[HN Gopher] Fox News, Dominion Voting Systems reach $787,500,000...
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Fox News, Dominion Voting Systems reach $787,500,000 settlement
Author : Decabytes
Score : 161 points
Date : 2023-04-18 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
| graeme wrote:
| I'm surprised Dominion settled. It had seemed as though Dominion
| wanted a public apology or a public victory to support their
| reputation.
| blowski wrote:
| On the BBC article:
|
| > Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference
| the deal included Fox "admitting to telling lies, causing
| enormous damage to my company".
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65318654
| mrangle wrote:
| Voting machines were always bullshit. Your company isn't
| supposed to be involved in democracy, at all.
| paxys wrote:
| They did get Fox to admit wrongdoing, which is rare in such a
| settlement. And they got close to a billion dollars out of it.
| A pretty solid win for them.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The damages part of their case was weak, and in any case it's
| owned by VC who will happily take this payday.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| This is 30 years revenue for Dominion, even though they would
| almost certainly have won the case there is no guarantee they
| would have been awarded this much money.
| rekttrader wrote:
| 780 million reasons to not do it. This will bankroll the
| executives till the end of time.
| isk517 wrote:
| Also, winning wouldn't have helped their reputation. Chances
| are if you still believe in the election rigging story the
| results of this trial wasn't going to be the thing that
| changed your mind.
| blululu wrote:
| Their revenue in 2022 was ~$15M - This amounts to about 50
| years of revenue for their company risk free. They had a strong
| case but nothing is certain in a courtroom. It is hard to look
| at nearly a billion dollars and not take the sure thing.
| b0sk wrote:
| This is hacker news, but I find it appalling that there's
| surprisingly less noise about the organized effort to subvert
| democracy overnight. If Trump had succeeded, do you really think
| there'd be any meaningful elections in the future? My hope is the
| most hackers are outraged but don't comment here.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Trump's specific claims were wrong but elections are readily
| hackable using a variety of methods. There are numerous YouTube
| videos showing how to hack election machines that are in use
| today. It's so frustrating that the DNC shoots down any
| question of election security as an issue now when we were
| previously so very close to universally moving to paper ballots
| in the US.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There were a frightening number of people repeating the same
| obviously false claims here post-election. Motivated reasoning
| is a hell of a drug.
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| Nah. Just Russian trolls.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| It is a shame that in any number of forums these days that
| if someone expresses an opinion that counters someone
| else's they are labelled a "Russian troll".
|
| We all know that foreign interference is a genuine concern,
| however, an opinion that appears to be right of centre
| doesn't always equate to it being grown in a Russian troll
| farm.
| paxys wrote:
| If you have spent a meaningful amount of time on this site over
| the last few years you will have seen that the general user
| sentiment has shifted pretty far right. The standard discussion
| isn't too far from what you'd come across on a Fox News/Elon
| Musk/Infowars/Joe Rogan forum.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I don't think there is a shift to the right, but rather a
| shift towards authoritarianism.
|
| It's pretty surprising to see people on 'hacker'news so in
| favour of government surveillance/censorship.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I completely disagree with almost all of this assertion,
| based on my experience.
|
| There is an entire spectrum of political views, a good
| example would be stories about incarceration and homelessness
| which result in fairly left swinging opinions and very little
| blaming of the people involved.
| rongenre wrote:
| There were a ton of people here really into Ivermectin in
| the late 2020's.
| nicpottier wrote:
| I agree that HN is still pretty liberal but I also agree
| with GP that the swing to the right in the past few years
| has been very real.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| 100% agree. Most appear to be non-technical as well so all we
| get for the tedium of groaning through their comments Tucker
| "truth telling" detritus.
|
| Not even a billion dollars will convince them they're wrong
| though...
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with this. I think there is a critical
| mass of folks (perhaps a majority?) on HN that remain fairly
| skeptical and independent of mainstream U.S. political
| ideologies.
|
| I have observed fairly reasonable stances labeled as being
| "the other team" in comment sections with comment threads
| parroting a lot of zeitgeist talking points, which is
| concerning. This rears its head most often in comment
| sections on topics that are part of the mainstream zeitgeist
| (i.e. anything Musk adjacent)
|
| But I've also seen productive conversations come of this and
| fairly aggressive down voting of folks parroting zeitgeist
| talking points.
|
| If you're part of one of the two "in groups" in society right
| now, extreme Republicans or Democrats, it's likely you'll
| view HN comments as being polarized towards the other team.
| But I think this has more to do with the cultural zeitgeist
| shifting towards these extremes and less to do with HN
| shifting.
| norgie wrote:
| It was always generally leaned right, but the overall HN has
| definitely turned more aggressively right wing over the last
| few years. I think some of this is down to a number of high
| profile tech execs openly embracing far-right positions,
| including people associated with YC/HN.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| No, general user sentiment hasn't shifted. It's not that
| people's opinions have changed, it's that people who were
| already right wing bigots now feel it's ok to openly express
| their right wing bigotry, thanks to Trump.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| The trouble with gauging HN's actual opinion on things is that
| there's a lot of people here who just want to argue and play
| semantic games. I remember when Roe was overturned, people
| would make upset comments obviously just looking to commiserate
| and feel outraged, and people who agreed it was wrong in their
| own main comments would 'play devil's advocate' for funsies
| anyway. By the end of the threads it sure didn't seem like they
| were just playing a side, and they're not thinking about anyone
| else reading the thread and coming away convinced by their
| debate exercise. They're bored and took issue with an analogy.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ourmandave wrote:
| Geez, and Trump only made $250M off the Big Lie.
|
| Sad.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
| gowings97 wrote:
| Can't wait to see heads explode when Trump wins in 2024.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Let's hope the democrats can hack the Dominion machines for
| real this time
|
| /s
| somewhat_drunk wrote:
| Trump's done.
|
| Go fuck yourself.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Do you think he'll win the primary. DeSantis seems real popular
| among the Republican Party and is generally more... composed.
| binarymax wrote:
| DeSantis will primary and Trump will run independent,
| splitting the party.
| somewhat_drunk wrote:
| This is exactly what will happen. Even if Trump doesn't run
| independent, a large portion of his cultists won't vote for
| DeSantis because they will feel betrayed by the GOP.
|
| https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/7276045221562286
| 0...
| mrangle wrote:
| In no future will this happen in the primary. The Nation
| has been exposed to far more "anti-Trump cultist"
| rhetoric declaring NeverTrump for years who won't vote
| for him.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| DeSantis doesn't have any policy wins to his name outside of
| the FPRE act and the Disney business. Neither of those things
| are enough to carry someone to the presidency. Even Romney
| had his healthcare program to hang his hat on.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Hold on folks, the baby needs his diaper changed.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Straight from truth.social.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Will your head explode when he loses in 2024?
| olliej wrote:
| If the settlement doesn't include every fox host that lied
| spending every show for a week stating the knowingly lied, and
| that their reason was ratings, I don't see how this results in
| accountability, and I don't see how this won't happen again
| repeatedly while the GOP continues to undermine the judiciary.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Nope - per reports, there's no requirement for anything on-air
| at all:
|
| https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1648432832266801158
|
| > _News: I 'm told that, as part of the terms of its
| settlement, Fox News will 'not' have to acknowledge ON AIR that
| it told lies about Dominion in the wake of the 2020 election.
| Fox did acknowledge falsehoods in its statement. But don't
| expect hosts to have to read statements._
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Makes me sick to my stomach.
| Loughla wrote:
| While I'm not sure about the GOP statement. . . .
|
| Otherwise, you're 100% correct. If that money is less than they
| made from the shows the lies were spread on, then telling
| blatant lies to improve ratings officially just became a 'cost
| of doing business' that can be accounted for and will happen
| again.
| melling wrote:
| Second settlement this week. There was this other conspiracy
| theory:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/fox-news-venezue...
|
| Of course, these sort of things have happened before:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-wi...
| tenpies wrote:
| And to several networks:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-vir...
| "CNN settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann stemming from viral
| video controversy"
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington...
| "Washington Post Settles Lawsuit With Student in Viral Protest
| Video"
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29289191 "NY Times settles
| lawsuit with McCain lobbyist"
| microtherion wrote:
| Yes, but in all those cases, the settlement terms were not
| disclosed. What is somewhat unusual here is not just the high
| amount, but also that it was disclosed -- which may very well
| have been another condition of the settlement that Dominion
| insisted on.
| j_walter wrote:
| ...and those did real damage to individuals. I'd say it's one
| thing for a large corporation to have certain things claimed
| against it and an entirely different thing for a giant news
| network going after individuals with complete garbage
| reporting (not a single thing they claimed about Nick
| Sandmann was true and it was easily verifiable).
| passwordoops wrote:
| This whole affair is an incredibly frustrating example of why
| society is breaking down. There are legitimate concerns with both
| security and reliability with these voting machines... But no,
| Fox had to fold it into their culture war fight and took things
| too far. Now, Dominion is vindicated and I'm happy to bet good
| dollars to donuts that any legitimate criticism or questions
| raised about the fidelity of their machines will be countered
| with culture-war ad hominem attack
| stonogo wrote:
| The people who are qualified to have technical opinions on
| these machines are still qualified to have technical opinions
| on these machines. Academics and other security researchers are
| still pursuing these issues. All this will do is make it less
| likely random internet opinion-havers will be amplified by
| grifters, which is an outcome I have no problem with.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| But that matters very little. What matters is people at large
| not wanting these machines anymore, until then, we will keep
| having them.
| greenhearth wrote:
| Last time I used one it worked fine. The hysteria about them
| was started by a guy who got his ass handed to him in a
| presidential election and didn't feel too good about it.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Capitalism is revealing itself as the Moloch problem. We are
| feeding our babies to it and praying for rain. It's just now we
| are seeing the consequences more clearly.
| lallysingh wrote:
| When was society not breaking down? We didn't start the fire.
| It's been burning since world's been turning.
| Retric wrote:
| This lawsuit wasn't about criticism it was about blatant lies.
|
| Dominion Voting Systems doesn't give a flying fuck about the
| culture wars, but they do care if people stop buying their
| products. Fox on the other hand very much cares about the
| culture wars, and is as shown here perfectly willing to lie.
| devin wrote:
| I see you're getting downvoted, but wanted to chime in and say
| I agree generally with what you're saying RE: legitimate
| concerns about the security and reliability of voting machines.
|
| During all of this election denial I've been sitting around
| thinking to myself every now and again: Wait, haven't we been
| trying to talk about how the software in these machines should
| be open for public review? Weren't we concerned about the
| political biases of these company's owners? It worries me that
| now if you say something like "well, actually, I'm concerned
| about election integrity" a lot of people will think you're
| going full culture war.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Society is not breaking down.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Yet.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| I don't know about "society is breaking down" but as someone
| with pre-existing trepidation over computerized voting, I agree
| that it's going to be really frustrating to try to take that
| position anymore without being labeled some MAGA nutjob.
| [deleted]
| tempaway45751 wrote:
| Its interesting that the only people that seem to be able to hold
| corporate media to account are other corporations with different
| interests.
|
| edit: I suppose the News international phone hacking scandal was
| journalists/individuals/government holding Murdoch to account
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacki...
| ... but that was in the UK.
| smcl wrote:
| To be honest it didn't really achieve a great deal. The Murdoch
| papers still have a pretty heavy influence over British
| politics - they stuck with Boris long after he should've been
| done, it was only when they turned on him it that he was
| finished, for example.
| tempaway45751 wrote:
| Oh definitely. It was like a slightly visible victory that
| didn't actually make much difference to the murdoch empire. I
| remember seeing murdoch in that select committee having to
| answer questions. That was something unprecedented(and almost
| a custard pie that arguably swung things in his favour). But
| no long term difference
|
| NOTW closed but then I think they started publishing the Sun
| on Sunday instead?
|
| NI/BSkyB merger was scuppered but now its back on the cards I
| think?
| TechnicolorByte wrote:
| Not really a shocker that they settled given all the embarrassing
| texts/emails showing the blatant lies Fox execs and media
| figureheads were engaging in. Just surprising that it took them
| this long--the start of the trial--to settle.
|
| Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those
| messages to wake up from all the manipulation.
| mysterydip wrote:
| > Just surprising that it took them this long--the start of the
| trial--to settle.
|
| I was a juror on a civil case once. They said many of them go
| right up until the trial date before settling out of court, as
| things finally become "real". Both sides want the other to
| flinch first.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Second this. I've been called for jury duty a couple of
| times, and one of the things that I've been told every time
| is that showing up and being ready to be impaneled is an
| important driver for things being settled (civil) or a plea
| deal (criminal) being reached.
|
| It's not just something they tell the folks who get called.
| I've seen it from the other side too where someone I knew was
| prepared to testify in a criminal case. The defendant pleaded
| out the day the trial was due to start while we were in the
| courthouse waiting for the proceedings to begin.
| sverhagen wrote:
| It's me waiting until the night before the exam to open the
| book for the first time, all over again.
| panarky wrote:
| For the record, the word "dominion" does not appear anywhere on
| the live foxnews.com site.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll
|
| How would the Fox News crowd even become aware of those
| messages when their information sources don't report them?
| frozenport wrote:
| Does their audience even use search?
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| it's on the frontpage of the foxnews.com site as of a few
| minutes ago, https://i.jollo.org/J7bF2Ayr.png
| ajross wrote:
| They won't, but wouldn't anyway. A civil suit can recover
| damages, it can't make Fox into something other than what it
| is.
|
| But no one who would have been receptive to the truth is
| watching Fox in the first place. That is, really, the core
| truth exposed by this suit. Fox is completely captured by its
| audience. For years we thought it was the other way around.
| ortusdux wrote:
| A settlement can contain just about anything. For example,
| it could require Fox to air an MSNBC produced 1 hour
| primetime special about the whole affair.
| ajross wrote:
| Contracts can constrain or direct speech in specific
| ways. So sure, you could put that one special in a
| settlement. There are severe first amendment problems
| when you try to do something more vague, like "You have
| to report on unflattering stories about Fox itself",
| which I took to be the upthread point.
| Kranar wrote:
| It's on their front page:
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-media-dominion-
| voting...
| RC_ITR wrote:
| It's so weird to see the Fox News bubble (As someone who
| never visits the site) isn't just ideological, but also
| topic specific. For example, they are highlighting Aaron
| Carter and two Florida men who shot children in a road rage
| incident.
|
| No comment on the content, just weird to see 'some else's
| algorithm' beyond the obvious political stuff - I'm vaguely
| aware of both stories, but have not seen extensive coverage
| in my bubble.
| tempestn wrote:
| Particularly surprising given all the embarrassing/reputation-
| damaging stuff that came out in discovery. Seems like they
| could have avoided all that by making this offer sooner.
| gigatexal wrote:
| I wish they had gone to trial. Oh well. I know MSNBC is just as
| partisan but Fox let itself get usurped by Trump and went along
| with the Big Lie for ratings and money and now they get off
| with no accountability just a nearly 800M fine. Big whoop. And
| just goes to show you can disparage democracy and elections and
| get away with it if you have enough money. I'm rather depressed
| by the whole thing. I thought their case was very solid. Why
| settle?
| Tagbert wrote:
| While MSNBC is partisan, they are not as committed as Fox to
| just making up propaganda and running with it. MSNBC is more
| about what they focus on and how they emphasize issues.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| robotresearcher wrote:
| They settle to avoid their people testifying under oath, and
| to avoid a more expensive judgement against them. They got to
| see the evidence, and expected to lose.
| wnevets wrote:
| > Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those
| messages to wake up from all the manipulation.
|
| For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war. Its
| no different than sport fans loving their team despite them
| cheating e.g Astros, Patriots, Red Sox, etc. They just want
| their team to win.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I recently discovered Tim Urban's "The thinking ladder"
|
| * Think like a scientist
|
| * Think like a sports fan
|
| * Think like an attorney
|
| * Think like a zaelot
|
| According to his model, being a sports fan is not even close
| as bad as lower rungs of the ladder. Sport fans do root for
| their teams and do engage in all sort of tribalism but
| ultimately care about The Game and they would be deeply
| dissatisfied if the game ethics were breached in favour of
| any team, including their own; it would just ruin the whole
| point of the game.
|
| While the "attorney" persona deliberately ignores the truth
| or pretends to do so if that requires serving their clients.
|
| Only the true "zaelot" fully lives in their delusion and
| nothing, truly nothing will make them wake up from anything
| because waking up would mean losing themeselves.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| That's what propaganda will do: confuse the facts so much
| that the fact checkers get overwhelmed, so no one is sure
| what to think, thus replacing truth with power.
| JellyBeanThief wrote:
| > For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war.
|
| The thing is that that state of affairs has been deliberately
| cultivated. And this entire case is a penetrating glimpse
| into how it's done.
|
| There's a range of possible solutions, but they all center on
| what kind of speech we incentivize. Right now, we've pretty
| much gone all in on incentivizing speech that gets attention.
| Traditional media businesses produce news or entertainment in
| order to sell attention to advertisers for money. Social
| media just puts a twist on it by outsourcing content creation
| to individual users in exchange for internet points like
| upvotes or retweets.
|
| Things aren't going to get better until we change that. Facts
| and reasoned arguments are boring. Culture war is
| entertaining and engaging. So culture war makes the most
| money, and that's what we're going to get.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| I just want people to remember all the previous elections
| where Dems were potentially hurt by e-voting bugs and to band
| together across the aisle to get rid of voting machines.
| Paper voting works for us in Canada and it'd work for you
| too.
|
| The only voting machine that isn't "fraud waiting to happen"
| is an optical-scan under-voting detector - the thing that
| says "your mark for Mayor is too light and won't be counted",
| allowing you to take the paper and pen and correct it.
|
| The court erred in this case, not by treating Fox's words
| (/unchecked republication of accusations) as a lie but by
| acting like the reputation of an voting-machine company
| deserves protection when they make something so obviously
| _ideally suited for crime_. The Flipper Zero people get
| accused of knowing their product will be used in crime and
| yet we don 't apply the same logic to e-voting manufacturers.
|
| Fox deserves the hit, but Dominion doesn't deserve the
| implication of honesty - their entire business is to remove
| proof of honesty from our elections. Perhaps the solution
| should have been to fine Fox but give the money to charities
| seeking to audit and improve the voting process.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| I appreciate that we are starting to see a bit of accountability
| brought to these media organizations. We saw it a few years ago
| with CNN and the Convington Catholic kid and now this.
|
| Just two small drops in a giant ocean of garbage but it is
| something.
| mrangle wrote:
| I'm not into using the voting machines of a company that
| confronts rhetoric and criticism with massive lawsuits.
|
| No one should trust the literal mechanical linchpin of democracy
| to a company that uses lawfare instead of its words.
| cs702 wrote:
| Assuming Fox hosts mentioned the word "Dominion" in an accusation
| an average of, say, 50 times a day for two years, the cost to Fox
| per utterance was on the order of $787,500,000 / (50x365x2) =
| ~$22,000 per utterance. Those lies sure were expensive!
|
| Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a _wee bit_ more
| careful about keeping facts straight going forward.
| schneems wrote:
| > Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a wee bit more
| careful about keeping facts straight going forward.
|
| My guess is that the lesson they learned here is "don't get
| caught".
| s5300 wrote:
| Very small fine for genuinely trying to subvert democracy & ruin
| faith in fair elections in the country with the largest military
| in the world.
| mrangle wrote:
| And zero fine for doing that with the Russia lies and an entire
| year of 2020 riots that were election terrorism.
| [deleted]
| mattcantstop wrote:
| Tucker Carlson, in his interview with Ben Shapiro while
| discussing self-driving trucks said he would lie to spin the
| story in a different way to achieve his desired outcome. There is
| no journalistic integrity.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Source? Timestamp?
| pharrington wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM0nrlOZxk at 6:10
|
| found by copy pasting "Tucker Carlson, in his interview with
| Ben Shapiro while discussing self-driving trucks" into the
| google and getting lucky
| paisawalla wrote:
| This is tedious. It's a time-worn strategy of _all_
| politicians and activists to justify their preferred
| policies pretextually. If you have something to say about
| the actual policy he 's discussing -- industry
| protectionism -- you should make that comment instead.
|
| But if your comment is just "one time someone from the
| other team said the quiet part aloud" that's rather naive
| and unremarkable.
| pharrington wrote:
| Did you reply to the wrong comment?
| vel0city wrote:
| Just a tip, you can encode a timestamp in a YouTube URL.
| Right click at the time you want to point to and choose
| "Copy video URL at current time". Or just encode the time
| in seconds as ?t=<seconds_to_jump_to> in the query string.
|
| https://youtu.be/awM0nrlOZxk?t=370
| rimunroe wrote:
| You can also express it as a combination of minutes and
| seconds (presumably hours are supported too):
| https://youtu.be/awM0nrlOZxk?t=6m10s
| blowski wrote:
| I don't know whether you meant it this way, but your
| comment comes across as "let me Google that for you".
| Either way, I also wanted a source, and thank you for
| posting the link here so I also don't have to go looking
| for it.
| nawgz wrote:
| https://youtu.be/awM0nrlOZxk?t=372
|
| At 6:12
|
| Transcribed by me: "I would maybe make up some pretext for
| public consumption, like 'oh they're dangerous', 'the
| technology's not there yet'"
| skipants wrote:
| It's really telling how simply he glosses over saying that
| like it's a perfectly normal thing for a "journalist" to
| do. That's pretty depressing.
| ndespres wrote:
| To be fair, that clip is Carlson imagining a hypothetical
| scenario in which he's the Secretary of Transportation or
| someone similar, and needs to justify keeping self-driving
| trucks off the road to avoid putting millions of truck
| drivers out of work. It is not an example of a lack of
| journalistic integrity or demonstration of his own
| televised spin.
| nawgz wrote:
| I disagree. The whole thing is a PR spin - cmon, the guy
| who intentionally undermines society in order to retain
| his obscene pay at Fox News is selling a book about
| stable societies - and even in a PR spin hypothetical
| scenario where he's the president, he STILL prefers to
| mislead the public instead of making an honest argument
| to them.
|
| It's a perfect demonstration of a complete lack of
| integrity. The ends justify the means whenever he
| believes in it.
| econonut wrote:
| Let's not take things out of context guys. His response
| there is what he would say to the public if he were in
| charge of making decisions on self-driving trucks. Start at
| 4:45 for the entire segment. He starts his response by
| saying, "If I were president, would I say to the DOT..."
| pharrington wrote:
| Yeah, he sure does _gleefully_ admit that he 'd abuse
| presidential power to lie in under to get what he wants!
| Good thing there's no other context where Carlson's in
| control of disseminating information in order to get what
| he wants!
| nawgz wrote:
| Yes, let's not take things out of context.
|
| In a world where Tucker Carlson has gained more political
| power and is legislating some policy which should be very
| politically popular, he still believes the right way to
| do things is in an "ends justify the means" fashion, and
| would therefore be willing to mislead the public - and
| anyone else that required misleading - in order to enact
| this policy. Again, this is something that he argues
| would protect the jobs of millions of Americans.
|
| How can you possibly think that we are taking it "out of
| context"? This is ironclad evidence for people who argue
| something like "Tucker Carlson is a lying maniac who puts
| himself and what he thinks is important before justice
| and integrity". Even when in idealistic hypotheticals
| constructed for PR, he still would do what he does best:
| make up pretext for public consumption.
| mrangle wrote:
| You're the one without integrity. He was speaking in a
| hypothetical role as a government official, not as a
| journalist.
|
| In fact, he was making a very socialist / populist point that
| few on the Left would be able to disagree with.
|
| That is, the point was about the national necessity of
| protecting a job base for a immense mass of people. Protecting
| it from robot capitalism.
| Isamu wrote:
| Tucker and others like Hannity are not considered journalists,
| and I even remember Hannity being careful to make this point-
| they are opinion show hosts. This was also made clear in a
| lawsuit a few years ago. Like the opinion section in a
| newspaper, they are not held to journalistic standards by their
| organization.
|
| But they can be sued for libel and slander, as in this lawsuit.
| mrangle wrote:
| Who and who is not a journalist can't be determined by any
| institution. According to democracy. If people find what they
| present to be journalism, then it is. Ironically, I just
| defended Rachel Maddow and many more people.
|
| It seems strange to have to impart basic civics lessons here.
| tcbawo wrote:
| Liability of a hospital for actions of an independent
| contractor physician in a medical malpractice trial
| depended (at least partially...) on whether an uninformed
| person would confuse that individual as an agent/employee
| of the hospital. The intentionally murky delineation used
| by hospitals to shield themselves from liability by hiring
| non-employee contractors seems to mirror the
| journalist/opinion personally that media tries to get away
| with. I was on the jury for this trial, which also ended in
| a settlement. I suspect the hospital was quick to settle
| rather than set any precedent that might hurt their
| liability shield.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| FWIW the source of that quote was actually that, if Tucker
| Carlson were _president_, would he ban self-driving trucks
| solely to preserve truck-driving jobs? He said he would make up
| some pretense/excuse/spin when justifying it.
| tempaway45751 wrote:
| Dominion Voting System's annual turnover/revenue is approx $25M
| per year and they have 142 employees. So this is like 30 years of
| revenue for them.
|
| One of Dominions ex-directors also has ongoing lawsuits against
| various Trump people -
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems
|
| https://cstrial.com/insights/c-s-earns-victory-for-former-do...
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| "Turnover?"
| tempaway45751 wrote:
| e.g. https://www.zippia.com/dominion-voting-systems-
| careers-15692...
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Thanks, but I don't see "turnover" on there. As far as I've
| ever seen, turnover refers to personnel changes.
| tempaway45751 wrote:
| Where I'm from it also means revenue. I have edited my
| comment above
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Aka revenue
| ourmandave wrote:
| Coming up on Fox, the Smartmatic trial that will be for twice the
| settlement.
| cancerhacker wrote:
| As of right now, msnbc, cnn, drudge report, an nytimes all show
| the settlement story on their home pages, but foxnews.com ...
| huge "Biden cabinet secretary violated federal law". And
| searching for "dominion" on their website brings up a 2 day old
| article as the most recent. I don't see a public apology
| forthcoming from them. I hope the settlement includes something
| that will actually hold them accountable beyond just money.
| Arrath wrote:
| > "This settlement reflects FOX's continued commitment to the
| highest journalistic standards."
|
| What a world it is, that high journalistic standards can end in a
| $787m payout.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Just like large tech companies a billion in fines here and
| there throughout the years is the cost of doing business.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way out of
| legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway.
| Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial
| process.
| mdasen wrote:
| For a company that's worth less than $17.5B, a $787.5M
| settlement means giving away 4.5% of your company's value.
| Unlike big tech companies or whatnot, Fox Corporation isn't
| that big. Even after its huge fall, Meta is still 32x larger.
| Apple is 150x larger, Microsoft 123x larger, Alphabet 77x
| larger. A $787.5M settlement would only be 0.03% of Apple's
| value rather than 4.5% so I could see it being a meaningless
| penalty on Apple, but it's a large enough penalty that Fox is
| going to think twice before allowing their talent to do
| similar things in the future. A few more of these and they
| could be signing away a quarter of their company's value.
|
| > just buy their way out of legal humiliation
|
| Except they basically didn't buy their way out of the
| humiliation. Most of the damming stuff has already been made
| public. Most of the embarrassing laundry has been aired. At
| this point, the only real question is whether Dominion would
| get the $1.6B they had asked for. Instead, they settled for a
| guaranteed half.
|
| Plus, Fox is still facing a lawsuit from Smartmatic, another
| voting system. Smartmatic issued a statement, "Dominion's
| litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused
| by Fox's disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the
| rest." It also likely means Fox losing more money.
|
| > Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial
| process
|
| I definitely understand the sentiment and plea bargains can
| be really bad pushing low-income people to plead guilty to
| lesser crimes even if they're innocent and letting rich
| people off easy when they're definitely guilty. Likewise, a
| company might reach a settlement with someone they've wronged
| who doesn't know their rights and who isn't on equal footing
| with such a giant corporation.
|
| In a civil case between two companies with basically
| unlimited legal funds, it seems quite reasonable. It's
| important to note that this case isn't about Fox doing you
| harm. It's about Fox doing Dominion harm. Between Fox and
| Dominion, this seems like quite a reasonable outcome.
| Dominion won big against Fox and it will likely encourage
| other litigants to continue pursuing Fox.
|
| What is bad about this settlement other than things like you
| wanting to know potentially more details that might be
| exposed? If your answer is that Fox has caused more harm than
| just the harm to Dominion, that's a different trial. I would
| agree that Fox has created incredible harm to our society. I
| don't know how we could pursue that in a legal sense which is
| a shame. Still, this isn't a plea bargain or settlement that
| seems bad. It seems like a reasonable outcome where the
| complainant received half of what they were hoping to get
| without the uncertainty of the trial outcome. Even if
| Dominion won the case, they might have been awarded less
| damages than they asked for (or less than the settlement).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You make a good point about the relatively small size of
| Fox News, but I'd argue that they can still afford it and
| their relatively low financial capitalization is outweighed
| by the enormous political capital they are able to
| leverage.
|
| _Except they basically didn 't buy their way out of the
| humiliation._
|
| Yes they did. The embarrassment of having text messages
| quoted in legal documents (and subsequently in the media)
| is _nothing_ compared o the having Rupert Murdoch, Tucker
| Carlson etc. being subjected to cross-examination under
| oath and having to make admissions (probably on camera) in
| a forum they don 't control from top to bottom. Bear in
| mind that the target audience for Fox News watches a lot of
| TV because they don't enjoy reading. Words don't have the
| same kind of emotional force as personal testimony.
|
| _If your answer is that Fox has caused more harm than just
| the harm to Dominion, that 's a different trial._
|
| It is, and the fact that it's a different trial is part of
| the problem. The anglo-American legal system is full of
| procedural arguments which are generally gamed for the
| advantage of powerful incumbents, and even a large-ish
| company like dominion has to balance their desire for full
| accountability and transparency with the fiscal reality of
| a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush. It's
| extraordinarily difficult to mount class actions and meet
| the procedural threshold for establishing harm, so all the
| incentives run towards a transactional approach.
|
| This is a bad thing my view, on the basis that 'justice
| must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.' As it
| is Fox writes a painfully large check to Dominion but gets
| to issue an anodyne statement expressing its commitment to
| the highest standards of journalism [puke emoji] while
| continuing to pursue the lowest common denominator in its
| audience's imaginary. As you're probably aware, Fox has
| barely covered the fact of this litigation. Unless its
| audience _sees_ someone like Tucker Carlson sweating it out
| on the witness stand, this whole thing may as well not have
| happened for them.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| I'd take the alternate viewpoint: it's great that our society
| empowers those who want to come down like a sledgehammer on
| those who break the law. The incentivization of some of our
| most aggressively adversarial minds toward the task of
| justice is motivated the most efficient way that our society
| knows: the reassignment of mass amounts of capital according
| to the processes of the law.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| If it'll make you feel better, fox shareholders are prepping
| lawsuits against the executives to recoup the money the
| company will need to pay the settlement. So it's not the end
| yet.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way
| out of legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway.
|
| Coughing up nearly a billion dollars to settle a trial
| because they know they'll lose is quite humiliating.
| more_corn wrote:
| And further proof that speech is free, but you have to pay
| for the lies.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Arthur Andersen was dissolved for less (Enron accounting
| scandal).
|
| Edit: good call out andrew! That's what I get for
| commenting at the bar.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Except that they cost real people real money.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Fun fact: If you spelled the company the way you did just
| then in your job application to them your CV would go
| straight in the bin and you would not get a call
| regardless of your credentials. It was a well known
| vetting criteria.
| inerte wrote:
| You mean if you applied to work at Arthur Andersen,
| because it's misspelled?
| henriquez wrote:
| I agree 100% when it comes to billionaires "settling" their
| way out of criminal prosecution, but if two private groups
| have a dispute they shouldn't be forced to litigate it all
| the way through trial if they can come to an agreement
| outside of court.
| conductr wrote:
| The real injustice is that "news" can do what Fox did, and
| it doesn't constitute a crime. At a minimum, They should
| lose their broadcast license if they are going to
| manufacture truth that threatens democracy.
| runnerup wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree. I said exactly this to my friend
| earlier today. However, I immediately followed it up
| noting that any law like this will eventually be used
| maliciously.
|
| E.g. Party in power will say "CNN LIES!" and get DOJ to
| set up a sham trial.
|
| But even if it shouldn't be possible for the ruling
| political party to infringe on free speech, it should
| also not be tenable to lie to millions of Americans this
| blatantly.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Minor nitpick: FNN is a cable channel and thus does not
| require a license. _however_ they 're in the middle of
| renegotiating their fees with the cable companies, so if
| you are a cable customer and hate Rupert Murdoch, now is
| a good time to get on the phone with your cable company
| and whine about how you don't want to pay for Fox News as
| part of the basic package.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| So none of the BS was broadcast over public airwaves by
| Fox?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Disagree, I think that moderately early on in the process
| parties need to make a decision about settle or litigate.
| What we have now is a system where people are incentivized
| to bluff endlessly, treating litigation like high-stakes
| poker. Even those with no legal education can see it's
| bullshit, and it brings the entire legal system into
| disrepute.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| In a vacuum I agree with you; but when it's election
| interference, with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted
| coup...I am not so sure.
| [deleted]
| forkerenok wrote:
| > with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted coup
|
| In my understanding, if this is a grave concern, then
| it's the federal prosecutor that should press charges. I
| assume DVS were simply suing as a business for damages.
|
| Edit: wording to clarify the point
| rickspencer3 wrote:
| It's complete double speak, is it not? Any commitment to even
| mediocre journalistic standards would not have led to this
| whole situation, much less this outcome.
| Wensio wrote:
| Those text messages were enlightening. I wonder how many people
| will see this and take it into consideration next time they view
| a segment on fox.
| piyh wrote:
| People that only read Fox News will never hear about this.
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