Thursday, August 12, 2021
Pick-of-The-Day Featured Post (Taken from Techdirt)...Sub-Title: How Marjorie Taylor-Greene Plays The Victim and Gets More Money Thrown At Her
Bad Faith Politicians Are Using Social Media Suspension To Boost Their Own Profiles
from the how-do-you-deal-with-this? dept
And then, of course, you have people who are reasonably ticked off at Twitter "only" temporarily suspending Greene for spreading nonsense info, rather than permanently banning her.
So, in the end, you have both ends of the political spectrum mad about this setup, and trying to spin it to their own advantage. However, once again, it really seems to highlight the impossible nature of content moderation at scale, especially when some of the parties are clearly acting in bad faith. . .
Go for some more >> Looked at realistically, the fact that Twitter is following its stated escalation policies, rather than doing an outright ban should be seen as evidence that it is NOT BIASED AGAINST CONSERVATIVES, BUT IS TREATING EVERYONE THE SAME.
If you violate the company's policies about COVID vaccines, then you go through the escalation process -- whether you made a mistake in good faith or whether your a bad faith grifter. Of course, that's not how it will play out anywhere, because no one does nuance any more.
Some might argue that the obvious bad faith nature of MTG's arguments mean that Twitter should just have a policy of banning bad faith grifters. And that's certainly tempting, but how do you define bad faith grifter within a policy such that a large team of content moderation professionals can apply it consistently?
The problem is that you really can't.
The very nature of an escalation policy is that it does, eventually, take care of most bad faith grifters. It just takes time, and allows them to violate the rules a bunch of times before getting the final send-off.
Filed Under: bad faith, content moderation, politicians, social media
Companies: twitter
Get on your mark, get set and go > The race is on to Re-Draw Redistricting Maps
Redistricting sprint begins with major census data drop
“When a judge wants to move fast, they can,”
Dominion Defamation Lawsuit Complicates The Days of Their Lives for Three Trump Promoters
Judge: Dominion lawsuits against Giuliani, Powell and Lindell can move forward
[ Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images ]
"A federal judge on Wednesday denied Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell's motion to dismiss multibillion-dollar lawsuits involving their claims about the 2020 presidential election.
Why it matters: The lawsuits argue that the Trump allies' false claims of election fraud defamed the Dominion voting equipment company.
- Powell, an attorney, and Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, both worked for the Trump campaign. Lindell is a conspiracy theorist whose bedding company took off after he began amplifying Trump's claims of fraud.
- The defendants attempted to block the defamation lawsuits on procedural and First Amendment grounds.
What they're saying: "As an initial matter, there is no blanket immunity for statements that are ‘political’ in nature," U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols wrote in his opinion.
- "It is true that courts recognize the value in some level of ‘imaginative expression’ or ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ in our public debate. … But it is simply not the law that provably false statements cannot be actionable if made in the context of an election."
- Nichols wrote in his decision that the First Amendment does not offer "blanket immunity" to Powell and Lindell.
- He also dismissed Giuliani's argument that Dominion did not plead damages with enough specificity.
- Many of the Trump allies' statements, as cited in the suit, qualify as comments with factual claims which can be proven true or false, Nichols wrote.
- "The question, then, is whether a reasonable juror could conclude that Powell’s statements expressed or implied a verifiably false fact about Dominion," he said. "This is not a close call."
"We are disappointed with the Court’s decision," a lawyer for Powell said in a statement to Politico. "However, we now look forward to litigating this case on its merits and proving that Ms. Powell’s statements were accurate and certainly not published with malice."
- "We also anticipate taking full discovery of Dominion including a thorough review of its election software and machines used in the 2020 election."
=========================================================================
From Politico: Here's a link to the 44-page opinion from federal District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee
Judge refuses to toss out Dominion defamation suits against Powell, Giuliani and Lindell
"A federal judge has rejected bids by three top promoters of President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims to throw out defamation lawsuits they face over a slew of allegedly false statements they made about the election-technology firm Dominion.
The ruling is far from the final word on the cases, which are several in a series of suits Dominion has filed against its critics and the news outlets that gave them prominent platforms. However, the decision was something of a rout for the Trump allies.
One measure of that is that Nichols even allowed the election technology company to press claims of deceptive trade practices against Powell and Lindell over their actions. Powell’s lawyers argued that she couldn’t be liable on that theory because she wasn’t “engaged in trade and commerce of goods” at the time of her statements.
However, the judge said the company had viable claims that Powell, Lindell and Lindell’s company, My Pillow, sought to profit financially by spreading false and inaccurate information
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
