• 5 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • Good stuff, it seems that he probably has no chance with this lawsuit. But still

    a false statement purporting to be fact

    Leaves a lot of wiggle room. How is “a false statement” defined? It’s ultimately a matter of semantics.

    I read this article which indicates that the truthfulness of the statement isn’t even the relevant legal issue, and even if it were partially false it would still not constitute defamation.

    Erroneous statement is protected, the Court asserted, there being no exception “for any test of truth.” Error is inevitable in any free debate and to place liability upon that score, and especially to place on the speaker the burden of proving truth, would introduce self-censorship and stifle the free expression which the First Amendment protects. Nor would injury to official reputation afford a warrant for repressing otherwise free speech.

    The fact that expression contains falsehoods does not deprive it of protection, because otherwise such expression in the public interest would be deterred by monetary judgments and self-censorship imposed for fear of judgments.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/defamation-and-false-statements-overview

    This agrees with what you are saying about knowingly false statements. But I never meant to say he could prove defamation, I just thought it was easier to claim than falsehood, because the story is obviously true 😅

    But I guess defamation is actually harder to prove than I thought.