I am, in fact, NOT breaking defamation law, under pretty clear precedents in US case law (under which general accusations of bigotry, incompetence, and unpopularity are all considered per se non-actionable) which means YOU are defaming ME and should prepare for a lawsuit
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Replying to @arthur_affect
related: she gets a lot of mileage out of British libel laws, wherein the defending party is the one who has to prove that they're *not* committing libel, since the laws were set up to protect the Crown
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Replying to @Klezmerstyle @arthur_affect
Tiny quibble, the laws were set up to prevent/replace dueling. They’re designed to chill speech that might cause a breach of the peace—in fact criminal libel cases at common law, truth isn’t even a complete defense, you have to show good motive
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Breach of the peace how? Fights like? Sure that’s the same as a duel no? I was taught in law school that uk civil law was invented to prevent duels which were, at the time, killing one noble man a week. Willing to be schooled on it though? If that’s wrong.
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So let’s imagine I were to link the video of the Fed goons attacking that nice fiftysomething navy vet, and said “the goon with the nightstick is Al Giordello. He lives at <address>.”
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Al sues me for libel, claiming I have besmirched his reputation by claiming he did this thing which is bad. Because i’m accusing him of a crime and of incompetence in his profession, he doesn’t need to show injury, the insult about him specifically is enough to state a claim…
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Replying to @lawnerdbarak @Klezmerstyle
The "incompetence in his profession" has to rise to the level of saying he specifically did something wrong, too There's case law on this -- "He shouldn't be a lawyer and no one should ever hire him" isn't actionable, but "He's committed actions worthy of disbarment" is
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I can say "He's a shitty basketball player and he should by rights give up his position for someone else" about anyone, even LeBron James, and even if everyone would say I was wrong it's not actionable because it's a subjective opinion
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Klezmerstyle
That’s not quite true. Your LeBron example is but your lawyer example probably isn’t. If your statement can be read to imply the existence of undisclosed facts, it can be a libel. Basketball games are played publicly, so I don’t think there are any possible secret facts…
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Replying to @lawnerdbarak @Klezmerstyle
The case I was looking at when idly doing research on this was specifically about a case in Illinois about a lawyer suing a fellow lawyer over the statement "He's a shitty lawyer and no one should hire him"
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I mean, I agree it's in theory an edge case, which is why said lawyer brought the suit, but I think I also agree with the judge that it falls on the other side of the line
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Replying to @arthur_affect @lawnerdbarak
and in a lot of cases (such as the inspiration for this whole discussion), bringing the case itself is a way to try to intimidate someone into backing down, even if it's not an actionable case
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