[mmooss]

Because people need freedom, including freedom to speak their minds, especially about political and social matters, especially about the powerful. If everything you say has to be tried in court with legal expenses, there is no freedom and no check on the powerful.

People make spurious claims all the time, including on news, in commercials, in business and legal contexts, by corporations - look at what UnitedHealth says at times. It's absurd that someone can be sued - there would be no freedom of speech.

[pfdietz]

Spurious claims that damage someone else's reputation are libel or slander, and are rightly actionable.

I've long thought that doing to this what copyright trolls did to copyright infringement is a road to profit for social media companies. Help connect the outspoken with the damaged and take a cut.

[mmooss]

So how do you preserve free speech?

[pfdietz]

Don't commit libel or slander. Laws against such have always been consistent with the First Amendment.

[mmooss]

You're ignoring the problem I mentioned above. That's not a solution, just pretending the system you envision is viable. Let's look at the problem and make it viable.

[pfdietz]

I'd consider it an improvement over the current situation, where discourse is drowned in a sea of sanctionable incivility. Technology that has made spreading the shit easier needs to be matched by technology to control the shit.

[mmooss]

If you support them taking someone else's speech away, what will they say when the come for you? What will anyone else say?