You don't trust the FDA with your life? The Government will do what is expedient and not what is in the best interest of health? Couldn't agree with you more! Dictatorships never work. Lets abolish the FDA, and let people get information from a whole variety of different sources, and let them make personal health decisions themselves!
It isn't an abdication of U.S. responsibility. When the U.S. was given permission to fly bomber patrols over Spanish airspace, the U.S. and Spain signed an agreement with specific terms, responsibilites, and conditions. Obviously, they must have agreed to split the cost of any sort of clean up.
I don't know about this technology, but there were other forms of DVD copy protection that didn't work properly on xbox, and many PC and Mac DVD players.
Yeah, I mean products compete on price and convienience. The pirates have the legit companies beat on price, but traditionally it was a lot quicker and less hassle and much more safe to buy a legit copy than a pirated copy. The media companies certainly won on convienience!
Nowadays, buying things legit is actually just as much of a hassle, and just as dangerous with root-kits and such, as pirate stuff. The media companies are spending billions to ruin their market advantage.
Arguably, it is impossible for "casual speech" to take place on the internet.
Um, you might want to consider that. You realize all the implication if speech on the internet is universaly considered not to be "casual speech", right?
Most of the articles submitted to Slashdot would be considered libel, based on the standards of used in this court case. Are you going to cheer it on when Slashdot is sued into oblivion?
Product reviews are not written with intent on causing harm to the corporations that make baby slaying products. They are written to be informative to the consumer as to the quality and reliablity of the product. You would never see an article in Consumer Reports calling the CEO's of the company that made a highchair that killed babies crooks, swindlers or any other such names. No matter how many kids were killed by this high chair, and how worked up your emotions are, You are not allowed to publicly publish defamatory statements. Period. So your argument on your corporation statement is illogical.
Actually, I read several newspaper editorials, and watched a TV editorial, that called the executives of Enron (before they were convicted) "crooks", and "swindlers", and my favorite "not-so-petty theives". So what I am saying is dead on. I have also seem editorials in papers, on blogs, and certainly in web forums, calling G.W. Bush a "war-criminal" (even though he has not been convicted of any crime). Do you consider these things to be "libel"?
I would never see Consumer Reports call someone a "swindler", mostly because Consumer Reports doesn't have an editorial section, the way the New York Times has an editorial section.
Blogs and forums are a form of media,
They are a form of media, as in a CD-ROM is a media, or a SmartDrive is media, in that they are vessels to hold information. Blogs and forums are NOT media in the same way a TV news broadcast is media, or a newspaper is media. Blogs and web forums are not THE media. Blogs and forums are a conversation, a discussion, part of the general public discourse. Blogs and web forums are like going to the Speakers Corner and standing on a soap box and saying your peace.
Not that we could tell your political alignment from your statements...but...
What is my political alignment? I wasn't aware the opinions on libel law were that politicied an issue.
A specific internet forum is not public, in the same way The New York Times is public, or the way NBC is public. Nor does it have the implicit garantee of factuality that news reporting does.
An internet forum is a conversation... it is like talking to people at a party.
I'd just like to point out that, were I to hire an attorney and file a civil suit over those defamatory and libelous words you posted against me, given the context of this discussion you could reasonably argue that your words were meant in counter-argument and not intended to be considered by the reader as a statement of fact. Further, those words have yet to impeach my (already poor) credibility, nor have they impacted me financially.
I 100% agree with you.
However, if my home was destroyed in the worst natural disaster in American history, and I was forced to be evacuated, so I didn't even know that I was being sued... and to top it off, I was absolutly destitute, with no financial resources to hire an attorney or even travel to the place where the suit was held... then the situation would be dramaticly different. You would probably win, because I would have no means to defend myself.
Now, if *I* can get away with a blatent act of libel, and openly admit that I commited an act of libel, without any fear... and yet this poor woman, who made a completly reasonable statement in a message board (did you read what she said? In the context of her posting, what she said was entirely reasonable... most likely the woman she was complaing about WAS a fraud!), can get sued into oblivion simply because she was a victim of a natural disaster and couldn't defend herself... then can you see how your statement that she DESERVED IT is a little harsh?
Just because it's free to post information on the intranet doesn't make it any different from any other publishing medium
Absolutly it does. Postings on a web forum are completly different that advertisments. I post messages in product forums all the time saying a product "sucks", or it is a "rip off". A web forum is like an informal conversation... you can be no more libel for what you say that saying something bad at a dinner party.
The defendant didn't purchase ad banners slandering the plaintif, she mearly expressed her informal opinion to other parents.
For example, if GM purchased an ad in the New York Times that said "Ford cars death traps!", that would be libel. If I go into a web forum on cars, and someone says "Ford cars are a death trap!", that IS NOT libel... that is simply an opinion in a conversation. It isn't any different than if I went to a car club and stuck up a conversation with people. There is a difference between formal speech with implicit truthfulness, and informal speech used in public discourse.
Free speech is great, but when it causes financially damaging results to another person or business, that is grounds for litigation in any society. It's a crime. And should be punished.
This is absolutly false!! What if I find out a product for infants is extremly dangerous and many infants using the product have choked to death? Am I supposed to not let people know about the danger, because doing so would cause financial damages to the company that manufactures the product? What kind of insane society is that?
Should Consumer Reports be banned or sued, because I find out a product is really bad from the magazine, and I decide not to purchase it?
Can a movie reviewer be sued for giving a bad movie review. After all, they are saying things that could harm the movie company who made the movie?
Bombthrowing bloggers and forums are a big problem.
They are certainly a big problem for large corporations who want to supress negative information about their products. However, they are great for me, because I can find out when a product is truly aweful before I buy it.
Oh, and just to pre-empt the arguement that you will inevitably make, that "But this is different, the person was making FALSE statements". No, they didn't make false statements, they simply were not notified of the case, and didn't have the resources to fight the case. Not only that, but blogs and forums are not places where there is an implicit contract of truthfulness, like newspapers and encyclopedia articles. Blogs and web forums are similiar to stand-up comedy routines, newspaper editorial and opinion sections, conversation at a dinner party, and other forms of communication without any formal garantee of truthfulness and typically outside the scope of libel laws.
Kayne West can say "G. W. Bush doesn't care about black people." on television, and it isn't libel or slander, because it wasn't qualified as a statement of absolute fact the way it would be if it was printed as an official fact in a newspaper or encyclopedia.
No, the news is that even casual speech on web forums is now considered to be the same as a newspaper article, or television advertisment.
While libel laws have always been around, the bar on what sort of speech is considered libel has been dramaticly lowered. Before, libel would have to be some outright slanderous speech made is a very public manner, and there was an extremly high bar for the person making the claim of libel... now, all you have to do is say something that pisses off a person with a lawyer, and you are commiting libel.
You are using the word "libel" to describe two completly different forms of behavior. It is like if I say "Terrorism has always recieved the death penalty, and that is why we need the death penalty for people who commit terroristic acts of jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk". While it is true that libel has always been against the law, this is so stretching the definition of libel that I fail to see how anyone couldn't sue anyone else for saying something they don't like.
Except that libel used to mean a very specific set of speech, under a very narrow and specific set of circumstances. Now, libel means saying something that a rich person doesn't like.
You are a crook, you are a con artist, and you are a fraud! I also know, 100% for certain, that you murder people for fun, and that you worship Satan. I 100% garantee as truthful, that you like to kick puppy dogs in the head, simply for the sadistic pleasure of it.
So... IMO, good: The Defendant got what she deserved.
The defendant got what she deserved? How do you know that what she was saying wasn't true, that the plaintif WASN'T a con artist, a fraud, or a crook? The defendant simply didn't have the resources to tavel to the hearing, or to hire an attorney, because she lost absolutly everything in the Katrina flood and was forced to evacuate. Since when do people deserve to be forced into bankrupcy, just because they don't have the resources for years of litigation?
Do you think that every time someone on Slashdot says "Microsoft sucks! Their operating system is a peice of crap that can't run 5 minutes without crashing! Bill Gates is a criminal bastard!" deserves to pay 11 million dollars?
Perhaps if you weren't so busy running that white slavery ring out of your basement, which I 100% garantee is the 100% factual truth about you, then you would think about the implications of things like this.
There is an absolutly chilling effect on freedom of speech because of this.
Many people simply don't have the resources to defend themselves in court, especially not against a well-funded corporation. If you don't have the resources to hire a legal team and fight a long court battle, EVEN IF WHAT YOU SAY IS 100% TRUE, then you are going to be terrorized into not speaking out about something.
You are going to see more and more of this kind of legal bullying... companies suing for slander or libel on people critizing their products - it doesn't matter if the statements are true or not, since the vast majority of people simply don't have the resources to defend themselves. Slander lawsuits will be used as a way to intimidate people into not critizing bad products.
Libel and Slander laws were designed to protect people from making outright fraudulent and intentionally harmful statements, in a format were there is an implicit garantee of truth. For example, when a newspaper writes an article, there is an implicit garantee of truth - we understand a newspaper to be an official document stating facts. On the other hand, if a person expresses their opinion in an informal web forum ("Microsoft sucks ass!"), we understand that there is not implicit agreement to truthfulness and factual information. Even newspaper editorial sections are largely protected from slander, because you understand them to be personal opinion. Comedians are completly allowed to lambast people with untruths.
What is considered Libel and Slander is supposed to be speech in a very very narrow and very very formal set of circumstance (for example, newspaper articles, encyclopedia articles, product advertisments etc.), and only about statements that can be 100% proven true or false. (for example, I can say "AKAImBatman is a total asshole crook with no credibility in this industry", that cannot possibly be considered liable, because it is a statement of opinion. Only if someone said "On June 1st, 2006, AKAImBatman opened fire on an elementary school with an AK-47", and they said it in a formal newspaper article, advertisment, etc, and you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt it was false, and there was reason to believe that I didn't just make an honest mistake, only then would it be considered libel.
If you mouth off about someone, you had better make sure you can prove you're telling the truth and be prepared to do so in a court of law.
No, absolutly not. If everyone had to prove their statements are true everytime they said something, then there is no such thing as freedom of speech. If a company can sue a person every time someone has a negative opinion about a company and expresses it on the internet, this has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
These kinds of lawsuits are grave danger to consumers, as they are used to squelch consumer opinion about a bad product. If everyone has to worry about spending $500 an hour on lawyers defending themselves if they critize a company or product, people will be terrorized into not crisizing a product, even if what they have to say is true.
Because, if politicians told the truth, the promise would be this:
"I promise to increase taxes, for the sole purpose of hiring companies that make big campaign donations to my party, while at the same time making sure the research facilities are in states with a lot of electorial votes but shakey support for my party in order to win their votes. I promise that this project will spread as much money as possible, to as many people as possible that can get me elected. I promise that, after 4 years, and we have no results because we wasted all the money greasing the hands of our supporters, that I will vaugly imply that the lack of results is caused by the oil companies (without actually making any real accusation out in the open)... and I will demand even more taxes promising that results are "just around the corner", and that "we are throwing away our investment if we stop now". I will then tell people this project will be a success the same way the Manahattan Project was a success, totally ignorant of the irony that the "successful" Manhattan Project resulted in half a million people being killed."
Oh, and about price of oil going through the roof, it is 5 or 6 times more expensive in Europe and it hasn't crippled their economy yet. I think maybe it might cripple people's love for big gas-guzzling SUVs, if that isn't already happening already.
Um, actually the FDA encouraged the use of trans-fats, in order to protect us from the horrible greedy corporations who were poisoning us with trans-fat free butter and natural animal fats.
The X-Ray machine at the dentist office uses radiation. In the fictional horror movie, Godzilla, radiation turned an ordinary lizard into a 50 story city destroying monster.
Dental x-rays just haven't fully been thought out, not when fiction like Godzilla reminds us of the dangers of giant mutated creaters. A few cavities are a small price to pay in order to not have a giant lizard destroy Tokyo, don't you think?
Slashdot Mirror
Learning hasn't been make impossible... Just more difficult. Why make things more difficult for its own sake?
Since when has the government had to obey the same laws that the common people do?
The idea that Rockstar would even have to bother to go to court to defend their right to sell a video game is inherently fascist.
You don't trust the FDA with your life? The Government will do what is expedient and not what is in the best interest of health? Couldn't agree with you more! Dictatorships never work. Lets abolish the FDA, and let people get information from a whole variety of different sources, and let them make personal health decisions themselves!
It isn't an abdication of U.S. responsibility. When the U.S. was given permission to fly bomber patrols over Spanish airspace, the U.S. and Spain signed an agreement with specific terms, responsibilites, and conditions. Obviously, they must have agreed to split the cost of any sort of clean up.
I don't know about this technology, but there were other forms of DVD copy protection that didn't work properly on xbox, and many PC and Mac DVD players.
Yeah, I mean products compete on price and convienience. The pirates have the legit companies beat on price, but traditionally it was a lot quicker and less hassle and much more safe to buy a legit copy than a pirated copy. The media companies certainly won on convienience!
Nowadays, buying things legit is actually just as much of a hassle, and just as dangerous with root-kits and such, as pirate stuff. The media companies are spending billions to ruin their market advantage.
Arguably, it is impossible for "casual speech" to take place on the internet.
Um, you might want to consider that. You realize all the implication if speech on the internet is universaly considered not to be "casual speech", right?
Most of the articles submitted to Slashdot would be considered libel, based on the standards of used in this court case. Are you going to cheer it on when Slashdot is sued into oblivion?
Product reviews are not written with intent on causing harm to the corporations that make baby slaying products. They are written to be informative to the consumer as to the quality and reliablity of the product. You would never see an article in Consumer Reports calling the CEO's of the company that made a highchair that killed babies crooks, swindlers or any other such names. No matter how many kids were killed by this high chair, and how worked up your emotions are, You are not allowed to publicly publish defamatory statements. Period. So your argument on your corporation statement is illogical.
Actually, I read several newspaper editorials, and watched a TV editorial, that called the executives of Enron (before they were convicted) "crooks", and "swindlers", and my favorite "not-so-petty theives". So what I am saying is dead on. I have also seem editorials in papers, on blogs, and certainly in web forums, calling G.W. Bush a "war-criminal" (even though he has not been convicted of any crime). Do you consider these things to be "libel"?
I would never see Consumer Reports call someone a "swindler", mostly because Consumer Reports doesn't have an editorial section, the way the New York Times has an editorial section.
Blogs and forums are a form of media,
They are a form of media, as in a CD-ROM is a media, or a SmartDrive is media, in that they are vessels to hold information. Blogs and forums are NOT media in the same way a TV news broadcast is media, or a newspaper is media. Blogs and web forums are not THE media. Blogs and forums are a conversation, a discussion, part of the general public discourse. Blogs and web forums are like going to the Speakers Corner and standing on a soap box and saying your peace.
Not that we could tell your political alignment from your statements...but...
What is my political alignment? I wasn't aware the opinions on libel law were that politicied an issue.
A specific internet forum is not public, in the same way The New York Times is public, or the way NBC is public. Nor does it have the implicit garantee of factuality that news reporting does.
An internet forum is a conversation... it is like talking to people at a party.
I'd just like to point out that, were I to hire an attorney and file a civil suit over those defamatory and libelous words you posted against me, given the context of this discussion you could reasonably argue that your words were meant in counter-argument and not intended to be considered by the reader as a statement of fact. Further, those words have yet to impeach my (already poor) credibility, nor have they impacted me financially.
I 100% agree with you.
However, if my home was destroyed in the worst natural disaster in American history, and I was forced to be evacuated, so I didn't even know that I was being sued... and to top it off, I was absolutly destitute, with no financial resources to hire an attorney or even travel to the place where the suit was held... then the situation would be dramaticly different. You would probably win, because I would have no means to defend myself.
Now, if *I* can get away with a blatent act of libel, and openly admit that I commited an act of libel, without any fear... and yet this poor woman, who made a completly reasonable statement in a message board (did you read what she said? In the context of her posting, what she said was entirely reasonable... most likely the woman she was complaing about WAS a fraud!), can get sued into oblivion simply because she was a victim of a natural disaster and couldn't defend herself... then can you see how your statement that she DESERVED IT is a little harsh?
Just because it's free to post information on the intranet doesn't make it any different from any other publishing medium
Absolutly it does. Postings on a web forum are completly different that advertisments. I post messages in product forums all the time saying a product "sucks", or it is a "rip off". A web forum is like an informal conversation... you can be no more libel for what you say that saying something bad at a dinner party.
The defendant didn't purchase ad banners slandering the plaintif, she mearly expressed her informal opinion to other parents.
For example, if GM purchased an ad in the New York Times that said "Ford cars death traps!", that would be libel. If I go into a web forum on cars, and someone says "Ford cars are a death trap!", that IS NOT libel... that is simply an opinion in a conversation. It isn't any different than if I went to a car club and stuck up a conversation with people. There is a difference between formal speech with implicit truthfulness, and informal speech used in public discourse.
Free speech is great, but when it causes financially damaging results to another person or business, that is grounds for litigation in any society. It's a crime. And should be punished.
This is absolutly false!! What if I find out a product for infants is extremly dangerous and many infants using the product have choked to death? Am I supposed to not let people know about the danger, because doing so would cause financial damages to the company that manufactures the product? What kind of insane society is that?
Should Consumer Reports be banned or sued, because I find out a product is really bad from the magazine, and I decide not to purchase it?
Can a movie reviewer be sued for giving a bad movie review. After all, they are saying things that could harm the movie company who made the movie?
Bombthrowing bloggers and forums are a big problem.
They are certainly a big problem for large corporations who want to supress negative information about their products. However, they are great for me, because I can find out when a product is truly aweful before I buy it.
Oh, and just to pre-empt the arguement that you will inevitably make, that "But this is different, the person was making FALSE statements". No, they didn't make false statements, they simply were not notified of the case, and didn't have the resources to fight the case. Not only that, but blogs and forums are not places where there is an implicit contract of truthfulness, like newspapers and encyclopedia articles. Blogs and web forums are similiar to stand-up comedy routines, newspaper editorial and opinion sections, conversation at a dinner party, and other forms of communication without any formal garantee of truthfulness and typically outside the scope of libel laws.
Kayne West can say "G. W. Bush doesn't care about black people." on television, and it isn't libel or slander, because it wasn't qualified as a statement of absolute fact the way it would be if it was printed as an official fact in a newspaper or encyclopedia.
No, the news is that even casual speech on web forums is now considered to be the same as a newspaper article, or television advertisment.
While libel laws have always been around, the bar on what sort of speech is considered libel has been dramaticly lowered. Before, libel would have to be some outright slanderous speech made is a very public manner, and there was an extremly high bar for the person making the claim of libel... now, all you have to do is say something that pisses off a person with a lawyer, and you are commiting libel.
You are using the word "libel" to describe two completly different forms of behavior. It is like if I say "Terrorism has always recieved the death penalty, and that is why we need the death penalty for people who commit terroristic acts of jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk". While it is true that libel has always been against the law, this is so stretching the definition of libel that I fail to see how anyone couldn't sue anyone else for saying something they don't like.
Except that libel used to mean a very specific set of speech, under a very narrow and specific set of circumstances. Now, libel means saying something that a rich person doesn't like.
What if the person WAS a con artist, a crook, and a fraud?
You are a crook, you are a con artist, and you are a fraud! I also know, 100% for certain, that you murder people for fun, and that you worship Satan. I 100% garantee as truthful, that you like to kick puppy dogs in the head, simply for the sadistic pleasure of it.
So... IMO, good: The Defendant got what she deserved.
The defendant got what she deserved? How do you know that what she was saying wasn't true, that the plaintif WASN'T a con artist, a fraud, or a crook? The defendant simply didn't have the resources to tavel to the hearing, or to hire an attorney, because she lost absolutly everything in the Katrina flood and was forced to evacuate. Since when do people deserve to be forced into bankrupcy, just because they don't have the resources for years of litigation?
Do you think that every time someone on Slashdot says "Microsoft sucks! Their operating system is a peice of crap that can't run 5 minutes without crashing! Bill Gates is a criminal bastard!" deserves to pay 11 million dollars?
Perhaps if you weren't so busy running that white slavery ring out of your basement, which I 100% garantee is the 100% factual truth about you, then you would think about the implications of things like this.
There is an absolutly chilling effect on freedom of speech because of this.
Many people simply don't have the resources to defend themselves in court, especially not against a well-funded corporation. If you don't have the resources to hire a legal team and fight a long court battle, EVEN IF WHAT YOU SAY IS 100% TRUE, then you are going to be terrorized into not speaking out about something.
You are going to see more and more of this kind of legal bullying... companies suing for slander or libel on people critizing their products - it doesn't matter if the statements are true or not, since the vast majority of people simply don't have the resources to defend themselves. Slander lawsuits will be used as a way to intimidate people into not critizing bad products.
Libel and Slander laws were designed to protect people from making outright fraudulent and intentionally harmful statements, in a format were there is an implicit garantee of truth. For example, when a newspaper writes an article, there is an implicit garantee of truth - we understand a newspaper to be an official document stating facts. On the other hand, if a person expresses their opinion in an informal web forum ("Microsoft sucks ass!"), we understand that there is not implicit agreement to truthfulness and factual information. Even newspaper editorial sections are largely protected from slander, because you understand them to be personal opinion. Comedians are completly allowed to lambast people with untruths.
What is considered Libel and Slander is supposed to be speech in a very very narrow and very very formal set of circumstance (for example, newspaper articles, encyclopedia articles, product advertisments etc.), and only about statements that can be 100% proven true or false. (for example, I can say "AKAImBatman is a total asshole crook with no credibility in this industry", that cannot possibly be considered liable, because it is a statement of opinion. Only if someone said "On June 1st, 2006, AKAImBatman opened fire on an elementary school with an AK-47", and they said it in a formal newspaper article, advertisment, etc, and you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt it was false, and there was reason to believe that I didn't just make an honest mistake, only then would it be considered libel.
If you mouth off about someone, you had better make sure you can prove you're telling the truth and be prepared to do so in a court of law.
No, absolutly not. If everyone had to prove their statements are true everytime they said something, then there is no such thing as freedom of speech. If a company can sue a person every time someone has a negative opinion about a company and expresses it on the internet, this has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
These kinds of lawsuits are grave danger to consumers, as they are used to squelch consumer opinion about a bad product. If everyone has to worry about spending $500 an hour on lawyers defending themselves if they critize a company or product, people will be terrorized into not crisizing a product, even if what they have to say is true.
Because, if politicians told the truth, the promise would be this:
"I promise to increase taxes, for the sole purpose of hiring companies that make big campaign donations to my party, while at the same time making sure the research facilities are in states with a lot of electorial votes but shakey support for my party in order to win their votes. I promise that this project will spread as much money as possible, to as many people as possible that can get me elected. I promise that, after 4 years, and we have no results because we wasted all the money greasing the hands of our supporters, that I will vaugly imply that the lack of results is caused by the oil companies (without actually making any real accusation out in the open)... and I will demand even more taxes promising that results are "just around the corner", and that "we are throwing away our investment if we stop now". I will then tell people this project will be a success the same way the Manahattan Project was a success, totally ignorant of the irony that the "successful" Manhattan Project resulted in half a million people being killed."
Oh, and about price of oil going through the roof, it is 5 or 6 times more expensive in Europe and it hasn't crippled their economy yet. I think maybe it might cripple people's love for big gas-guzzling SUVs, if that isn't already happening already.
Would it be a good investment to buy and stockpile silver?
Not this urban myth again. Read about it at The Straight Dope for the real story:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040716.html
I don't know about lard... I don't have any facts on lard, but the stuff just seems bad. But butter is actually a health food.
http://chetday.com/healthybutter.htm
My doctor actually PRESCRIBED eating more butter when I stopped eating meat.
Um, actually the FDA encouraged the use of trans-fats, in order to protect us from the horrible greedy corporations who were poisoning us with trans-fat free butter and natural animal fats.
The X-Ray machine at the dentist office uses radiation. In the fictional horror movie, Godzilla, radiation turned an ordinary lizard into a 50 story city destroying monster.
Dental x-rays just haven't fully been thought out, not when fiction like Godzilla reminds us of the dangers of giant mutated creaters. A few cavities are a small price to pay in order to not have a giant lizard destroy Tokyo, don't you think?