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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?
This man seriously needs some help from a professional.
I know that doesn't stop him using other lawyers to sue people, but I would think it probably says a lot about the validity of said facebook postings if he *was* struck off for being a serial asshat.
ARGH!
Sorry Jack, but Facebook didn't make people hate you. You did that all on your own.
What a tool!
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.
I really hope this Lawsuit is thrown out, simply because people are entitle to their opinions of this guy and what he stands for. He seems to forget that he's on some sort of one man crusade to fight computer game industry, and puts himself out there ans is not ready to be scrutinized for what he believes in. These individuals are using the tools provided to them to voice their opinions. We still have that right to free speech. I have not read these posts, and nor do I want to, thus the beauty of the Net. Now that Mr. Thompson has advertised that these posts exists, he's drawing national attention to them and may find that more people agree with the angry posts rather than his points.
I don't necessarily agree with vial and viscious things but people will do what people will do.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I think Jack Thompson's caused more harm to "Jack Thomspon" than any other entity possibly could.
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.
Living in a country where you can't sue people for amounts like forty million dollars for Facebook postings sounds, well, friggin ridiculous.
I wonder how much just keeping the legal system running and churning through all these cases costs in tax dollars for a US citizen...
.: Max Romantschuk
"Jack Thompson [said] that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers."
"Jack Thompson [argued] that the game caused violent behavior."
Seems to me these angry postings prooved his cause
by showing game caused violent behavior.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
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.
Our right to free speech is a serious burden for this man, what can we do to ease his suffering?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
He's just a really skilled troll, and everyone always falls for him.
I would have to disagree, a troll is aware of his/her trolling, it is intentional.
Jack is like a troll, except for the fact that he is dead serious, and there is no "lol, trolled".
He really would restrict your rights and regulate the hell out of video games and the
rest of the online world that in his eyes is destroying the morals of America.
music lover since 1969
Delete all these comments before Jack reads them or you are totally getting sued!
Somebody should make a flash game of violently beating jack thompson and post that online. :D
From a fairly recent Court Order
"Thompson may petition the Court, but may do so only through the assistance of counsel, whenever such counsel determines that the filing has merit and can be filed in good faith. However, Thompsons frivolous and abusive filings must immediately come to an end. Further, if Thompson submits a filing in violation of this order, he may be subjected to contempt proceedings or other appropriate sanctions. All other pending petitions, motions, and requests for relief filed by Thompson are hereby denied without prejudice."
After reading that Court Order, I must say that this man needs professional help. No, I am not talking about legal help. The examples provided by the Court are very convincing.
most historians and anthropologists would agree that the "morals of America" haven't changed very much in 230+ years
{{citation needed}}
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
He really would restrict your rights and regulate the hell out of video games and the rest of the online world that in his eyes is destroying the morals of America.
But can he really believe that?
Yes, he really does. It was rap music before it was video games, but he honestly believes they are destroying our moral framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Yes, he really does. It was rap music before it was video games, but he honestly believes they are destroying our moral framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)
The truly ironic part is that people like him do far more damage to this country than any cultural phenomena they point their fingers at.
Just imagine if he got his way.. how many of our rights would be trampled and how many would feel oppressed due to someone else's morality being forced upon them?
He's just a really skilled troll, and everyone always falls for him.
I would have to disagree, a troll is aware of his/her trolling, it is intentional. Jack is like a troll, except for the fact that he is dead serious, and there is no "lol, trolled".
On usenet, the distinction is made between a "troll", and a "netkook"; their behavior is often strikingly similar, except that the former is doing it intentionally to incite reponses, whereas the latter actually believes what he's saying.
Jack, I gather, is more of a kook than a troll...
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Breaking news... "Jack Thompson sues Slashdot and OrangeMonkey11 $40M for not removing angry postings about him".
Barratry:
"The act of persistently instigating lawsuits, often groundless ones."
It's a crime. If anyone was seriously threatened by one of these, they could simply file charges. Facebook is already protected by the law per TFA, as Thompson should be well aware. Being aware and persisting makes it all the more likely he'd be convicted of this, and in each case receive greater fines and/or jail time.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Yeap, and before rap music, rock and roll destroyed our moral framework.
And sometime before rock and roll, swing destroyed our moral framework.
I am sensing a pattern here.
This new rock throwing game is destroying our caveman morality! We must stop it and only allow the throwing of rocks in the time-honored ritual fashion of our tribe!
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Clearly all that felon blood makes them more susceptible to the violent, drug using influence of video games!
It's a joke people, chill out.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
I'd say the Morals of America have greatly changed since it's founding.
Yeah, I miss the old days of witch-burning, slavery, and industrial child labor, too. /p
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
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
a country founded by the Puritans
Bullshit. One colony out of fifteen was founded by Puritans. Virginia was already doing quite well by the time those idiots landed in Massachusetts and damn near starved themselves to death with their idiotic collective farming scheme.
This mythology of the Puritans "founding the country" is progressive-era propaganda.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
to a country that bans prayer in school.
Prayer is not banned in school. Kids can pray all they want. Government-forced prayer is banned in school. For some reason that gets conservatives so mad you would think they were about to bust an artery.
Yes, he's wrong.
We've gotten better. Just remember that every time someone trots out a "founding fathers woulda" comment.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
I can't say he keeps me up at night.
There have been many such people in power over the years, and there appears to be no lasting damage.
It's pretty hard for these extremists to slip past public opinion, and even when the public is with them, it typically doesn't last for long.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
And I fail to see which of these should be considered bad. Maybe the wearing the hats in public?
First off... 15 colonies? only 13 founded our country. what are the other two you are talking of?
Secondly, it was far more than one colony that was founded by 'Puritans',
Massachusetts, Puritans
Rhode Island, Religious folks fleeing from Puritans
Pennsylvania, Quakers
New Jersey 'New Lighters'
Maryland Catholics
Virgina Anglicans
6 of 13 colonies are founded out of religious beginnings, and New York city had/has such a high concentration of jewish folk since it was New Amsterdam
6 1/2 out of 13 isn't exactly propaganda. Its half the story.
I would caution you about references to the Bush II era VP. The others are fine, and I agree with them, but Cheney is like Dracula/Chuckie/Freddie and Jason combined, except with all the nice parts removed and extra evil installed. You'd would not be sued by him, but he might eat your still quivering heart while playing cat's cradle with your entrails.
Why, there were quite a few founding fathers that didn't want slavery. In fact, it seems that the original drafts of the constitution banned slavery and had to be changed in order to get a few of the southern states on board. They compromised by placing the ability to ban imports of slaves and to tax their possession and make slave ownership and sales impractical in the future.
The act of slavery is irrelevant to someone pulling out a founding fathers argument. It's like Criticizing Obama's health care plan or foreign policy because he never rode a Farris Wheel.
This mythology of the Puritans "founding the country" is progressive-era propaganda.
Don't you mean socially-and-religiously-conservative-era propaganda?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
First off... 15 colonies? only 13 founded our country. what are the other two you are talking of?
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland? Neither were part of the 13 Colonies (obviously), but both were early British colonies. IIRC, there were attempts early in the Revolutionary War to agitate Nova Scotia (which then bordered with Maine) against the crown, but the mostly military and loyalist population of the colony shrugged them off.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
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.
False. A considerable number of them were Deists, meaning that they accepted a supreme being - God, Allah, FSM, what have you - but not organized religion.
And sometime before rock and roll, swing destroyed our moral framework.
It's the fault of the church. The original corrupting influence was theatre, and the church knew this, but none the less allowed plays providing they were on religious themes, but before you know it you've got Shakespeare writing about all kinds of crazy secular shit, and eventually theatres allowed in the city, and the final nail in the coffin of morality, allowing female roles to be played by actually female actors. Everything after that in the collapse of morality is postscript.
Loose lips lose spit.
No, it's the removing of the hats that really irks people. Indoors or outdoors, it's clearly immoral.
Back from July 2008, I think this was-
Summer-camp chaplain: This country was founded by men who were reverent...
Me: It was also founded by Virginia tobacco speculators!
*Those* guys certainly don't fall under the category 'reverent', unless you count the Almighty Dollar, er, Almighty Pound Sterling.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Just a nitpick: Rhode Island and Connecticut were both founded by Puritans who disagreed with the Massachusetts founders and left.
The cake is a pie
It was a value decision. Or should I say valuable decision. Without it, the US wouldn't have come together and history as we know it would have been completely different with perhaps slavery existing in it to this day. Values such as the freedom of speech that allowed abolitionist to convince people on the ending of slavery wouldn't have existed as the newly formed states may not have ever pact together or if they did, the union would have been much weaker.
Most of the rest of the modern world had outlawed slavery in their main countries with their insular possessions coming soon after about the same as the US walked into the civil war. Even while England had banned slavery by the 1700's, it was allowed in their colonies like India and places in Africa. Africa still has parts that allow slavery to this day.
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.
He's just a really skilled troll, and everyone always falls for him.
I would have to disagree, a troll is aware of his/her trolling, it is intentional. Jack is like a troll, except for the fact that he is dead serious, and there is no "lol, trolled".
On usenet, the distinction is made between a "troll", and a "netkook"; their behavior is often strikingly similar, except that the former is doing it intentionally to incite reponses, whereas the latter actually believes what he's saying.
Jack, I gather, is more of a kook than a troll...
Right. People think of the term "troll" as referring to some sort of monster, like the ones beneath the bridge in the story about the billy goats. But "trolling" is actually an old word for fishing by dragging a line with a baited hook or hooks behind a slow-moving boat. You can see how the older definition applies...
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