[robomartin]

That's not the key at all.

The allegation (until proven in court to the required legal standard) is that Media Matters worked hard to manipulate X to fit a narrative. They created a false narrative and drove it hard in a campaign designed to cause financial and reputation harm to both X and Musk.

Some of what is being alleged is the equivalent of taking something that is several standard deviations from the mean and claiming this is the mean.

In paragraph 35:

"35. Media Matters also omitted and made no attempt to clarify the rarity of these pairings. The representation put forth by Media Matters constituted 0.0000009090909 percent of impressions served on the day in question. Most or all of these pairings were not seen by literally anyone besides Media Matters’ own manipulated account, and no authentic user of the platform has been confirmed to have seen any of these pairings."

They created an account to follow extremists and brands. They manipulated this account until they got screenshots they could publish to attack X and Musk.

This, if proven to be the case in a court of law, should be criminal if it isn't.

Look at it a different way: Would you be OK with someone doing that to you? Making a concerted and calculated effort to damage your career and person with false and deeply distorted allegations? Would that be OK?

I hope you say "No, it would not".

And that's the point here.

Society would absolutely crumble under the pressure of such things if permitted to permeate our culture and information sources without consequence. Nothing good comes from anyone, individual or companies, behaving in this manner.

As I have stated multiple times now, these are allegations. They have to pass the test of the legal system. That's the correct venue until we cease to be civilized. Should they allegations prove to be true, Media Matters, the people responsible and external actors and organizations that participated in any way or jumped on the bandwagon to multiply the damage should pay dearly for their actions.

Society should not tolerate such behavior. It is destructive in the worst possible way. And, at the limit, it can only lead to violence and the destruction of the tenuous social fabric that holds populations together.

Let the courts look at this and decide. That's the way a civilized society behaves.

Legal critics don't matter. If it were up to them the entire Biden and Trump (and other) families would be rotting in jail right now. That's how much their "analysis" matters. Zero.

[aw1621107]

> That's not the key at all.

The reason it is is because defamation requires falsity, and if the article states nothing false then there cannot be a claim for defamation or for anything arising from that.

> Some of what is being alleged is the equivalent of taking something that is several standard deviations from the mean and claiming this is the mean.

The article did not "claim[] this is the mean," though. There is no wording directly stating anything about frequency of occurrence or whether the observations are representative. Your quoted paragraph says as much.

> Making a concerted and calculated effort to damage your career and person with false and deeply distorted allegations? Would that be OK?

Being OK with something is not the same thing as something being (il)legal. The First Amendment doesn't only protect "acceptable" speech.

In addition, you're mixing two different things here. False allegations are subject to defamation claims by definition. Deeply distorted allegations, on the other hand, are not automatically defamation - the manner and effect of the distortion influences the analysis.

[robomartin]

This will be decided in a court of law.

If Elon is wrong, it will cost him dearly. If he is right, the consequences for Media Matters, their inner and outer circles should be severe enough to fit the crime.

It's that simple. We'll see.

I have a feeling that Media Matters might be in serious trouble. I would be surprised if Elon has any interest in a settlement out of court. If he is right, he is going for what he called the "thermonuclear option", which means he will take this up the legal system as far and wide as he is able to.

Maybe this is what this country needs in order to eradicate the violent practice of attempting to utterly destroy people and companies not aligned with a specific political narrative.

How is this behavior good for society in the long run? It isn't.

I mean, today, we live in a society where you have to be careful what you say because you never know if a nut-job with a million followers on TikTok is going to latch-on and enlist a massive mob to destroy you, your career and your family.

Again, in what universe is that good for society?

I don't know where the lawsuit is going to go. If Media Matters is found to be guilty, I hope the courts make a brutal example of them and everyone who participated in the many destruction campaigns they have engaged in over the years. It's about time.

[aw1621107]

> If Elon is wrong, it will cost him dearly. If he is right, the consequences for Media Matters, their inner and outer circles should be severe enough to fit the crime.

It's not even a matter of whether Elon is right or wrong since he doesn't really dispute any facts. That's the biggest hangup people have with the lawsuit.

> How is this behavior good for society in the long run? It isn't.

That's not really relevant here since "good for society" is not the legal standard for libel/slander/defamation/etc. cases, for better or worse.

And if I'm thinking of the same thing you are, you can't use the US government to substantially address the behavior you so detest without repealing the First Amendment.

[robomartin]

Well, you have it entirely wrong.

Elon is accusing Media Matters of something. That's the "If Elon is wrong" (or right) part the courts have to decide.

If he is right, this is a crime (or whatever the appropriate legal classification might be). And this is precisely what we have laws and government for.

If someone slanders you, the law is what you use to deal with the problem.

This case has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Here's a super-simple primer on that:

At a basic level everyone is free to say anything.

The First Amendment does not protect you from the consequences of your speech.

You can go out there slander and libel anyone you want. That does NOT mean the US Constitution protects you from the consequences of your actions. Not even close.

I was involved in a slander case decades ago. A competitor, aided by his buddies at an industry newsletter, decided to slander me and my company at the time. They allowed him to write an article full of serious lies. When I took that to a specialist attorney he explained what I just said above about how ignorant people are about what the First Amendment actually means in terms of rights and responsibilities for your actions.

In the lawsuit we filed approximately ten people could have lost absolutely everything. My attorney said it was so obviously slanderous and malicious that we could go for the financial decapitation of everyone involved. I didn't want to live with having cause that kind of harm to a bunch of fucking morons who didn't know any better and got carried away. The settlement was sizable. They all suffered serious financial damage. My competitor had to close his doors. That's one asshole I had absolutely no sympathy for. It cost him dearly. Well deserved.

Don't confuse free speech with the freedom to be an asshole or cause material destruction without consequences. That isn't what free speech is about.

It's high time that someone teaches outfits like Media Matters a solid (legal/financial) lesson. Yet, the allegations have to be proven in court. We'll see what happens.

If proven in court, I hope he goes after every media organization that pushed the narrative and wins. Maybe then we will have media that goes out of their way to deliver verified, truthful and well researched evidence-based news.

This is what puzzles me. Why doesn't everyone want our media organizations to be truthful? Again, how are lies and manipulation good for society? I don't care what political angle they come from. We should not tolerate this crap. It isn't good for anyone.

[aw1621107]

> Elon is accusing Media Matters of something. That's the "If Elon is wrong" (or right) part the courts have to decide.

My apologies for misinterpreting you. I was interpreting the statement as talking about Elon and Media Matters disagreeing on some factual claim, which (basically?) hasn't occurred yet.

> If someone slanders you, the law is what you use to deal with the problem. > > This case has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

The case has everything to do with the First Amendment. The First Amendment limits the restrictions/consequences that can be placed on speech by laws, so if some speech is protected by the First Amendment then you can't use the law to deal with the problem.

What Elon is complaining about here is undoubtedly the type of speech that the First Amendment can protect. Therefore, the very first hurdle he will have to cross is convincing the judge that the First Amendment does not apply. If it does, nothing else matters.

(Well, maybe venue issues will cause problems for the lawsuit first, but the First Amendment would be the first substantive issue).

> This is what puzzles me. Why doesn't everyone want our media organizations to be truthful?

It's a nice-sounding sentiment that's easy to agree with in the abstract, to be sure, but it's running up against multiple factors that don't exactly incentivize it and it's going to be extremely difficult at best to change that, if it's even possible at all.

Not to mention there's a distinction to be drawn here between societal/cultural/etc. enforcement and governmental enforcement of the ideals you wish were adhered to. It's not without reason that the First Amendment is as broad as it is, after all...

[robomartin]

I think you are over-using First Amendment to effectively make a false claim from authority.

Well, what we say here is irrelevant. The courts will decide. I am looking forward to that outcome, one way or the other. Stay tuned.

[rsynnott]

> Legal critics don't matter.

The opinions of legal experts on the law are probably rather more relevant than those of either (a) random HN posters or (b) Elon Musk, who has demonstrated prior confusion about this.

[robomartin]

Having been involved in a few legal battles over the decades I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that nobody on the outside of a trial has a clue or a valid opinion at all. That includes me, of course.

This is why courts and lawsuits are about. The evidence has to be presented with sufficient detail and clarity for a legal conclusion to be reached. Nothing else anyone says matters at all.

My comments on this are very simple:

If anyone is going to comment, at least read the court filing.

Understand that groups like Media Matters and the media have been in the business of search-and-destroy-at-all-costs for years. These are not wholesome organizations. They are violent organizations, with their violence taking the form of the indiscriminate destruction of anyone who does not align with a certain narrative.

Am I biased? Of course! Because I know exactly what the blind support of these kinds of nefarious actors can do to a society and the nation. Just go down the list of Latin American (LATAM) countries for examples of just how ugly things can get.

I know the HN crowd can be deeply ideologically aligned with these leftist organizations. So be it. If nobody here presents contrast there's a zero percent probability of anyone actually thinking and realizing that what has been pounded into their brains is a ridiculous destructive fantasy.

Do we have to get to total societal destruction and 40% unemployment before people wake up and understand? I hope not. Coming back from that is almost impossible. Again, look at LATAM.

I have always referred to LATAM as "the time machine for the US". Everything that is happening here has already happened in LATAM a million different ways as far back as decades ago. We know, without any doubt, how this ends. And it isn't good.

So, no, Media Matters, their inner and outer circles are not organizations dedicated to improving society. Not even close. They exist to destroy whatever and whoever they tag as the opposition.

In some ways this is analog to the idea of finding obscure bugs in software.

One approach is to do the work, explore very rare corner cases, privately contact the company to make them aware of it so they can fix it before it becomes public knowledge. That is constructive and useful for society.

The other approach is to immediately take the information public and use it to try to destroy the company, product and people as well as their reputation to the extent possible. That is not useful to society at all.

We need to stop this nonsense or we are going to become victims of our own stupidity. I don't know how else to say it.

You have in Elon Musk who has been dedicated to advancing society with everything he touches. Instead of embracing his work and helping push it forward, you have political/ideological activists and organizations dedicated to nothing less than destroying him and his work.

How the hell is this good for society? What is left if we don't have anyone like him left in this society? I can name a few countries where this is the case. It ain't pretty. Wake the fuck up!

[rsynnott]

Well, I mean, personally I think that society would be a lot better off if that arsehole would think a bit more before he tweeted, so I expect we’re not going to agree.

[robomartin]

No, we can agree on that. Why not?

Here's the important difference (and this relates to free speech as well):

We can think someone is a an imbecile, asshole, jerk, idiot even a criminal (not talking about Musk, just in general terms). That does not mean they cease to have rights under the law.

A fundamental idea behind free speech is that, in order to protect it, we must protect speech with which we might disagree.

You don't ever have to respect or agree with me. And I can think the same of you. However, if we want to live in a civilized society and have a future, I have to respect your rights and protect you from abuse because, when the time comes, I need you to respect and protect mine with the same fervor. That's the way it works.

It is all too easy to exist in an echo chamber where we only allow and are exposed to things with which we agree. However, this does not promote an open society at all. This closes-off societies and leads to truly nasty outcomes.

Trump is an excellent example of this. His policies? For the most part, excellent and right on point. Yet, every time he opened his mouth he inspired me into projectile vomiting. Do we stop listening to someone just because we don't like their public persona? What they might look like? The color of their skin? Where they were born? The clothes they wear? How wealthy or poor they might be? Etc.

I hope not.

Must can be a jerk on X and still have rights under the law. One thing does not negate the other.

If his allegations are true, Media Matters explicitly sought to damage X and Musk through a process engineered to do just that. And, instead of bringing up the 0.000000000000009 black swan event they found to X's attention, they chose to weaponize it. This led to significant financial losses to X. This isn't right at all.

A natural process would have posting an ad somewhere requesting millions of people to provide proof of what they were looking for. Do it in the open. Why not? I am sure the New York Times would give them a full page ad for free. If a statistically significant percentage of participants identifies well documented transgressions, well, then they could have had something. That's very different from manipulating the experiment to achieve the result you want.

Can you find port on YouTube? Absolutely. It's out there. In many forms. People have reported this. Does this mean YT is a porn site or that Google promotes porn as a company policy? No, of course not. Does this mean that Google management promotes porn? No!

Can you find anti-Semitic or racist content on YouTube? Of course you can. Again, does this mean Google and the people who work there are anti-Semitic. Of course not!

Can you design an experiment to show ads being placed next to anti-Semitic, racist, pornographic and objectionable content on Google, Bing, YouTube and other platforms? Of course you can! Again, that does not prove those organizations to be any of those things.

At some point we have to behave as adults in the room. We can't have politicians and political organizations ruin society by engaging in deceitful manipulative character assassination campaigns against everything and everyone who doesn't agree with them.

At the limit you end-up becoming something like Russia (or other lands) where the cost of having a different outlook on life is life in prison, torture or death. That's what allowing the ideologically-motivated character assassination of people and organizations ultimately leads to.

Perhaps the better point is that this does not lead to anything good for society. How could it? How could politically-motivated defamation campaigns lead to good results of any kind? I can't think of a single scenario where that could be true.

So, yeah, we can hate someone, their ideas or how the handle themselves. However, we have to protect their right to protection under the law for a wide range of things, from slander to physical and financial harm, and more. That's how a society with a future behaves. Not by protecting and standing-up for only those you like.