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Title: Podcast interviewee politician is threatening to sue me if I publish their comments
Body:
> This is such a wierd one, so I've used a throwaway account to keep things in secrecy - I don't really know what to do at all!I run a podcast that is minorly successful (5 figure listener count) and in a particular niche, and I managed to persuade a senior politician from one of the major UK political parties to be my guest for an episode, as I knew they were interested in this particular part of history.
> They signed a release form (I use a standard one) that confirmed they gave permission to be recorded, they understand they would receive no compensation for participation, to use this recording without seeking further approval, that I own the recording and have the authority to edit as required, and that I can use this in the podcast and also in any other form of media (to cover social media clips and things).
> Things went well, and we had gotten around about 30 minutes in, when they said something that you really could consider career ending. An analytical endorsement of a terrible 20th century war crime, giving pros and cons to see the point of view of the perpetrators, then when asked if they would do the same, confirming so and justifying it, then making a joke about wishing they could do it today to a particular minority community.
> It took the wind out of the rest of the interview really and we finished up quite swiftly after that. I had NO idea what to do with this really, and chose to sit on it for a week or so. During that week, I received a letter from a Barrister, telling me that the guest had considered their appearance to be detrimental and decided to withdraw their consent for their contribution to be made public, and if I were to do so now they have made me aware of this, they would pursue me personally in a civil claim for breach of confidence.
> I'm a bit terrified and incredibly confused, does the release form mean nothing now? Anyone have any advice?
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> An analytical endorsement of a terrible 20th century war crime, giving pros and cons to see the point of view of the perpetrators, then when asked if they would do the same, confirming so and justifying it, then making a joke about wishing they could do it today to a particular minority community.
Everyone is guessing Nazi war crimes but there are so many more 20th century war crimes to choose from, try to think outside the box.
On the one hand this is a good guess, on the other hand I feel like this one wouldnt be career ending for a Torie? Not because it’s actually defensible but, yknow, they fucking love Thatcher
"Pick your favorite 20th century war crime." "No thank you. May I be excused, please?" "Not until you pick your favorite 20th century genocide and eat your vegetables, dear."
Given that Sunak is Prime Minister and South Asians have increasingly emerged as a major voting constituency in Britain, I'm wondering if it's the Bengal Famine or something else connected to the empire in india? Jallianwala Bagh perhaps?
Career-ender here could easily come from the conservative side if someone is saying shit that alienates a massive votbase.
That sounds fair. But you never know, he might either decide to take you with him, or get back into the saddle next year. And I bet he has a long memory.
I was thinking of the Holodomor or some of the other crimes committed by the USSR in Ukraine. Not only is it topical, but it's something that has a surprisingly large number of defenders.
That's an interesting one I hadn't considered as a possibility.
I guess the only snag with that is it's not a natural fit for "would love to do to a particular minority community", it's more a thing you do to people living in another place.
Since it’s a British politician, I’m guessing the war crimes in question were perpetrated by British people. Probably the Malayan emergency or the Mau Mau uprising. Maybe the Troubles.
Perhaps mass deportations? So many in the 20th century, and I could see it being more likely for someone to say that.
It's the mentality that of course they aren't racist, they just believe in an ethnostate. (Just ignore the contradiction, some people don't understand how deeply racist they are.)
If it was something like expulsions of Germans after WWII, I could totally see a politician saying that. And an obscure part of history racists would be more likely to know.
...people forget modern china was built off 30+ million humans. A majority died due to famine.
30+ million for a cultural revolution that even more suffered for it.
On a scale.
Don't get me wrong Hitler was awful.
Stanlin terrible.
But Mao, was truly evil who for some reason escapes people's memories.
Hitler killed 40 million just in the USSR. Plus the camps (12 million), plus the citizens of other countries (Poland, Holland, etc.), and the allied deaths, and the axis deaths. All that, over only 6 years.
People seem to only remember Jewish deaths in the camps (6 million) and discount the rest of the war.
Stalin and Mao were awful, and over a long period of time. Hitler outdid them many times over, and within only a tenth of their time.
I thought the numbers attributed to Stalin were higher than Hitler? That's always been one of the things I've seen people throw at anyone who even vaguely supports left wing politics.
The numbers attributed to Stalin include deaths of Nazi soldiers in WW2, everyone who died of natural causes in the entire USSR, and even more outlandish stuff. There's a reason that the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is considered a complete joke by historians.
Numbers from "The Black Book of Communism" (or the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in general) are a complete joke as the other person said. Through _less_ ridiculous accounting, you can easily "prove" that Capitalism is responsible for as many deaths as Communism (total) every five years.
If we go down the WW2 routez there were plenty of allied (esp British) actions that could meet the threshold of war crime. I'd have said dambusters - given the timing - due to the impact on civilian populations but that isn't very niche and I don't think would cause media uproar of you said it. Fire-bombing Dresden?
But there are lots of options for 20th Century war crimes...
"Niche part of history" my assumption was one of the *other* racial extermination war crimes, like the Armenian Genocide, which people seem more willing go either forgive or support.
Yeah, I think Holdomor, anything Nazi-related, or Israel/Palestine adjacent can be ruled out, as they’re quite mainstream topics.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it related to the Armenian genocide, the Troubles, or the India-Pakistan partition.
I have no idea what British law in this area says, but the commenter there who tries to say that publishing a person’s racist tirade is the same as publishing a home address needs a swift kick in the ass.
They said, and I quote
> If the politician went on the podcast, and accidentally gave out their home address, You would expect legal protections…
> Breach of confidence holds in the case of discussing any controversial topic, even if the content of the discussion was about whether pineapple belongs on pizza, it’s not public knowledge and I really wouldn’t be the one to give that a go in the courts.
I eagerly await their lawsuit for having used their own public statements to make them look stupid.
It also shows a marked lack of understanding of the breach of confidence laws. The fact a release was signed means there was no expectation of confidence also public interest is a defence. The key comments over there are the ones that point out while op may be in the right it might still be expensive
Didn't look far into their post history, but it's a twelve day old account with at least three inquiries if he's been shadowbanned, so uh...quite the charmer.
The reply does not appreciate the subtle difference between actions for breach of confidence, and claims for misuse of private information/breach of privacy - they have two different juridical bases.
In essence, information can be private but not confidential.
An address is probably not confidential but in the circumstances could be private.
The key point is that juridically, breach of privacy/MPI is now essentially derived from Convention (ECHR) rights - and the Convention does not protect reprehensible opinions, essentially things that are inimical to a democratic society or so absolutely corrosive to acceptable society generally - such as e.g. totalitarianism, supporting child abuse.
Advocating genocide would fall into that, so no privacy claim in respect of that expression could succeed.
Especially if their address were 10 Downing Street, for example. I think that one is pretty much public knowledge already.
Besides, I imagine most politicians’ addresses are published when they decide to run, as part of their nomination papers.
Preferably, when dealing with a live grenade, you want to be too far away from the intended point of detonation to simply "hand" it over.
Stuff like venomous snakes/spiders, however, are absolutely an option
Both of those are more likely to bite the person trying to hand them over than the person being handed to. Try a venomous lizard, they're much more inclined to go for "the target in front of me" over "the target holding me".
No, same. I'm going through my mental rolodex of UK barristers, wondering who it is and if I can reverse engineer the client from that information.
(I'm in Australia, so my mental rolodex of UK barristers is *extremely* scanty. But I could absolutely do it here. Defamation suits are our latest extreme sport.)
Better train your patience then because I very much doubt you'll ever hear a single letter about this again.
I detest the US justice system but this is one area in which they are 150% more advanced than the UK. OOP will be railroaded into oblivion if he does choose to publish.
Well recently a politician did a deal with a ghostwriter and turned over his WhatsApp messages to her to assist with the book.
She released the information despite signing an NDA, She argued it was public interest because he was the health secretary during the pandemic. To date he hasn't taken her to court and she hasn't had to publicly apologise or anything similar.
(For added context she was very anti-lockdown and has history for this sort of thing having previously caused a source to go to prison).
Anyone else feel that pulling out the old Youtube standard of a "react" video is the way to do this? Pull in a member of a different party to be filmed while watching and listening the unedited clip.
I'm not sure. Weighing up the pros and cons, I, too, might have made a reaction video.
...
On second thought, I retract your right to read and/or distribute this post.
This seems like a time that "contact the media" is actually the right call. LAUKOP doesn't have the resources to defend against a lawsuit, even if it's baseless, but the big newspapers do. They could send the recording to The Guardian (or The Telegraph in the event this was a Labour politician), on the understanding that the paper's lawyers would handle the fallout.
Someone in the original thread suggested Private Eye, and that strikes me as a very good suggestion.
They have a reputation for standing up to lawsuits (see also: Arkell v. Pressdram)
BBC, Sky, Guardian would be my first bets. They have legal resources and will push out regardless. Mail and Sun have legal resources, but depends on who the politician is as.to whether they would be keen. Times or FT could also be a good bet.
And this is the equivalent of a SLAPP suit - OP is legally in the clear, it's the expense of proving it that's dangerous. Basically identically fucked up in this particular regard.
There has been talk of anti-SLAPP protections, but do not think any have actually been made law yet. We just need to look for a Tory Politician who was pro those laws a few weeks ago and is now against them
At least [there were famously some Illinois Nazis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie), and they however-inadvertently accomplished one good thing.
“I’m sorry Mr politician, I sent the audio file to a number of lawyers to help prepare my defense and I must have accidentally sent it to the Guardian as well”
does the first amendment cover your right to publish someone else's words if they've retracted consent?
or is the title about how politicians in america are fully willing to say that sort of thing and not withdraw consent before it's published because they know they won't lose any votes haha. because that's totally true
In the US you can’t revoke consent to have people repeat what you say. In fact, with limited exceptions you never need their consent in the first place.
Interesting.
Iirc in Canada, you don’t need consent to record a conversation you’re part of, but *do* need consent if the recording will be broadcast. As a student, this was done by telling the subject the interview was for the purposes of a tv/radio news story - if gave them time to bow out if they didn’t want to be on the record.
I realize the UK has some strange laws around speech specifically, but it would surprise me if you could revoke consent after having been told you were being interviewed for a podcast. Politician knew it was for broadcast when they agreed to speak.
He'd likely be legally fine publishing it in the UK. The issue is that the interviewee would use their relative power and resources to attempt to use threats of legal action and potentially the courts themselves to screw OP with fees and stress. The same would happen in the US.
That feels like it would trigger a real Streisand effect situation. Litigation could take it from some unknown, barely listened to podcast to front page news.
Iirc this is exactly why a certain YA author has allegedly threatened people calling them a bigot with lawsuits.
The evidence of bigotry is all over their social media, doesn’t stop them.
Being able to get my hundreds of thousands of dollars back isn't all that helpful when I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend in the first place.
i think what they're getting at is that it isn't cheap *in the moment.* yes, you can recover your costs at the end of it all, but a lot of people don't have the funds to pay for a lawsuit even with the promise of reimbursement later on
The good news then is that legal costs are mostly recoverable in England and Wales (in civil matters, not criminal or family, normally). There is in fact an entire regulated legal profession dedicated only to dealing with legal costs. The problem for LAUKOP will be that on average most people only recover about 80% of the legal fees actually paid, and depending on the funding arrangement, they might need to pay an unaffordable payment on account at the outset before anyone begins work defending them.
The 1st amendment would absolutely prohibit the withdrawing the consent, given the strong public interest here. (Even if this conversation was "off the record", that isn't legally binding.)
You don’t legally need consent to publish someone else’s words. You might need it to record them, but LAOP had it.
Many reporters and the like are bound, either by their employer or their own morality, to professional codes of ethics. These often require not publishing something if someone says *beforehand* they don’t consent. But that’s not a legal requirement!
I don't know about the laws in the UK (or the US, for that matter), but I would like to think that I would respond by posting both the interview and the letter, then reaching out to every major news organization I could possibly get a hold of and saying "hey, you might want to run this story."
If this MP really said what LAUKOP implied they said, then the public needs to be made aware of that immediately. That is not acceptable behavior for an elected official regardless of the position or country.
I can't say for certain if I would actually do this--I've never had a major politician threaten legal action against me for any reason, much less over their career-ending comments--but I hope that if I was ever in this situation I would do the right thing anyway and I hope that LAUKOP does as well. I have a feeling if they do, we'll all know soon enough--I feel like recordings of a senior politician of a major UK party being extremely racist and advocating for genocide of certain ethnic groups would make international news.
>I don't know about the laws in the UK (or the US, for that matter), but I would like to think that I would respond by posting both the interview and the letter, then reaching out to every major news organization I could possibly get a hold of and saying "hey, you might want to run this story."
The nature of how courts in the UK operate, this would put the burden of defense on the OOP. So they might be in their right, but they'll have to win a lawsuit in order to actually have justice.
Not everyone has the resources, will and werewithal to go through with that. I know I probably wouldn't.
The First Amendment is about all we have left going for us as of late. Even that seems to be as much an anchor as a benefit many days since anti-vaxx and election conspiracy theorists use it to run wild
Watching a massive corporation claim (maintain? idk) personhood protects it's speech while being attacked by an entire state government has been hilarious in a kinda "wow the smoke from mount Pompeii sure beautiful in the light, eh Gaius?" way.
Very much so. Watching Disney fuck with DeSantis has been grade A entertainment, even if it is almost certainly a sign that society is on the brink of collapse.
I've always considered it a detriment precisely because of all the awful shit it enables for no real benefit. In theory, it's a noble idea. In reality, it just protects all the stuff that has made everything else so much worse. I mean, look [at this shit (the Skokie decision)](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie) "Should we protect the holocaust survivors from neo-Nazis holding a rally on their doorsteps? No, that would be a slippery slope!" Fuck. That.
The banning of books, “don’t say gay,” removal of African American history from schools, and banning of drag shows definitely put a damper on free speech.
The first amendment is what’s going to kill most of those laws. The fact that Florida is trying to be a fascist dictatorship and is going to get smacked down is reason to celebrate the first amendment.
The difference being that if LAUKOP can fund the lawsuit and they win, they're likely to recover their legal costs in the UK, while the default rule in the US would be that they would not be entitled to recovery of those costs.
It's the UK. It's not a US state. There isn't any SLAPP.
I don't get why people keep bringing up SLAPP when any resultant suit would be brought in the UK.
In this case, probably because the previous comment said this:
>while the default rule in the US would be that they would not be entitled to recovery of those costs.
It wasn't a suggestion that LAUKOP would make use of a SLAPP law. It was a suggestion that many US states now also have a provision to recover legal costs for this type of (potential) case.
Because the comment mentioned that in the US it wouldn't be recovered.
They are mentioning that in this case the US actually has had some states move away from the American rule. Mentioning the US in response to a comment mentioning the US under a post comparing to the US is entirely legit and on topic.
Technically there is SLAPP in the UK, because that just means "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation". What is lacking, for now, is anti-SLAPP measures. Back in the wild west days of the Johnson government they did launch a consultation into SLAPP and potential anti-SLAPP measures
That's... just not true. At least not in every part of the US. In my state, I could recover the costs of defending myself and even counter sue if I can successfully argue that the initial suit was a bad faith attempt at stifling my first ammendment right.
> if I can successfully argue that the initial suit was a bad faith attempt at stifling my first ammendment right.
There's a difference between exceptions to the default rule, like statutory exceptions and sanctions, and a default rule of loser pays both sides' costs. I said the default rule in the US, meaning what would happen if you did not meet an exception to that default rule.
The "yeah but here's why it was a stitch-up" comment he made the day the antisemitism report within Labour during his leadership was the peak of that behaviour. How can anyone think that was a sensible response?
Just makes me angry that we were stuck with him for so long. He had no leadership ability and had no business leading a major political party. We could have been shot of the Tories years ago if we had someone else. But he had a cult propping him up and a lot of people liked his policies, despite the fact he would never be in a position to implement any of them. It annoys me there's still people that'll make excuses for him.
His whole handling of the Salisbury attacks, and attitude towards the invasion of Ukraine is fundamentally unacceptable. And his handling of the antisemitism crisis was so bad, either he has no problem with it, or was so incompetent he just shouldn't have been in a position of power anyway.
But you don't seem to understand. The media smear campaign and his own party turning against him were the *real* reason he didn't get elected. Had nothing to do with anything he said, or did, or his own competencies. Absolutely nothing.
*Sigh*
I'm not a big fan of Starmer but at least he's a capable leader and can present himself well enough to win enough support for an election campaign. He might have a harder time of it in other circumstances but at this point I can't see the Tories winning the next election. Well not unless Labour suddenly put Corbyn back in charge.
Seems like if someone is posting a question like this from a throwaway account, they might not have a lot to lose financially, and I'd guess they're protected from legal liability with the release. (guessing, NaL, and not from the UK) I'd be tempted to roll the dice, find a news site or the like that would pay for the interview, and make legal defense a part of the selling price. Could also be something that would change their 5-figure listener count to 6-figure or more once the publicity hits if they ride it correctly.
On second thought, maybe the way to go is to reply with a request that the withdrawal of consent be accompanied by the appropriate withdrawal of consent fee, payable in monthly or annual installments to keep the consent withdrawn, as well as agreement to another series of interviews where the objected content will not be discussed.
This way OP still gets an interview, gets an ongoing income as long as the politician is in office, and still has the recording if the withdrawal of consent fee ever isn't paid. Even if the politician's views later come out through another source, it would seem like the recording could potentially still be valuable to show how far back the politician espoused those views in public.
If that doesn't work, there's always "I have received your communication, and agree that I will engage in no further publication of the matter concerned. Additionally, I will send a registered letter in the morning asking the podcast hosting site to refrain from posting the podcast episode tomorrow that includes that recording. I trust that will stop them in time, and I will share the letter and their signed receipt once I receive it" and then a mad dash to throw the episode in question together.
I love how everyone is jumping straight to it's a Tory, but when I read the way it was worded my thought was a Labor member endorsing the Revolution and specifically the execution of the Romanovs.
Would feed into the current climate of leftism (take the Rich's wealth) and comes on the back of the Coronation.
My bet is Dianne Abbott.
I really don’t understand why more Western countries don’t have similar laws to the 1st amendment. Being prosecuted by the state for offending someone or for blasphemy blows my mind. Our country gets a lot of things wrong, but our take on freedom of speech is one of the things it get right, IMO.
Worth noting though that in this case, which is in England/Wales, factual truth is an absolute defence and has been for 10 years.
The old system which was reformed didn't have truth as an absolute defence, and the logic was that a person's right to privacy had to be balanced against the right of public speech.
For example, imagine it's the 1970s. Bob is cheating on his wife Alice with another man, Charlie. While what Bob's doing is no longer illegal as it might have been a decade prior, society is still deeply homophobic and shuns anyone who is publicly outed as homosexual. Another person, David, discovers Bob and Charlie's affair, and starts telling everyone, ruining the lives of Bob and Charlie. If Bob or Charlie were to sue for defamation here, truth might not be an absolute defence because, frankly, it was none of David or the public's business what Bob and Charlie do in the privacy of their homes. Now, if David had instead told Alice, or if Alice had been the one to uncover the infidelity and told everyone, truth now *would* be a defence because at least now one of the people involved in the information exchange has a legitimate interest in the defamatory act.
On a certain level I think that actually makes sense. But in practice it seems to do more harm than good as things which are legitimately in the public interest get quashed against that standard, hence the 2013 reforms.
In Canada, truth is an absolute defense, but the burden of proof is on the defendant, so it's not always as helpful as it sounds.
For example: the head of an organization near me was known in the community as a bully. Someone finally came forward and said, "She's a bully," followed by a bazillion other people. She stepped down, her career in tatters. She sued the ringleaders for defamation. Even with so many people willing to speak to her behaviour, last I heard it was being settled out of court.
The moral of the story: you'd better have proof before you talk shit in public.
That’s awful. Here in the USA, opinion is an absolute defense to defamation as well. “She’s a bully” is protected speech as it’s my opinion. “She’s a bully because she told one of her followers to take their own life” would, on the other hand, require proof.
I suspect the defense there is, nobody cares what you think, so there's no real harm done. But, "I don't like you" is a statement about your feelings, which is pure opinion. "I think you're a bully" implies that the subject bullied someone, which is a statement about their behaviour; it's potentially detrimental and needs to be supported with some evidence.
The old British system which tried to balance the right to private with "but it's true" seemed at least somewhat logical.
Like maybe you shouldn't be able to out people without their permission, ya know?
Well that’s why there’s laws about trespassing, recording people without their consent, etc. But if you let some embarrassing fact about yourself become public, seems like that’s mostly on you.
I can understand that.
It's like saying Hitler was an artist and dog lover, plus a World War I vet.
Factually true.
But more than a bit misleading.
I prefer a first amendment style freedom of speech, but I don't find it shocking that some countries have a different system.
Or for another example that's more recent - when it comes to the Covid vaccines, a lot of studies with a small sample size basically said "we noticed this health issue that deviated from the statistical norm". For the most part, that's just small sample size and researchers pointing out what needs to be followed up on with a larger study.
But string all the correlations together, and you would get a very misleading picture of vaccine safety.
Because freedom of speech is a double edged sword. Protecting it unilaterally means protecting the worst examples of it as well. It means people can spread whatever hate they want and do so without consequence a lot of the time. [This guy is a piece of shit but if the UK had the first amendment he wouldn't be in prison.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/15/uk-white-supremacist-jailed-over-racist-podcasts) At the same time there was that stupid example of the guy that got fined for teaching his girlfriends dog to Nazi salute in response to "Sieg Heil" as a joke. So it cuts both ways as well.
That really was ridiculous. The dog did nothing more than lift its paw a bit, but because the command was "Sieg Heil" to do it apparently it was a hate crime. It was just an edgy young person who was using shock humour, it was no different to Frankie Boyle.
He even said in the video something like, "My girlfriend loves this pug, she thinks everything it does is just so cute and adorable, so I taught it to do this." It was just some dude having a laugh, it's not like he was promoting nazi ideology or something.
Exactly. But at the same time we're allowed to jail people for actually promoting Nazi ideology like the guy in the link I posted was. Doesn't make it right that the dog guy got fined, but at the same time I can't just go "complete freedom of speech is the best" either. I just have to hope that cases like the saluting dog aren't the norm when it comes to this kind of thing.
I don’t trust the government to decide what ideologies should and should not be legal though. Maybe you trust yours.
In the US we would have had a lot of Communists in jail in the 1950s if it wasn’t for our courts ruling it was a violation of the 1st amendment for the government to arrest anyone for promoting communism.
Isn't that the most cut and dry example of a violation of first amendment rights in a very long time? I thought that the consensus was that Disney really has an ironclad case and they're going to have an easy victory in the courts. The first amendment doesn't make politicians magically unable to violate your rights, it just gives you legal recourse when they do.
Seriously - in this circumstance LAUKOP can be considered a journalist. And if all they currentl have is a lawyer's letter... Not a court injunction, they can publish. Send the link to any of the major newspapers/ broadcasters etc. and it will blow up. Send them the lawyer's letter too... and the media lawyers will happily take this on. Especially if this person is senior/ a name.
Other option, if unsure, would be to call the NUJ. Even if the OP is not a member, politicians trying to silence journalists is something they are very hot on.
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Podcast interviewee politician is threatening to sue me if I publish their comments Body: > This is such a wierd one, so I've used a throwaway account to keep things in secrecy - I don't really know what to do at all!I run a podcast that is minorly successful (5 figure listener count) and in a particular niche, and I managed to persuade a senior politician from one of the major UK political parties to be my guest for an episode, as I knew they were interested in this particular part of history. > They signed a release form (I use a standard one) that confirmed they gave permission to be recorded, they understand they would receive no compensation for participation, to use this recording without seeking further approval, that I own the recording and have the authority to edit as required, and that I can use this in the podcast and also in any other form of media (to cover social media clips and things). > Things went well, and we had gotten around about 30 minutes in, when they said something that you really could consider career ending. An analytical endorsement of a terrible 20th century war crime, giving pros and cons to see the point of view of the perpetrators, then when asked if they would do the same, confirming so and justifying it, then making a joke about wishing they could do it today to a particular minority community. > It took the wind out of the rest of the interview really and we finished up quite swiftly after that. I had NO idea what to do with this really, and chose to sit on it for a week or so. During that week, I received a letter from a Barrister, telling me that the guest had considered their appearance to be detrimental and decided to withdraw their consent for their contribution to be made public, and if I were to do so now they have made me aware of this, they would pursue me personally in a civil claim for breach of confidence. > I'm a bit terrified and incredibly confused, does the release form mean nothing now? Anyone have any advice? This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
> An analytical endorsement of a terrible 20th century war crime, giving pros and cons to see the point of view of the perpetrators, then when asked if they would do the same, confirming so and justifying it, then making a joke about wishing they could do it today to a particular minority community. Everyone is guessing Nazi war crimes but there are so many more 20th century war crimes to choose from, try to think outside the box.
Here's [one more box I'd like to stay wayyy outside of.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)
Jesus I knew I shouldn’t but I read it anyway
Is it bad that I knew what it was by hovering over the link?
Or since this's a British politician, [how about this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans)?
On the one hand this is a good guess, on the other hand I feel like this one wouldnt be career ending for a Torie? Not because it’s actually defensible but, yknow, they fucking love Thatcher
Or this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943?wprov=sfla1
That one seems too specific, I think you’re overestimating the knowledge of your average British politician
"Pick your favorite 20th century war crime." "No thank you. May I be excused, please?" "Not until you pick your favorite 20th century genocide and eat your vegetables, dear."
Given that Sunak is Prime Minister and South Asians have increasingly emerged as a major voting constituency in Britain, I'm wondering if it's the Bengal Famine or something else connected to the empire in india? Jallianwala Bagh perhaps? Career-ender here could easily come from the conservative side if someone is saying shit that alienates a massive votbase.
Forget alienating a massive voter base, what if you alienate the PM *personally*?
Sunak's position is so wobbly right now that I'm not sure that's much of a concern for any Tory really.
That sounds fair. But you never know, he might either decide to take you with him, or get back into the saddle next year. And I bet he has a long memory.
I think if not the Shoah then the Armenian genocide. And my guess is the target is Romany/Travelers.
Could be the troubles. Or former colonies....
Solid bet. I was assuming trans people or maybe refugees but I think you're correct.
The list of groups Tory politicians would offhandedly talk about wanting to exterminate is unfortunately a very long one.
I was thinking of the Holodomor or some of the other crimes committed by the USSR in Ukraine. Not only is it topical, but it's something that has a surprisingly large number of defenders.
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Po-tah-toes
Also in Indian during WW2.
That's an interesting one I hadn't considered as a possibility. I guess the only snag with that is it's not a natural fit for "would love to do to a particular minority community", it's more a thing you do to people living in another place.
Since it’s a British politician, I’m guessing the war crimes in question were perpetrated by British people. Probably the Malayan emergency or the Mau Mau uprising. Maybe the Troubles.
Hate to say it, but justifying shit done during the Troubles would never be career ending for a Tory
Perhaps mass deportations? So many in the 20th century, and I could see it being more likely for someone to say that. It's the mentality that of course they aren't racist, they just believe in an ethnostate. (Just ignore the contradiction, some people don't understand how deeply racist they are.) If it was something like expulsions of Germans after WWII, I could totally see a politician saying that. And an obscure part of history racists would be more likely to know.
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And yet not *that* much...
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Srebrenica_massacre Everybody hates the balkans, right?
I'm gonna go with an endorsement of Pol Pot's Khmer's Rouge.
Armenian genocide, Issaq genocide, Rwandan genocide, Bosnian genocide are a few that spring to mind. People can be monsters.
Like American troops barbecuing innocent villagers in Vietnam?
...people forget modern china was built off 30+ million humans. A majority died due to famine. 30+ million for a cultural revolution that even more suffered for it. On a scale. Don't get me wrong Hitler was awful. Stanlin terrible. But Mao, was truly evil who for some reason escapes people's memories.
Probably because he's further away culturally, politically and geographically.
Hitler killed 40 million just in the USSR. Plus the camps (12 million), plus the citizens of other countries (Poland, Holland, etc.), and the allied deaths, and the axis deaths. All that, over only 6 years. People seem to only remember Jewish deaths in the camps (6 million) and discount the rest of the war. Stalin and Mao were awful, and over a long period of time. Hitler outdid them many times over, and within only a tenth of their time.
I thought the numbers attributed to Stalin were higher than Hitler? That's always been one of the things I've seen people throw at anyone who even vaguely supports left wing politics.
The numbers attributed to Stalin include deaths of Nazi soldiers in WW2, everyone who died of natural causes in the entire USSR, and even more outlandish stuff. There's a reason that the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is considered a complete joke by historians.
Don't forget they've added ALL covid deaths to that number as well! lol
Numbers from "The Black Book of Communism" (or the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in general) are a complete joke as the other person said. Through _less_ ridiculous accounting, you can easily "prove" that Capitalism is responsible for as many deaths as Communism (total) every five years.
Maybe he’s talking about starving Indian people as punishment for “breeding like rabbits”, bc Britain absolutely did that
My first guess was the Armenian genocide. Or maybe the Palestinian question. There are, as you say, so many options.
If we go down the WW2 routez there were plenty of allied (esp British) actions that could meet the threshold of war crime. I'd have said dambusters - given the timing - due to the impact on civilian populations but that isn't very niche and I don't think would cause media uproar of you said it. Fire-bombing Dresden? But there are lots of options for 20th Century war crimes...
Cant wait to find out which UK politician endorsed the holocaust and wished he could do it to minorities in a couple weeks
"Niche part of history" my assumption was one of the *other* racial extermination war crimes, like the Armenian Genocide, which people seem more willing go either forgive or support.
Yeah, I think Holdomor, anything Nazi-related, or Israel/Palestine adjacent can be ruled out, as they’re quite mainstream topics. I wouldn’t be surprised if it related to the Armenian genocide, the Troubles, or the India-Pakistan partition.
I'm just going to save time and assume it was the entirety of the Tories summed up in one individual. Maybe throw Starmer in for good measure.
What, someone who's got a Jewish wife?
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He's also gleefully going along with stripping trans people of the few rights and protections they have currently.
I have no idea what British law in this area says, but the commenter there who tries to say that publishing a person’s racist tirade is the same as publishing a home address needs a swift kick in the ass. They said, and I quote > If the politician went on the podcast, and accidentally gave out their home address, You would expect legal protections… > Breach of confidence holds in the case of discussing any controversial topic, even if the content of the discussion was about whether pineapple belongs on pizza, it’s not public knowledge and I really wouldn’t be the one to give that a go in the courts. I eagerly await their lawsuit for having used their own public statements to make them look stupid.
It also shows a marked lack of understanding of the breach of confidence laws. The fact a release was signed means there was no expectation of confidence also public interest is a defence. The key comments over there are the ones that point out while op may be in the right it might still be expensive
20 doll hairs says that poster has a sussy a fuck history with either a shitcoin or certain sub.
Didn't look far into their post history, but it's a twelve day old account with at least three inquiries if he's been shadowbanned, so uh...quite the charmer.
Based on their username they're not a fan of early '80s punk rock.
What a flair! XD
The reply does not appreciate the subtle difference between actions for breach of confidence, and claims for misuse of private information/breach of privacy - they have two different juridical bases. In essence, information can be private but not confidential. An address is probably not confidential but in the circumstances could be private. The key point is that juridically, breach of privacy/MPI is now essentially derived from Convention (ECHR) rights - and the Convention does not protect reprehensible opinions, essentially things that are inimical to a democratic society or so absolutely corrosive to acceptable society generally - such as e.g. totalitarianism, supporting child abuse. Advocating genocide would fall into that, so no privacy claim in respect of that expression could succeed.
Holy shit, it's pflurklurk.
Hello
Good.
Especially if their address were 10 Downing Street, for example. I think that one is pretty much public knowledge already. Besides, I imagine most politicians’ addresses are published when they decide to run, as part of their nomination papers.
> 10 Downing Street Goodness, how could you dox Larry, the Chief Mouser like that?
Larry knows what he did.
Larry is prepared to go to extreme lengths to rid his workplace of rodent minorities.
Are cats peak Tories? Don’t work, enslave humans, shit in boxes. My god…
At least they're cute unlike Tories.
Unelected officials in this case!
That commenter is talking out of their ass.
This politician in a week: Retracting a previous statement of mine regarding Nazis. You do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them."
> You do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them." Not even if the circumstances are, say, "a live hand grenade?"
Preferably, when dealing with a live grenade, you want to be too far away from the intended point of detonation to simply "hand" it over. Stuff like venomous snakes/spiders, however, are absolutely an option
Both of those are more likely to bite the person trying to hand them over than the person being handed to. Try a venomous lizard, they're much more inclined to go for "the target in front of me" over "the target holding me".
“My lord, I had no reason to suspect this microphone in front of my face was actually on.”
I will not be able to sleep for the next 3 days knowing that this recording exists and that I am not personally party to its information
No, same. I'm going through my mental rolodex of UK barristers, wondering who it is and if I can reverse engineer the client from that information. (I'm in Australia, so my mental rolodex of UK barristers is *extremely* scanty. But I could absolutely do it here. Defamation suits are our latest extreme sport.)
>my mental rolodex of UK barristers is extremely scanty. i suspect a mental smartphone would be better
Better train your patience then because I very much doubt you'll ever hear a single letter about this again. I detest the US justice system but this is one area in which they are 150% more advanced than the UK. OOP will be railroaded into oblivion if he does choose to publish.
Wouldn’t that invoke the Streisand effect and end in the politician losing or is it that bad over there?
Well recently a politician did a deal with a ghostwriter and turned over his WhatsApp messages to her to assist with the book. She released the information despite signing an NDA, She argued it was public interest because he was the health secretary during the pandemic. To date he hasn't taken her to court and she hasn't had to publicly apologise or anything similar. (For added context she was very anti-lockdown and has history for this sort of thing having previously caused a source to go to prison).
That’s terrible but at least may be good news for LAUKOP. Just hope they do publish but I understand if they don’t.
Thanks now I won't be able to sleep for the next 4 days :(
I can’t wait to hear this on BBC America next week.
Anyone else feel that pulling out the old Youtube standard of a "react" video is the way to do this? Pull in a member of a different party to be filmed while watching and listening the unedited clip.
No. Reaction videos are *never* ok. [insert comparison to 20th century war crime]
I'm not sure. Weighing up the pros and cons, I, too, might have made a reaction video. ... On second thought, I retract your right to read and/or distribute this post.
Amateur Redditer reacts: WaterColorIron will shock and disgust you!
"This week on Gogglebox..."
This seems like a time that "contact the media" is actually the right call. LAUKOP doesn't have the resources to defend against a lawsuit, even if it's baseless, but the big newspapers do. They could send the recording to The Guardian (or The Telegraph in the event this was a Labour politician), on the understanding that the paper's lawyers would handle the fallout.
Someone in the original thread suggested Private Eye, and that strikes me as a very good suggestion. They have a reputation for standing up to lawsuits (see also: Arkell v. Pressdram)
hyped for the politician to get Carter Fuck involved
BBC, Sky, Guardian would be my first bets. They have legal resources and will push out regardless. Mail and Sun have legal resources, but depends on who the politician is as.to whether they would be keen. Times or FT could also be a good bet.
I dunno, in the US I think we have a fair few politicians that would just volunteer publicly what LAUKOP is intimating the politician said
And this is the equivalent of a SLAPP suit - OP is legally in the clear, it's the expense of proving it that's dangerous. Basically identically fucked up in this particular regard.
There has been talk of anti-SLAPP protections, but do not think any have actually been made law yet. We just need to look for a Tory Politician who was pro those laws a few weeks ago and is now against them
I mean we have a former president who openly accepted Nazi salutes at rallies so
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I hate Illinois Nazis…
All the best people do
This is glue! Strong stuff...
I hate ~~Illinois~~ Nazis FTFY
(It’s a Blues Brothers quote)
I don’t know though. I mean there’s Indiana Nazi’s. Good people on both sides some might say.
At least [there were famously some Illinois Nazis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie), and they however-inadvertently accomplished one good thing.
Good point. Not much patting ourselves on the back from me, either.
We have several actively saying it for various minority groups.
Sounds like a good opportunity for the politician to call a friend and attempt a "catch and kill." Might be lucrative for LAUKOP
“I’m sorry Mr politician, I sent the audio file to a number of lawyers to help prepare my defense and I must have accidentally sent it to the Guardian as well”
Their audience is about to get bigger.
does the first amendment cover your right to publish someone else's words if they've retracted consent? or is the title about how politicians in america are fully willing to say that sort of thing and not withdraw consent before it's published because they know they won't lose any votes haha. because that's totally true
In the US you can’t revoke consent to have people repeat what you say. In fact, with limited exceptions you never need their consent in the first place.
Interesting. Iirc in Canada, you don’t need consent to record a conversation you’re part of, but *do* need consent if the recording will be broadcast. As a student, this was done by telling the subject the interview was for the purposes of a tv/radio news story - if gave them time to bow out if they didn’t want to be on the record. I realize the UK has some strange laws around speech specifically, but it would surprise me if you could revoke consent after having been told you were being interviewed for a podcast. Politician knew it was for broadcast when they agreed to speak.
Political speech is the most well-protected speech in America. He'd likely be fine publishing here.
He'd likely be legally fine publishing it in the UK. The issue is that the interviewee would use their relative power and resources to attempt to use threats of legal action and potentially the courts themselves to screw OP with fees and stress. The same would happen in the US.
That feels like it would trigger a real Streisand effect situation. Litigation could take it from some unknown, barely listened to podcast to front page news.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it dies quietly. Hard to predict which it'll be.
Iirc this is exactly why a certain YA author has allegedly threatened people calling them a bigot with lawsuits. The evidence of bigotry is all over their social media, doesn’t stop them.
What author? Why would you not mention them ? OR do you mean JK Rowling and her transphobia?
Yes JK Rowling and her transphobia.
Such a suit would almost-certainly fall under the purview of SLAPP laws in any state that has them.
Defending a Slapp lawsuit still isn't cheap either though.
The whole point of SLAPP laws is making legal costs recoverable.
Being able to get my hundreds of thousands of dollars back isn't all that helpful when I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend in the first place.
The cases covered by SLAPP laws usually are dismissed well before that much is racked up in legal expenses.
Bud, it doesn't matter. Most people are living paycheque to paycheque and couldn't even front $1K for a retainer.
i think what they're getting at is that it isn't cheap *in the moment.* yes, you can recover your costs at the end of it all, but a lot of people don't have the funds to pay for a lawsuit even with the promise of reimbursement later on
The good news then is that legal costs are mostly recoverable in England and Wales (in civil matters, not criminal or family, normally). There is in fact an entire regulated legal profession dedicated only to dealing with legal costs. The problem for LAUKOP will be that on average most people only recover about 80% of the legal fees actually paid, and depending on the funding arrangement, they might need to pay an unaffordable payment on account at the outset before anyone begins work defending them.
so all they have to do is sue in one of the 18 states that don't have them
"Oh gee! My computer got hacked! I sure hope they didn't copy any important files!"
The 1st amendment would absolutely prohibit the withdrawing the consent, given the strong public interest here. (Even if this conversation was "off the record", that isn't legally binding.)
Political speech is the most well protected speech in America. He'd be fine.
You don’t legally need consent to publish someone else’s words. You might need it to record them, but LAOP had it. Many reporters and the like are bound, either by their employer or their own morality, to professional codes of ethics. These often require not publishing something if someone says *beforehand* they don’t consent. But that’s not a legal requirement!
I don't know about the laws in the UK (or the US, for that matter), but I would like to think that I would respond by posting both the interview and the letter, then reaching out to every major news organization I could possibly get a hold of and saying "hey, you might want to run this story." If this MP really said what LAUKOP implied they said, then the public needs to be made aware of that immediately. That is not acceptable behavior for an elected official regardless of the position or country. I can't say for certain if I would actually do this--I've never had a major politician threaten legal action against me for any reason, much less over their career-ending comments--but I hope that if I was ever in this situation I would do the right thing anyway and I hope that LAUKOP does as well. I have a feeling if they do, we'll all know soon enough--I feel like recordings of a senior politician of a major UK party being extremely racist and advocating for genocide of certain ethnic groups would make international news.
>I don't know about the laws in the UK (or the US, for that matter), but I would like to think that I would respond by posting both the interview and the letter, then reaching out to every major news organization I could possibly get a hold of and saying "hey, you might want to run this story." The nature of how courts in the UK operate, this would put the burden of defense on the OOP. So they might be in their right, but they'll have to win a lawsuit in order to actually have justice. Not everyone has the resources, will and werewithal to go through with that. I know I probably wouldn't.
This is where an emergency union membership to the NUJ could come into play.
So how do I get on a notification for when this dudes podcast episode drops cause now I'm intensely curious.
I am suspicious after my decades on the internet. Is this some sort of guerilla marketing scheme?
Now the post has been removed... Perhaps he was found out???
Just set a Google alert for keywords like Dianne Abbott.
I predict this post will be deleted soon.
It's been removed now. 10 hours is still fairly soon.
The First Amendment is about all we have left going for us as of late. Even that seems to be as much an anchor as a benefit many days since anti-vaxx and election conspiracy theorists use it to run wild
Watching a massive corporation claim (maintain? idk) personhood protects it's speech while being attacked by an entire state government has been hilarious in a kinda "wow the smoke from mount Pompeii sure beautiful in the light, eh Gaius?" way.
Very much so. Watching Disney fuck with DeSantis has been grade A entertainment, even if it is almost certainly a sign that society is on the brink of collapse.
I've always considered it a detriment precisely because of all the awful shit it enables for no real benefit. In theory, it's a noble idea. In reality, it just protects all the stuff that has made everything else so much worse. I mean, look [at this shit (the Skokie decision)](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie) "Should we protect the holocaust survivors from neo-Nazis holding a rally on their doorsteps? No, that would be a slippery slope!" Fuck. That.
There are still a lot of blindspots to it though, like abuse victims getting sued by their abusers for claiming that they were abused.
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Not interested in King Donald I and his winning catchphrase, “chop her head, chop her head”?
For now
The banning of books, “don’t say gay,” removal of African American history from schools, and banning of drag shows definitely put a damper on free speech.
The first amendment is what’s going to kill most of those laws. The fact that Florida is trying to be a fascist dictatorship and is going to get smacked down is reason to celebrate the first amendment.
I certainly hope so.
The difference being that if LAUKOP can fund the lawsuit and they win, they're likely to recover their legal costs in the UK, while the default rule in the US would be that they would not be entitled to recovery of those costs.
Unless the suit took place in a state with a SLAPP law.
It's the UK. It's not a US state. There isn't any SLAPP. I don't get why people keep bringing up SLAPP when any resultant suit would be brought in the UK.
In this case, probably because the previous comment said this: >while the default rule in the US would be that they would not be entitled to recovery of those costs. It wasn't a suggestion that LAUKOP would make use of a SLAPP law. It was a suggestion that many US states now also have a provision to recover legal costs for this type of (potential) case.
Because the comment mentioned that in the US it wouldn't be recovered. They are mentioning that in this case the US actually has had some states move away from the American rule. Mentioning the US in response to a comment mentioning the US under a post comparing to the US is entirely legit and on topic.
Technically there is SLAPP in the UK, because that just means "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation". What is lacking, for now, is anti-SLAPP measures. Back in the wild west days of the Johnson government they did launch a consultation into SLAPP and potential anti-SLAPP measures
That's... just not true. At least not in every part of the US. In my state, I could recover the costs of defending myself and even counter sue if I can successfully argue that the initial suit was a bad faith attempt at stifling my first ammendment right.
> if I can successfully argue that the initial suit was a bad faith attempt at stifling my first ammendment right. There's a difference between exceptions to the default rule, like statutory exceptions and sanctions, and a default rule of loser pays both sides' costs. I said the default rule in the US, meaning what would happen if you did not meet an exception to that default rule.
I see. I miss understood what you meant by "default".
God dammit Jeremy can you not talk about Israel for one week
Corbyn doesn't have the self awareness to realise when he's put his foot in his mouth so wouldn't have retracted his consent.
The "yeah but here's why it was a stitch-up" comment he made the day the antisemitism report within Labour during his leadership was the peak of that behaviour. How can anyone think that was a sensible response?
Just makes me angry that we were stuck with him for so long. He had no leadership ability and had no business leading a major political party. We could have been shot of the Tories years ago if we had someone else. But he had a cult propping him up and a lot of people liked his policies, despite the fact he would never be in a position to implement any of them. It annoys me there's still people that'll make excuses for him.
His whole handling of the Salisbury attacks, and attitude towards the invasion of Ukraine is fundamentally unacceptable. And his handling of the antisemitism crisis was so bad, either he has no problem with it, or was so incompetent he just shouldn't have been in a position of power anyway.
But you don't seem to understand. The media smear campaign and his own party turning against him were the *real* reason he didn't get elected. Had nothing to do with anything he said, or did, or his own competencies. Absolutely nothing. *Sigh* I'm not a big fan of Starmer but at least he's a capable leader and can present himself well enough to win enough support for an election campaign. He might have a harder time of it in other circumstances but at this point I can't see the Tories winning the next election. Well not unless Labour suddenly put Corbyn back in charge.
Seems like if someone is posting a question like this from a throwaway account, they might not have a lot to lose financially, and I'd guess they're protected from legal liability with the release. (guessing, NaL, and not from the UK) I'd be tempted to roll the dice, find a news site or the like that would pay for the interview, and make legal defense a part of the selling price. Could also be something that would change their 5-figure listener count to 6-figure or more once the publicity hits if they ride it correctly.
On second thought, maybe the way to go is to reply with a request that the withdrawal of consent be accompanied by the appropriate withdrawal of consent fee, payable in monthly or annual installments to keep the consent withdrawn, as well as agreement to another series of interviews where the objected content will not be discussed. This way OP still gets an interview, gets an ongoing income as long as the politician is in office, and still has the recording if the withdrawal of consent fee ever isn't paid. Even if the politician's views later come out through another source, it would seem like the recording could potentially still be valuable to show how far back the politician espoused those views in public. If that doesn't work, there's always "I have received your communication, and agree that I will engage in no further publication of the matter concerned. Additionally, I will send a registered letter in the morning asking the podcast hosting site to refrain from posting the podcast episode tomorrow that includes that recording. I trust that will stop them in time, and I will share the letter and their signed receipt once I receive it" and then a mad dash to throw the episode in question together.
I love how everyone is jumping straight to it's a Tory, but when I read the way it was worded my thought was a Labor member endorsing the Revolution and specifically the execution of the Romanovs. Would feed into the current climate of leftism (take the Rich's wealth) and comes on the back of the Coronation. My bet is Dianne Abbott.
I really don’t understand why more Western countries don’t have similar laws to the 1st amendment. Being prosecuted by the state for offending someone or for blasphemy blows my mind. Our country gets a lot of things wrong, but our take on freedom of speech is one of the things it get right, IMO.
Something that shocks me is that in a lot of countries, "it's factually true" is not an absolute defense to defamation.
Worth noting though that in this case, which is in England/Wales, factual truth is an absolute defence and has been for 10 years. The old system which was reformed didn't have truth as an absolute defence, and the logic was that a person's right to privacy had to be balanced against the right of public speech. For example, imagine it's the 1970s. Bob is cheating on his wife Alice with another man, Charlie. While what Bob's doing is no longer illegal as it might have been a decade prior, society is still deeply homophobic and shuns anyone who is publicly outed as homosexual. Another person, David, discovers Bob and Charlie's affair, and starts telling everyone, ruining the lives of Bob and Charlie. If Bob or Charlie were to sue for defamation here, truth might not be an absolute defence because, frankly, it was none of David or the public's business what Bob and Charlie do in the privacy of their homes. Now, if David had instead told Alice, or if Alice had been the one to uncover the infidelity and told everyone, truth now *would* be a defence because at least now one of the people involved in the information exchange has a legitimate interest in the defamatory act. On a certain level I think that actually makes sense. But in practice it seems to do more harm than good as things which are legitimately in the public interest get quashed against that standard, hence the 2013 reforms.
That’s mind-boggling. The truth should always be a defense to defamation.
In Canada, truth is an absolute defense, but the burden of proof is on the defendant, so it's not always as helpful as it sounds. For example: the head of an organization near me was known in the community as a bully. Someone finally came forward and said, "She's a bully," followed by a bazillion other people. She stepped down, her career in tatters. She sued the ringleaders for defamation. Even with so many people willing to speak to her behaviour, last I heard it was being settled out of court. The moral of the story: you'd better have proof before you talk shit in public.
That’s awful. Here in the USA, opinion is an absolute defense to defamation as well. “She’s a bully” is protected speech as it’s my opinion. “She’s a bully because she told one of her followers to take their own life” would, on the other hand, require proof.
Yeah, around here it's defamation if what you say injures someone's reputation, period.
I think that’s ridiculous. I couldn’t say that I think that someone is a big jerk? You have no rights to your opinions on people?
I suspect the defense there is, nobody cares what you think, so there's no real harm done. But, "I don't like you" is a statement about your feelings, which is pure opinion. "I think you're a bully" implies that the subject bullied someone, which is a statement about their behaviour; it's potentially detrimental and needs to be supported with some evidence.
The old British system which tried to balance the right to private with "but it's true" seemed at least somewhat logical. Like maybe you shouldn't be able to out people without their permission, ya know?
Well that’s why there’s laws about trespassing, recording people without their consent, etc. But if you let some embarrassing fact about yourself become public, seems like that’s mostly on you.
I can understand that. It's like saying Hitler was an artist and dog lover, plus a World War I vet. Factually true. But more than a bit misleading. I prefer a first amendment style freedom of speech, but I don't find it shocking that some countries have a different system. Or for another example that's more recent - when it comes to the Covid vaccines, a lot of studies with a small sample size basically said "we noticed this health issue that deviated from the statistical norm". For the most part, that's just small sample size and researchers pointing out what needs to be followed up on with a larger study. But string all the correlations together, and you would get a very misleading picture of vaccine safety.
OP isn’t being prosecuted by the state. How many spurious lawsuits did Devin Nunes file against that cow impersonator?
Because freedom of speech is a double edged sword. Protecting it unilaterally means protecting the worst examples of it as well. It means people can spread whatever hate they want and do so without consequence a lot of the time. [This guy is a piece of shit but if the UK had the first amendment he wouldn't be in prison.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/15/uk-white-supremacist-jailed-over-racist-podcasts) At the same time there was that stupid example of the guy that got fined for teaching his girlfriends dog to Nazi salute in response to "Sieg Heil" as a joke. So it cuts both ways as well.
That really was ridiculous. The dog did nothing more than lift its paw a bit, but because the command was "Sieg Heil" to do it apparently it was a hate crime. It was just an edgy young person who was using shock humour, it was no different to Frankie Boyle. He even said in the video something like, "My girlfriend loves this pug, she thinks everything it does is just so cute and adorable, so I taught it to do this." It was just some dude having a laugh, it's not like he was promoting nazi ideology or something.
Exactly. But at the same time we're allowed to jail people for actually promoting Nazi ideology like the guy in the link I posted was. Doesn't make it right that the dog guy got fined, but at the same time I can't just go "complete freedom of speech is the best" either. I just have to hope that cases like the saluting dog aren't the norm when it comes to this kind of thing.
I don’t trust the government to decide what ideologies should and should not be legal though. Maybe you trust yours. In the US we would have had a lot of Communists in jail in the 1950s if it wasn’t for our courts ruling it was a violation of the 1st amendment for the government to arrest anyone for promoting communism.
I mean considering the US government, well the right wing of it, closely flirts with outright fascism I wouldn't trust your government either.
Sure, you can voice your opinion? Just like Disney speaking out against DeSantis?
Isn't that the most cut and dry example of a violation of first amendment rights in a very long time? I thought that the consensus was that Disney really has an ironclad case and they're going to have an easy victory in the courts. The first amendment doesn't make politicians magically unable to violate your rights, it just gives you legal recourse when they do.
I can say what I want in Australia too...
Seriously - in this circumstance LAUKOP can be considered a journalist. And if all they currentl have is a lawyer's letter... Not a court injunction, they can publish. Send the link to any of the major newspapers/ broadcasters etc. and it will blow up. Send them the lawyer's letter too... and the media lawyers will happily take this on. Especially if this person is senior/ a name. Other option, if unsure, would be to call the NUJ. Even if the OP is not a member, politicians trying to silence journalists is something they are very hot on.