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by chongli 2016 days ago
I'm not sure why that's so amusing. The justice system only requires the judiciary to be impartial in order to serve the public good effectively. Plaintiffs and defendants can be as biased as they want.

Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) successfully sued Gawker with the backing of investor Peter Thiel, who had a well-known grudge against them. That doesn't take away from the fact that Gawker grossly invaded people's privacy in order to turn a profit on harmful gossip.
1 comments
justanotherhn 2016 days ago
I find it amusing because they find someone who has some sort of a problem with tesla and make them the jesus of their crusade against that company. "How could Elon (or Tesla) have done this?" in order to sway public opinion. They did this with when the plant sabotage employee a few years back, the diver guy who Elon called a pedo and every self proclaimed "whistleblower" as far as I can remember from 2015 when this stuff really got crazy.

They just want to make a buck and posture as if they have some moral quandry with the company or their leadership.

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etc-hosts 2016 days ago
It is pretty weird that Musk repeatedly insisted on calling the experienced well respected diver a sex criminal, and faced zero consequences for this.
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justanotherhn 2016 days ago
He faced a tone of consequences, just not criminal or civil charges in a court.
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CogitoCogito 2016 days ago
> He faced a tone of consequences, just not criminal or civil charges in a court.

I never could understand how what he said wasn't considered defamation. If that's not defamation, what is?

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microtherion 2016 days ago
The US has a very high standard for "defamation" against "public figures" and a very low barrier to be considered a "public figure". By US standards, the diver was a "public figure", and Musk's insulting comment was not defamation, because it was hyperbolic (comparable to when Hustler Magazine published a fake ad about Jerry Falwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse).

Bottom line is that it's very hard to win defamation cases in the US. The Tesla engineer might have a shot because she was not well known, and Tesla accused her of very specific acts (moonlighting, unapproved travel) and they knew those accusations to be false. On the other hand, these were not exactly crimes, so who knows.

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whatshisface 2016 days ago
Just speculating but...

The legal system has a concept of "no harm no foul," (i.e. the concept of a "tort"), and if nobody believed Elon's obviously stupid tweet, there would be no tort to sue on.

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