I also want to add that I think the community in general has shown a mild failure in treating the legal action threat as evidence of wrongdoing even if the lawsuit would ultimately fail.
It is really bad to treat a libel suit threat as some horrible thing that no one “innocent” would ever do. It’s a form of demonizing anyone who has ever used or thought to use the legal system defensively.
Which if intended, seems to be fundentally missing what the point of a legal system should be. It is no doubt a problem that people with lots of power, whether it’s fame or money or whatever, are more likely to win legal battles.
But it’s also a way more truth oriented process than the court of public opinion. And many people who would have stood 0 chance of getting justice without it have gotten some through it.
Do such threats have a chilling effect on criticism? Of course, and that’s a problem, particularly if they’re used too often or too quickly.
But the solution cannot be “no one makes such threats no matter what.” Because then there’s no recourse but the court of public opinion, which is not something anyone should feel comfortable ceding their life and wellbeing to.
I think someone outside the community seeing this sort of reaction of people inside it being shunned, demonized, etc for threatening to use a very core right that they’re entitled to would likely find it… pretty sketchy.
Because it can easily be construed as “we resolve these things ‘in house,’ via our own methods. No need to get Outsiders involved.”
And man, it sure would be great if we had that sort of high trust effective investigation capability in the community.
But we really have not shown that capability yet, and even if we do, no one should feel like they’re giving up their basic rights to be a member of good standing in the community.
I think many if not most people in Emerson’s position, feeling like they were about to be lied about in a life-destroying way, had facts to rebut the lies, and were being essentially ignored in requests to clarify the truth, would think of legal action.
Whether they would be wrong in how easy it would be to win is a different issue entirely from that very (from base society perspective) normal view.
I also want to add that I think the community in general has shown a mild failure in treating the legal action threat as evidence of wrongdoing even if the lawsuit would ultimately fail.
It is really bad to treat a libel suit threat as some horrible thing that no one “innocent” would ever do. It’s a form of demonizing anyone who has ever used or thought to use the legal system defensively.
Which if intended, seems to be fundentally missing what the point of a legal system should be. It is no doubt a problem that people with lots of power, whether it’s fame or money or whatever, are more likely to win legal battles.
But it’s also a way more truth oriented process than the court of public opinion. And many people who would have stood 0 chance of getting justice without it have gotten some through it.
Do such threats have a chilling effect on criticism? Of course, and that’s a problem, particularly if they’re used too often or too quickly.
But the solution cannot be “no one makes such threats no matter what.” Because then there’s no recourse but the court of public opinion, which is not something anyone should feel comfortable ceding their life and wellbeing to.
I think someone outside the community seeing this sort of reaction of people inside it being shunned, demonized, etc for threatening to use a very core right that they’re entitled to would likely find it… pretty sketchy.
Because it can easily be construed as “we resolve these things ‘in house,’ via our own methods. No need to get Outsiders involved.”
And man, it sure would be great if we had that sort of high trust effective investigation capability in the community.
But we really have not shown that capability yet, and even if we do, no one should feel like they’re giving up their basic rights to be a member of good standing in the community.
I think many if not most people in Emerson’s position, feeling like they were about to be lied about in a life-destroying way, had facts to rebut the lies, and were being essentially ignored in requests to clarify the truth, would think of legal action.
Whether they would be wrong in how easy it would be to win is a different issue entirely from that very (from base society perspective) normal view.
What the legal system should be is irrelevant.