harmless 40 years ago. Now it feeds
| into right wing trolldom and he's notably cozied up to his new
| core audience. I wouldn't value anything he does these days.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Being contrarian on climate change is just as bad as being a
| denier, both result in inaction and increase the
| consequences.
| [deleted]
| kenjackson wrote:
| That is simply not substantial enough to win a libel case. This
| is like someone saying "McDonald's hamburgers are the worst"
| and then someone else saying, "you said McDonald's hamburgers
| aren't good". You never said that -- in theory the worst
| burgers could still be good, but it's not an unreasonable take
| given no other additional context. The libel is simply not
| substantial enough.
| beebmam wrote:
| >If Stossel never said "Not by climate change", and then
| Facebook falsely attributed that statement to him and rated it
| false, they certainly seem guilty of defamation.
|
| This is strictly, legally false in the US. What you have
| described here does not satisfy the legal definition of
| defamation. It will get thrown out in court immediately.
|
| Here are the qualifiers for speech to be considered defamation:
|
| To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four
| things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2)
| publication or communication of that statement to a third
| person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4)
| damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the
| subject of the statement.
|
| and here's a relevant Supreme Court ruling that further
| restrains what can be considered defamation:
|
| In The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), the
| Supreme Court held that for a publicly-known figure to succeed
| on a defamation claims, the public-figure plaintiff must show
| that the false, defaming statements was said with "actual
| malice." The Sullivan court stated that"actual malice" means
| that the defendant said the defamatory statement "with
| knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of
| whether it was false or not."
|
| Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation
| xondono wrote:
| > This is strictly, legally false in the US.
|
| GPs point is the only one that's in question (covers your
| point 1), the rest should be straightforward to prove:
|
| 2- it appears on Facebook
|
| 3- they have appointed themselves as fact checkers and
| supposedly review the video. They have full access to it as
| does anyone.
|
| 4- the difference between this and other view counts on the
| platform should be enough.
| _jal wrote:
| This seems to get awfully close to making disagreement
| actionable.
|
| If I claimed "xondono's understanding of the law is
| incorrect", should that be a cause of action?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| if HN placed a [liar] badge next to their username, would
| that be a cause for action?
| danShumway wrote:
| No, not for the word "liar".
|
| Defamation laws in the US are narrow. Insulting someone,
| calling their character into question -- that's not
| defamation. Even technically factual statements can be
| shown to be not defamation if the context shows they were
| not meant to be taken literally. The word "liar" is very,
| very unlikely to ever rise to that standard.
|
| This is also why Stossel's claim is likely to fail. It is
| very hard to argue that the label "misleading" is a
| provably false statement of fact.
|
| IANAL, but if you're hoping for Stossel to win, you
| probably shouldn't hold your breath.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Ok, [lies]
| danShumway wrote:
| No, still probably not. People call each other liars all
| of the time both online and in real life. You still need
| to connect this to some kind of intent, you still need to
| show that the instance of "you're lying" demonstrates a
| reckless disregard for truth.
|
| In American courts that is a very, very hard bar to clear
| -- particularly if the target is a public figure.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| No. You would have to find the fault amounted to at least
| negligence (meaning your claim was made baselessly and
| without any thought or consideration at all). Simply
| being incorrect isn't enough, you have to be incorrect
| and have been wholly and completely negligent about
| making the statements.
|
| Xondono would also have to show they were damaged and
| harmed by the statements, which would be difficult to
| prove.
|
| If a newspaper falsely said that someone (let's use a non
| public figure in this example, as there is a different
| standard for public figures, making defamation more
| difficult) was a child molester, that in and of itself
| isn't instantly defamation, even though the person can
| easily show they have been harmed and damaged. You would
| need to show that the newspaper did zero or near zero due
| diligence into making the claim, meaning they were
| negligent. If there was evidence supporting the fact that
| someone was a child molester (even if the claim was
| untrue), that could show there wasn't negligence
| involved. It very well might be libel, but it wouldn't be
| assured.
|
| This is one reason it is important to say things like
| "alleged" or " in my opinion." So if I said, "in my
| opinion, xondono's understanding of the law is
| incorrect," I haven't defamed xondono, even if my opinion
| is wrong and even if he feels harmed by my opinion.
|
| Where this gets interesting is with the Dominion Voting
| Systems lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax and various
| on-air personalities. In this case, Dominion
| (https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/03/26/fox-
| dominion... ) is arguing that by amplifying statements
| that were false, what Fox News did was with "reckless
| disregard" for the truth. Meaning Fox was knowingly
| lying. Usually, Fox News would probably have an easier
| time defending itself, but Dominion argues that Fox
| ignored its outreach to correct the record. It's also
| arguing that debunked claims were continuously amplified
| after being debunked, because those false claims led to
| higher ratings. As a result of the libel lawsuits by
| Dominion and others, other networks like Newsmax have
| gone as far as to withdraw their false claims on the air
| and publicly apologize. Dominion may still lose its
| lawsuits, but it's a much more interesting defamation
| lawsuit that could have significantly more of an impact
| on other companies, including Facebook or its fact-
| checking partners, than whatever Stossel is trying to do.
| xondono wrote:
| > If I claimed "xondono's understanding of the law is
| incorrect", should that be a cause of action?
|
| I guess that depends on other factors. Let's say I'm
| correct (for the sake of argument, I'm not a lawyer, I'm
| not even in the US). You'd have to be negligent (amongst
| other things), so as I understand it, you'd have to set
| yourself as an authority. It would be different to make
| that statement if, for instance, you were to be a judge.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| > 4- the difference between this and other view counts on
| the platform should be enough.
|
| If the only harm is view counts, it's not going to be a
| very big award.
| pfraze wrote:
| It's the demonstration of malice that will make this suit
| fail. You have to show evidence that the alleged defamer knew
| their statements are false. You might even need to prove
| intent. Unless they dig up a Facebook email saying "We know
| this isn't true but let's screw Stossel" it's going to be a
| hard case to win.
| lovich wrote:
| I don't see a material difference between claiming "not the
| primary cause" and "not caused by" when in a short summary
| christophilus wrote:
| One is possibly true and one is probably false. They're very
| different statements, and they are about the same length, so
| there's no excuse to use a misleading phrase simply for the
| sake of brevity.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I don't think Facebook would have been credibly able to rate
| "not the primary cause" as false - that requires being able
| to quantify the individual contributions of each factor. To
| rate "not caused by" is false, they just need to argue it
| contributed to the slightest extent: it's a much lower bar.
| burkaman wrote:
| Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpLIBY9nReU
|
| In includes phrases like: "If all you know is climate
| scientists then every weather event you blame on climate
| change. If not climate change, what is to blame? [...] Foolish
| policies."
|
| "You could have had this amount of warming and not had these
| fires."
|
| "Bad policies were the biggest cause of this year's fires, not
| the slightly warmer climate."
|
| "While climate change is a problem, Schellenberger's new book
| explains it's not an apocalypse: natural disasters aren't
| getting worse, in fact they're getting better. [...] A small
| change in temperature is not the difference between normalcy
| and catastrophe."
|
| To summarize: the video heavily implies throughout that the
| fires are not caused by climate change, and literally says so a
| couple times. Facebook did not falsely attribute that claim.
| They didn't fully summarize the entire video, but I don't think
| the fact check is intended to - it just pulls out one
| particular claim it wants to address.
|
| Aside: this video wasn't that bad, and I don't know if it
| needed a fact check, but that's not what the lawsuit is about.
| It did acknowledge that climate change is real and happening.
| However, it exclusively talked about climate change as a
| warming phenomenon, which is not the main issue and is a
| misleading characterization of why climate change is bad.
| Warming causes many other issues which are much more harmful
| than just "a small change in temperature". The discussion about
| forest management was valid and important, it should just be
| happening at the same time as discussion about climate change.
|
| Edit: Here's the original Facebook post where you can see the
| fact check: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1
| 015712197.... I believe this is visible even if you don't have
| an account.
|
| Here's the fact check:
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-
| fores....
|
| Here's the fact checkers response to the lawsuit:
| https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-stossel-tv-
| video-o....
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| In none of your quotes is Stossel saying climate change was
| not a cause.
|
| All of your quotes support the assertion that Stossel was
| claiming they aren't the main cause.
|
| It's as though language is failing as us as a culture when
| public discourse is impossible due to constant strawman
| fallacies. The claim quoted by the fact checkers is reworded
| to omit "main."
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > Our review was based on one specific formulation of a claim
| we saw frequently appearing amidst record-setting wildfires
| on the US West Coast: "Forest fires are caused by poor
| management. Not by climate change." We relied on comments
| supplied by three scientists for a previous appearance of
| this exact claim by Michael Shellenberger--who was also the
| guest Stossel interviewed in his video. The scientists
| explained that this claim is misleading
|
| They re definitely in defensive mode with regards to this.
| It's funny to see the liability being thrown around like a
| hot potato. Stossel says it's facebook's, FB says it's the
| fact-checker's, the fact checkers say it's the scientists'.
| Yeah something smells bad when such things happen
|
| Possible he could sue facebook in countries that have
| stronger libel laws?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > The discussion about forest management was valid and
| important, it should just be happening at the same time as
| discussion about climate change.
|
| I disagree. From where I sit, if you want to have a
| discussion about forest management, you first have to address
| the "it's all climate change's fault" smokescreen. Otherwise
| everybody shrugs and says "climate change, what can you do"
| and nobody will talk about what you actually _can_ do.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I'm not sure how someone could watch that video and think
| "not climate change" was the main takeaway vs "forest
| management was the more-primary factor, though climate change
| contributes"
|
| The video talks about how climate change contributed and is
| getting worse, it just points out that there is a clear
| policy factor that are the main cause for these factors, and
| climate change is being used as a political scapegoat to
| justify policy inaction.
| starik36 wrote:
| > fires are not caused by climate change
|
| Maybe it's wrong to base the entire premise exclusively on
| climate change. I am pretty sure we had forest fires before
| the current age. For example, 1920s in California were
| particularly bad. Sierra Nevada forests were on fire and even
| made it all the way down to Oakland and Berkeley resulting in
| hundreds of homes being lost.
|
| Facebook's fact checkers need to be a bit more educated and
| exercise greater finesse regarding these types of subjects.
| burkaman wrote:
| Sorry if I was unclear, when I said that the video implies
| fires are not caused by climate change, I was referring to
| the specific fires discussed in the video, not all forest
| fires. I'd encourage you to read the fact check, I think
| they demonstrate quite a bit of education and finesse:
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-
| fores..., https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-
| stossel-tv-video-o...
| starik36 wrote:
| I read your link and, frankly, I find their science
| shoddy at best. They seem to simultaneously dismiss and
| indirectly state that forest management is important.
|
| For instance, they state dismissively: "While forest
| management practices, specifically fire suppression, have
| increased the fuel load, scientific evidence... [it don't
| matter cause climate change]"
|
| The question that's not answered is whether or not we
| would have these fires had the forest management been
| done aggressively as it has in the past.
|
| This guy
| (http://www.excelhero.com/blog/2010/04/california-
| climate.htm...) analyzed NASA weather station data for
| the last 120 years in California only (https://data.giss.
| nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v4_globe/). The average
| temperature has increased by 1 degree over that time. He
| then filtered only to stations that have been in service
| for 100 years to produce stability in the dataset. That
| reduced the temperature increase to half a degree.
|
| He then further filtered the set to rural weather
| stations only to remove the Urban Heat Island Effect
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island). That
| reduced the number of stations from 114 to 26, but the
| temperature change actually showed slight cooling.
|
| So given that forests in CA are largely in the rural
| regions where temperature hasn't changed much, wouldn't
| it stand to reason that the other change (reduced forest
| management) is largely responsible?
| hartator wrote:
| In the video, it also says "climate change is real", "climate
| change has made things worse", and "CA warmed up by 3 deg in
| the last 50 years". And they blame the CA gov for stopping
| controlled fires in the last couple of years for no real
| reason that made this huge time bomb that we've experienced.
| There is nothing misleading in that.
| dmoy wrote:
| > And they blame the CA gov for stopping controlled fires
| in the last couple of years
|
| This is what is crazy to me. Growing up in the Midwest, we
| always had controlled burns on extended family's rural
| farmland near forests, to prevent future wildfires. It was
| a regular occurrence
|
| Looking up how absolutely little CA does for controlled
| burns compared to the Midwest and Southeast was an insane
| eye opener to me.
|
| Florida alone does like 50x the amount of controlled burns
| than CA.
|
| _Minnesota_ , which is tiny by comparison, does more
| controlled burns than CA (or at least used to within the
| last few years)
| etc-hosts wrote:
| The multi year drought probably influences number of
| controlled burns in CA
| sharkmerry wrote:
| Minnesota is 50% of the land mass of California and 1/8
| the population. easier to burn with less people affected
|
| CA, also is largely federal forests. Not sure how florida
| compares to that.
| burkaman wrote:
| I'd encourage you to read the fact check to understand why
| they described it as misleading:
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-
| fores..., https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-
| stossel-tv-video-o...
| hartator wrote:
| > Given that many pieces of content posted on Facebook
| can separately make the same claim, it is not necessary
| to create a separate claim review article for each post
| we rate.
|
| I mean they are admitting here that Stossel never made
| the claim they say he did. Then use all the rest of the
| article to stretch out that their interpretation of
| Stossel's "climate change has made things worse but" is
| actually the same "Not by climate change". Which is
| obviously untrue.
| PKop wrote:
| Sounds like the discussion is nuanced. But this nuance is
| lost by Facebook slapping a label on his content as
| "misleading", which for all intents and purposes means
| "wrong". Sounds like defamation to me. Why is Facebook
| involved in adjudicating the nuance of unsolved public policy
| debates?
| burkaman wrote:
| Totally agree that Facebook's label bypasses any nuance,
| but that isn't illegal and we can't make it illegal. It
| isn't defamation by the dictionary definition (it isn't a
| false claim), and it certainly isn't defamation by the
| stricter legal definition. Imagine what would happen if you
| could sue anyone for accurately quoting you but leaving out
| a piece of context. Could you sue a movie critic for a bad
| review that misunderstood the director's intentions? Could
| you sue for an internet reply that quoted only part of your
| comment and misrepresented your views? Could you sue a
| journalist for not printing every interview unedited in its
| entirety? Could you sue the NFL for stating that a team
| lost without explaining that a star player was injured at
| the time?
|
| Edit: Actually, the fact check includes a lot of nuance and
| discussion, it's not just a "misleading" label with no
| other context. Read it here:
| https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-
| fores...
| tshaddox wrote:
| I don't know. From what I have seen, so-called "nuance" is
| often explicitly invoked as an excuse to be deliberately
| misleading.
| danShumway wrote:
| > But this nuance is lost by Facebook slapping a label on
| his content as "misleading", which for all intents and
| purposes means "wrong". Sounds like defamation to me.
|
| I can't speak for other countries, but in America reducing
| nuance is not defamation; provably false statements of fact
| are defamation.
|
| The 1st Amendment protects your right to oversimplify
| things.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > Why is Facebook involved in adjudicating the nuance of
| unsolved public policy debates?
|
| Indeed, and what does anyone at Facebook even know about
| the subject, other than what the prevailing opinion bubble
| of everyone else working there is?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Where is the nuance? It opens by mocking politicians for
| blaming the fires on climate change, then it spend the rest
| of the video explaining that forest management is the cause
| of these large fires. Facebook's brief version is an
| excellent summary of his video's content. What is this
| nuance that it has left out?
| [deleted]
| lovich wrote:
| I can't find the video to check myself. The articles description
| of stossel's claims seem to be exactly what the fact check said
| was claimed.
|
| Is this article biased or is the suit that frivolous?
| perceptronas wrote:
| I suspect its this video [1]
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-xvc2o4ezk
| [deleted]
| therealbilly wrote:
| What could go wrong by having the Zuck and his minions fact
| check? Naturally it's going to lead to chaos. Tech Bros. have no
| business even going down this road. Stick to what you know and
| are good at.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Nothing - it isn't chaos, it is the long standing status quo of
| free speech. Even a complete idiot flat earther can "fact
| check" NASA and no parade of horribles has come to pass from
| this.
| twofornone wrote:
| Is it still free speech when the "fact checkers" effectively
| control the public square? When you have no recourse against
| your speech being hidden behind a "fact check" label?
|
| At what point does a private service become a utility? What
| if Comcast started "fact checking" web content with html
| injection? Would that still be "free speech"?
| yalogin wrote:
| Is this different from someone calling Stossel a fraud in the
| comments? The platform just added a comment on his post. The more
| interesting thing for me is to see if this has other
| ramifications if decided in favor of Stossel.
| leereeves wrote:
| It's different because Facebook are shielded from liability for
| other people's comments that they publish, but not for their
| own comments.
| jetrink wrote:
| An internet commenter is less likely to be successfully sued
| than Facebook, because it is easier to argue that Stossel
| suffered reputational damage from an incorrect statement by
| Facebook, compared to an unspecific insult from a random
| individual.
| burkaman wrote:
| Useful context for this story:
|
| The original Facebook post with the video and fact check, which
| you can see without logging in:
| https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1015712197...
|
| The fact check: https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-
| change-fores...
|
| The fact checkers response to Stossel's complaint:
| https://climatefeedback.org/responding-to-stossel-tv-video-o...
| ikeboy wrote:
| The last link appears to have been published last year and has
| nothing to do with the lawsuit.
| burkaman wrote:
| It addresses the same complaint that the lawsuit is based on.
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