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Jack Thompson Sues Facebook For $40M
angry tapir writes "Jack Thompson has sued Facebook for US$40 million, saying that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Thompson is best known for bringing suit against Grand Theft Auto's Take Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Wal-Mart, arguing that the game caused violent behavior."
Wasn't this idiot disbarred a couple years ago? Could he really be so desperate to feed his narcissism?
Jack Thompson Sues Everybody, For No Reason.
Why is he still going? Don't they make him pay his opponent's costs when he loses? Shouldn't he be broke?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Angry comments by gamers on Facebook? Gamers, get over it. The man's just a litigious nut who hasn't got anything successfully banned in the United States. Saying bad stuff about him only gives him more ammo to criticize and sue companies with. Don't worry, Jack Thompson isn't going to get between you and Grand Theft Auto 19 or Halo X Spin-off.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Jack Thompson should be disbarred. His lawsuits are nothing but frivelous and a waste of tax payer money. He must have blown all his money that he earned from his tv show and now needs to keep filing idiotic lawsuits in hte hopes to make money for his ridiculous lifestyle. This guy should be disbarred and then he should be exiled from our country.
I wouldn't be surprised if the video game companies are paying him to make the anti-video-game movement look (even more) like a bunch of fools.
but get him off the streets before he costs someone else another million dollars to defend against his criminal actions.
It's unfortunate, but filing harrasing lawsuits is one of the few crimes people in prison can commit on those outside of it.
Personally, I think this shows just why Jack was disbarred - a blatant, persistent disregard for any laws that don't say what he wants them to say.
In this case, while I'm not a lawyer, I know that angry letters can be submitted to a newspaper and published without consequence - they can be angry in tone as long as they don't pass into libel.
A facebook page is just another point of distribution, with a lower cost of entry so the editorial controls are lowered. In some ways, it can even be considered self-publishing - at which point as long as you avoid libel/slander you're supposed to be protected under the 1st ammendment.
Jack is a legally trained lawyer, even if he's been banned for malpractice. He should realize this.
I've had an idea for types like this - at some point you award anybody they sue in an asshat way all their legal fees, lost wages, etc... Be generous. Until they're paid off they can't sue anybody else.
The slight loss of justice for them* would be outweighed by the increase in justice for everybody else.
*IE a construction company could 'accidentally' knock down their house, shrug and say *so sue me* and the asshat *couldn't*, not until he's paid all his court mandated settlements off.
I don't read AC A human right
Threats against the president's life are a serious criminal offense. Someone making a video game about punching a well known figure in the face repeatedly is perfectly legal.
I Hate Allan
A couple hundred of us should sue him for equally frivolous, but distinct, causes. Let's see how he handles a couple hundred simultaneous lawsuits.
X (where X is a country more than two hundred years old) never had any morals. It was built on pillage and destruction of existing culture and then on slavery to bootstrap a new economy.
Fixed that for you (both the semantics and the syntax). Every country on the planet was built by the "winners," who almost always displaced prior inhabitants. Virtually every country (less than a couple hundred years old anyway) featured slavery (or a closely related form of cheap labor extracted involuntarily) at some point. No, that doesn't make it right, but as Dr. King said "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice." We aren't perfect, but at least we seem to be getting better.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
When I was in high school, some dumbasses learned how to send email "anonymously" through like, hotmail or something like that. They sent a threatening letter to Socks. Yes, that Socks. The Clinton's cat. Secret Service showed up a couple days later to have a very long chat with them... I'm not sure of all the details, but I believe they weren't allowed to use computers at school for at least the rest of the year, and were very close to going to jail.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Indeed. And Pennsylvania was sort of the anti-Massachusetts. It's always annoying when people categorize the early America experience based solely on the one colony.
However, most of the colonies were in the opposite camp of Pennsylvania on most issues, such as religious freedom, relations with Indians, and self-government.
Well then... How about a Slashdot mod category of "netkook" in addition to troll... But what would be the karmic offset and point difference for "netkook"? Afterall, a netkook could incite some meaningful debate, which can be a good thing, especially if their comment is backed by some legitimate research... But I suppose most netkooks do not have legitimate research to back their claims... Hmm, on second though, nevermind all that...
When it comes to Jack Thompson, I think he's a little of both. Afterall, he must enjoy the attention he gets for his wild claims and frivolous lawsuits, which is definitely trollish. Perhaps, "kooky troll"?
Posting my thoughts on this and the post above it here:
For the Obama song thing, that was probably across the line, unless it was an entirely optional student pushed thing, with no faculty or staff involvement aside from offering resources like the camera. Given the age of the kids (which makes that seem unlikely), I'm hoping there are some lawsuits over it.
As for "flagpole days", so long as it's clear that any faculty or staff involved are not acting on behalf of the school (as in teachers involved in the event do not wield authority derived from the school during the event, as they are not acting as an agent of the school), and the resources used (in this case the space and time-of-day, pretty much) are not something that is inaccessible to student use outside of having a "christian prayer day", I don't see a problem. Now, when some students from another faith or another student organization of some kind ask to use the space during the same time-of-day for the following day (as in placing the same overall concerns for the school -- students gathering in location X outside of class at time Y performing an activity that is not in and of itself illegal) for some other activity (including any other type of religious service) are prevented from doing so for any reason that can't be justified as a safety or legality concern, then we have a problem. (So when the Muslims want the spot next week, Hindu the week after that, Wiccans the week after that, Satanists the week after that, Vodoun the week after that, and so on and so on...)
Frankly, any time any kind of government institution gives way to permitting any kind of religious "thing", it should have to give likewise to any other religious "thing" of the same general class resource-wise. Either that or refuse every group as a matter of policy.
Note that one of my big conditionals there is that noone wielding power as an agent of the school (which is itself an agent of the state) is taking part. If a teacher is present and retains his/her authority for the event (as opposed to being simply a participant wielding no school/state granted authority over the students), then it's become a prayer led by an agent of the school (and thus state), which crosses the line.
As for the Pledge, remove the reference to God. To be honest, I favor a complete reversion to the original Pledge to it's original text, before it was officially changed 4(going from memory, is that count right?) times. "I Pledge Allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.", as it was originally penned by Francis Bellamy.
Well, the common moral framework has been destroyed and re-created over that period of time, more than once in some cases. Look at how we feel about "bastards" (born out of wedlock), or the "N-word" (which used to be part of childrens' rhymes). Look at the content of tv (now radio/internet) programming, it's totally different. Objectively, I do think it is fair to say that much of the old moral framework was destroyed (as new frameworks evolved), and that popular media, definitely including music, played a huge role in changing the norms. So, if you are a conservative, meaning "conserve," meaning you generally like to keep things the way they are in this place at this point in time, by that standard terms like "moral decay" or "decline" make perfect sense, and blaming the media for ushering change makes sense, too.