[WDCDev]

> I was stunned at how someone with zero evidence and an obvious axe to grind could rally such disdain for someone else with little more than a few unsubstantiated social media posts.

I feel that this is due to the weird place victimization occupies in our culture combined with how anti-social social media is.

It's extremely easy to issue accusations and threats and have them be read by literally millions of people. You would never dare vocalize these same threats and and accusations publically - and even if you did, in the pre-internet days, it would reach far far fewer people.

At some point we to start thinking about strengthening our libel laws to act as a deterrent to this type of online behaviors. It's depressing to consider MORE litigation as the solution here, but I don't think we can depend on the good nature of people and rationality to ultimately prevail.

[pjc50]

> strengthening our libel laws

This nearly always advantages businesses and the wealthy, especially in false or ambiguous situations, and whistleblowers of all kinds. Litigation is incredibly expensive and slow. Do people really want to spend a house worth and several years on this kind of fight?

(This is why the US felt it necessary to pass laws against UK libel judgements being enforced, it was infringing on US standards of free speech)

[imgabe]

Truth is always an absolute defense to libel. If you can back up what you’re saying, libel isn’t a concern.

And if you can't prove what you're saying is true, then why are you saying it?

[jmcqk6]

>If you can back up what you’re saying, libel isn’t a concern.

This is not true. The unfortunate reality is that facts _don't_ matter in the realm of public opinion. They never have.

BUT, you're going to say, "I'm talking about libel, which is litigated in the court of law, not public opinion."

If that is indeed your response, I would suggest you might better familiarize yourself with the actual happenings in civil court cases. They can absolutely be just as insane, and they can absolutely act with the same lack of justice we see in other places.

I really wish most people had the type of integrity you're describing, but the uncomfortable reality is that they do not. People are going to believe the thing that makes them feel better, not the thing that is true.

[eyelidlessness]

There are several people who have severely traumatized me by actions they took to harm my body, violate my sexual consent, and/or manipulate my life so that I was under their power in ways I didn’t agree to.

I couldn’t imagine convincing a jury of any of these. If you make saying they happened a criminal exposure for me, I can’t warn others of the danger those people put me in, or even process my pain and grief, without fear of losing a court battle I have no chance of winning.

I’m sensitive to the damage false claims can do, but I think it’s unreasonable to say that people should be liable in a court of law to prove things that are private and unprovable. And it has a chilling effect, where people who’ve experienced similar trauma will be discouraged from sharing their experience because the risk is too high.

It’s already dangerous to accuse anyone with any kind of public presence of anything, people will defend them to the point of harassment, stalking and violence, out of pure loyalty.

Adding legal repercussions for stating that a thing happened where no one could produce conclusive evidence to confirm or deny it just means more people suffer privately without even the recourse of telling anyone what happened.

[imgabe]

NAL, but I don't think talking to your friends and acquaintances privately rises to the level of libel or slander, or at least it would be very difficult to prove if it did.

What is the alternative that you would like to see? Should we be able to destroy any person we want simply by making an accusation without evidence? Should we throw out presumption of innocence and fair trials and just chuck people in jail the moment someone accuses someone of a crime?

If someone is making a public accusation with the intent of destroying someone's livelihood and reputation, I don't think it is too much to ask that we have some way of verifying that the accusation is true.

[eyelidlessness]

> NAL, but I don't think talking to your friends and acquaintances privately rises to the level of libel or slander, or at least it would be very difficult to prove if it did.

The suggestion was to “strengthen libel laws”, presumably to reverse this.

> What is the alternative that you would like to see? Should we be able to destroy any person we want simply by making an accusation without evidence? Should we throw out presumption of innocence and fair trials and just chuck people in jail the moment someone accuses someone of a crime?

I’m actually more or less comfortable with the existing US laws. Accusing someone publicly of harming them in an unprovable way is relatively protected speech. I’m opposed to changing that to penalize people who were hurt by someone, want to disclose the fact that it happened, and couldn’t possibly survive a trial they never initiated.

> If someone is making a public accusation with the intent of destroying someone's livelihood and reputation, I don't think it is too much to ask that we have some way of verifying that the accusation is true.

That exists.

[imgabe]

Ok, I did not interpret strengthen libel laws to mean extending them to private conversations. Instead, I was thinking of something to deter Internet pile-ons like the article discussed.

[mcguire]

Not everywhere.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/...

[aiisjustanif]

Truth is not an absolute defense for other legal cases in the US. The legal system is statistically successful at getting innocent people to take plea deals and legally does not require the penalties for a losing party.

I think we need to move away from the American Rule for litigation fees to the English Rule. So we incentive people for telling the truth when pursuing legal action.

[benhurmarcel]

Even if you say the truth, you still need to pay for a lawyer's swimming pool.

[pjc50]

> If you can back up what you’re saying, libel isn’t a concern

How are you going to pay to back this up in court? Evidencing these things is tricky. As you've spotted, it doesn't matter whether what you say is true, only whether you can back it up. Oh, and you may need to lodge a bond with court in case you lose. Best re-mortgage your house.

The UK has extremely strong libel law and yet people libel each other all the time, because cases cost in excess of £100,000.

Oh, and declaring private eyewitness testimony to be worthless makes it entirely impossible to criminally prosecute rape and sexual assault.

[oyashirochama]

Except Libel isn't on the same criminal level as rape and sexual assault. Libel is a mostly civil affair and should be dealt with as a civil offense, not criminal, and since its mostly civil, it can have a higher requirement of proof, as weird as it sounds.

[fuzxi]

Really? You've never talked about something that happened to you without photographic evidence of the event? Really?

[imgabe]

With the intent of siccing a mob of people on someone to harass them online? No, never. In the article, the problem is not that the women discussed the fact that they had received harassing emails, but that they attributed those emails to a particular person without any proof that that is true.

"I received an anonymous harassing email" - true statement, not libel

"I received an anonymous harassing email and it was definitely from this guy" - if you can't prove it, could be libel.

See the difference?

[WDCDev]

Whistleblowers have plenty of protections and can be exempted. Libel can be stated such that they only apply to private matters between individuals, where accusations that do not reach the felony level - which is exactly what is going on here. I have no doubt we could protect all interests, while limiting the power of the wealthy and powerful.

[jhayward]

Whistleblowers have functionally no protections, I don't know how anyone could have knowledge of whistleblower cases and claim otherwise.

Any attorney will tell you - if you are going to blow the whistle on some entity that is powerful, you will lose your job, your home, your ability to work in your field, and your life will be in legal hell for decades.

[dragonwriter]

> At some point we to start thinking about strengthening our libel laws to act as a deterrent to this type of online behaviors.

I am unconvinced that there is anything that could be done to strengthen libel laws that would have this effect short of also shutting down essential freedom of expression, given that Western regimes with stronger libel laws are not free of it, and our libel laws tend to go pretty much right up to the limit federal courts have found the First Amendment to impose on them.

[not2b]

Might want to talk to folks in Singapore, where the government infamously uses strict libel laws to bankrupt and jail its critics.

[wslack]

It's tricky because these accusations resonate because they remind us of things that really happen. (and in fact, lies can be formulated for maximum impact when truthtelling is usually more nuanced)

Because powerful people have strong lawyers, the tools that the falsely accused can use to clear their name can be used, to more effect, by the guilty.

There are no easy solutions here. The past looked calm only because people often had no recourse unless a newspaper took up their cause.

[3grdlurker]

> You would never dare vocalize these same threats and and accusations publically - and even if you did, in the pre-internet days, it would reach far far fewer people.

It would reach far less people, yes, but we used to burn witches, too, so it seems that internet mobs are just a modern manifestation of that.

[Vektorweg]

> I don't think we can depend on the good nature of people and rationality to ultimately prevail.

least not with the current common education.