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."

Comments

He never seems to learn...

[A. Kim]

Wasn't this idiot disbarred a couple years ago? Could he really be so desperate to feed his narcissism?

Re:He never seems to learn...

[Weaselmancer]

The Florida Supreme Court already did. He's pretty harmless these days. All he can do now are "give me attention" tricks. Like this Facebook thing. Anyone with a half an ounce of sense knows it's not going anywhere. He's more like a Jack Thompson caricature these days.

As for me, I think these little public humiliations he sets himself up for are endlessly entertaining. It's fascinating to know that this guy was a lawyer at one time when he obviously knows very very little about what's legal and what isn't.

Next week:

[bcmm]

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?

Re:Next week:

[jimicus]

I'm not sure the US operates on a "loser (almost) always pays" system.

The theory is that by not having such a system, it's harder for the big guy to steamroller the little guy by saying "You do realise if you carry on we will apply for costs, and our costs so far have been $X hundred thousand?".

So instead what happens is they've got a fantastically complicated system whereby the big guy can keep going back to court until the little guy can no longer afford representation in court.

Note: IANAL, nor am I a merkin.

Re:Mental illness is no laughing matter

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Mental illness is no laughing matter

[pleappleappleap]

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.

Re:The Difference between a Troll and a real Monst

[ShadowRangerRIT]

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.