[norifukuoka]

Meanwhile, in this other fictional universe, a guy who looks just like you and posts the same things as you on HN is a child pornographer. Not to worry, our hero stops him.

Or perhaps it is your company that is involved in the pornography. And they are secret Nazis. Not to worry. All fictional.

[Koshkin]

Well that's what Freedom of Speech is all about, isn't it?

[macintux]

No, slander and libel are well-established legal principles despite freedom of speech.

[hannasanarion]

And fiction is never libel. Libel requires a falsehood about someone to be presented as truth, causing demonstrable damage, with actual malice.

[sio8ohPi]

This simply isn't true. See for instance Batra v Wolf et al, among many other examples:

https://www.loeb.com/en/insights/publications/2008/04/batra-...

> Plaintiff Ravi Batra, a bald, Indian-American lawyer involved in a judicial corruption scandal, filed a libel-in-fiction claim against the writers, producers and broadcasters of the television show Law & Order, claiming that an episode about a judicial bribery scandal that included a character who was a bald, Indian-American lawyer named Ravi Patel was defamatory. The court reached this holding after noting that no libel-in-fiction law suit in New York state court had survived a motion to dismiss in almost 25 years, and then denied defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Actual malice is additionally only necessary if the victim is a public figure.

[pests]

Well yes that is what ficitonal means.