In the announcement (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/announcement.php?forumid=5)
by Ed we find out one doper is planning on suing another doper. In my opinion (and this is just my opinion, not a statement of fact of affirmation in any way, being as we have to be very careful around here about what we say) this is silly, silly, silly. (Not Ed’s announcement, of course, but the reaction of Doper A.)
In any case, is this board becoming like that over at http://patriarch.com? where every utterance has to be carefully weighed for fear of banishment.
I’m not saying what Doper B did was right, but c’mon, Doper A!
I would now like to say I love you all very deeply and hope I have said or done nothing here to offend
::xxoo kiss kiss::
I was in that thread, and I also rebuked Poster A for the Jew-for Conservative nonsense. I had no idea that Poster B was so stupid as to want to sue for a comment made on an Internet message board–he would have had one hell of time demonstrating that he had been harmed by that post. I guess having a law degree is not necessarily evidence of being intelligent.
On the other hand, I still think Poster A (you know who you are) ought to have apologized for his vile analogy.
It is my professional opinion, being generally familiar with defamation law and having read the offending thread before it was removed from view, that there is no way in hell Doper B has anything even remotely resembling a viable cause of action, against either Doper A or the Reader. But even the threat of litigation is just godawful obnoxious, so adios, Doper B.
Doper A’s analogy was godawful stupid, and IMHO worthy of an apology. But the post clearly explained that Doper A was altering Doper B’s words, so no reasonable person could possibly have attributed the words or any anti-Semitic intent to Doper B, at least in that context.
Doper A, Doper B…damnit…!! NO wonder I got them all mixed up. I can’t think in the abstract like this! Who am I, Cecil Adams or something? Good lord, I’m only human.
Sorry about the mix up. However, both of these dopers need to shake and go get a beer.
I’m not trying to be insensitive, but grow a skin…AND watch what you say.
I also wonder why Doper B would imagine that the Reader would have Doper A’s name, address and phone number when Doper B should remember that he did not have to provide his when he registered. Pretty dumb.
The threat of a lawsuit was ridiculous but if it stops Poster A from continually doing using this arguing tactic of changing words to more inflammatory words, as they’ve done often in the past, including to one of my posts…then perhaps this whole bruhaha will be worth it.
[hijack] minty, quick question. If Poster A had gone to the extreme, and switched “jew” and “conservative” with no label, and drawn every attention to that, called Poster B an anti-semite and flat-out lied, would Poster B even have a case at that point?
In other words, is defamation an issue when it’s applied to an anonymous identity?
[byejack]
[sub]Mods, et al., sorry for the GQ nature of this post. You have permission to defame and otherwise slander my anonymity.[/sub]
I’ll miss Doper B, but I have to assume that it was “suicide by mod”. Surely everyone knows that’s a guaranteed exit line, whatever the circumstances. I don’t know what Doper A’s apology would be worth, but I hope he’s been chastised.
Even if ‘A’ hadn’t explained that he was changing the words from “conservative” to “jew”, Poster 'B’s original “conservative” post was in the same damn thread! Anybody reading it would have known that the words were changed.
That said, ‘A’ never intended to imply anti-semitism against anybody, he was just illustrating that blanket attacks against diverse groups were stupid. He was basically saying “you wouldn’t use this type of argument/statement if it was a different group of people.” His method of demonstrating this may not have been the best, but I can’t imagine someone being banned over such a thing.
Maybe. Yes, a flase accusation of racism or anti-Semitism can easily be defamatory. But it would still be tough to make a case in the hypothetical you describe (and these comments apply only to the hypothetical, not the actual events). One of the big obstacles to a defamation claim is that defamation generally requires proof of actual damages, and that’s hard to come by for most private folks. It would be exceedingly difficult to prove damages to the plaintiff’s anonymous persona (though anonymity is not everyone’s goal around here, for instance the screen names of zev_steinhardt and cmkeller).
Some categories of defamatory statements are so bad, however, that they are classified as per se defamatory, and do not require proof of actual damages to support a recovery. The typical example is the libel or slander of a person’s business or professional work. Defamatory accusations of loathesome diseases and unchaste behavior are also per se libelous, which gives you an idea of how old the doctrine is. I bring this up, however, because I am aware of one oddball Texas case from about 20 years ago that held that a false accusation of racism was per se defamatory. I don’t know if such rulings exist in other jursidictions, but that would make the damages problem a lot easier to deal with. Even if it’s libel per se, however, we’re talking about trivial damages. It just ain’t worth the trouble.
You can’t get someone retroactively for violating a rule that wasn’t in existance at the time.
In any case, I know what Poster “A” was trying to do, I don’t think it was Jerkish and I somewhat agree with his postion. One of the big (and legitimate) gripes that people (Including Poster B) had was that “Jew” is an ethnic group as well as a religous one and since one doesn’t choose one’s ethnic group like one chooses one’s political beliefs, it’s not a fair analogy.
But what if Poster A had used “Muslim” or “Buddhist”? And it would have equally illustrated the sort of vicious bile that poster B was spewing. Would people still object?
This reminds me of a GD thread I started after some people who were (rightly) upset with Wildest Bill for calling Muslims “ragheads” were in turn calling WB a “fundie”. I think rewriting a hateful post with the substitution of a group that’s not comfortable to defame in place of one that is a very useful technique. (although, of course, forbidden).
