Bad Libel Law Strikes Again: Silly UK Twitter Spat Results In Six Figure Payout
from the wtf? dept
For years we've pointed out that UK libel law, in particular, was horrible and easily abused to chill speech. Things appear to have gotten somewhat better -- as some really bad cases at least made people realize that some of the more extreme issues needed to be fixed, but on the whole, UK libel law is still incredibly broad, and can and does stifle speech (and, yes, I know, the UK doesn't have the same free speech protections as the US does -- but it should). This latest case is just a good example of why the UK's standards for libel are so problematic.
The story involves two columnist/writers in the UK who got into a bit of a Twitter spat. Part of the problem, here, is that a lot of people have very strong emotional opinions about at least one of the parties in the lawsuit. Katie Hopkins has made a name for herself saying outrageous things and has been referred to, multiple times, as a professional troll. There are lots of people who dislike her, and certainly are quite happy to see that she's come out the big loser in this libel dispute. But before you celebrate, the details here are important, and quite worrisome, if you support freedom of expression.
I recommend reading the full ruling by the UK High Court, which makes it pretty clear that this was just a fairly quick and silly Twitter spat -- not unlike one that many, many people (perhaps, including, some of you reading this right now...) get involved in each day. The background is that another columnist, Laurie Penny, had tweeted something more or less saying she was okay with some graffiti on a WWII memorial in London. Hopkins got angry at Penny's tweets and there were some angry tweets about Penny. That got some press attention for reasons I don't fully understand. A week or so later, Hopkins starts tweeting angrily at a different columnist, Jack Monroe, sort of referencing back to Penny's tweets about the memorial vandalism. And, as the court ruling notes, the following happened:
- At 7.20pm Ms Hopkins posted the first tweet of which Ms Monroe complains (“The First Tweet”). It was in these words: “@MsJackMonroe scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?”
- At 7.33pm Ms Monroe tweeted in these terms: “I have NEVER ‘scrawled on a memorial’. Brother in the RAF. Dad was a Para in the Falklands. You’re a piece of shit.” (With a screenshot to the First Tweet)
- Ms Monroe tweeted again at 7.36pm: “I’m asking you nicely to please delete this lie Katie, and if I have to ask again it will be through my lawyer.” (With a link to the First Tweet)
- At 8.14pm Ms Monroe tweeted again, this time using Ms Hopkins’ Twitter handle: “Dear @KTHopkins, public apology +£5k to migrant rescue & I won’t sue. It’ll be cheaper for you and v. satisfying for me.”
- At some point between the posting of that tweet and 9.47pm, the First Tweet was deleted by Ms Hopkins.
- At 9.47pm Ms Hopkins posted the second tweet of which Ms Monroe complains (“the Second Tweet”). It was in these terms: “Can someone explain to me - in 10 words or less - the difference between irritant @PennyRed and social anthrax @Jack Monroe.”
- At some point that evening, I infer about this time, Ms Hopkins blocked Ms Monroe. That prevented Ms Monroe from communicating with her via Twitter.
- Later on 18 May 2015 the Claimant published the following on Twitter: “BA_DA_BOOM! It lies! It smears! It’s wrong! It panics! It blocks! It’s @KTHopkins everyone!” (With six pictures of a chicken)
- At 22:30 on 18 May 2015 the Claimant published the following on Twitter: “Gin o clock. Cheers. God isn’t it good sweet justice when a poisonous bully gets shown up for what it is and runs runs runs away.”
That's it. Literally that's it. That was the entire Twitter spat, which again -- for reasons I cannot comprehend -- got a bunch of press attention. Based on that, Monroe sued Hopkins for defamation. And won. Again, let's be clear about the entire extent of the fight here. Hopkins tweeted something that was, admittedly stupid and provoking, at Monroe. But it made no statement of fact about Monroe (as would be required in the US). That tweet was deleted within 2 and a half hours (and possibly earlier). Then there was a second tweet, in which Hopkins seemed to admit that she got confused between Monroe and Penny, but again made no statement of fact, just called Monroe "social anthrax."
I've been in Twitter fights significantly worse than that. In fact, there's a decent chance I'll be in a Twitter fight significantly more crazy than that by the end of this week. These kinds of silly spats happen all the time. It's just kind of the nature of Twitter. In the US, such a lawsuit would go nowhere quite fast on basically every possible grounds. There's no false statement of fact that would in any way harm Monroe's reputation. There's no actual malice as required for defamation of a public figure (which Monroe certainly is). And the entire thing is a Twitter spat, which in context is little more than a few insults flung back and forth at one another. Honestly going through the entire exchange, the only thing even remotely sorta, barely (but not really) approaching a "statement of fact" would be Monroe calling Hopkins "a piece of shit." But that's clearly rhetorical hyperbole, as was most of the discussion.
This kind of dispute would be laughed out of a US court. But... over in the UK, Monroe wins, even as the court admits the whole thing is kind of silly. The court even admits that no "reasonable reader" would think that Hopkins was actually saying that Monroe had done the vandalism. But the court still finds this to be defamation -- which boggles the mind:
Ms Monroe complains of the natural and ordinary meaning. That is not the same as a literal meaning. The literal meaning, that Ms Monroe had herself scrawled on and vandalised a memorial, would be rejected by the reasonable reader, having regard to the context. The reader would see the tweet as having an element of metaphor. But it is, to my mind, an inescapable conclusion that the ordinary reasonable reader of the First Tweet would understand it to mean that Ms Monroe “condoned and approved of scrawling on war memorials, vandalising monuments commemorating those who fought for her freedom.” That is a meaning that emerges clearly enough, making full allowance for everything that seems to me relevant by way of context: the characteristics of Ms Hopkins and Ms Monroe, the nature of Twitter, and the immediately surrounding contextual material on Twitter. The reference to Grandma would not be understood, but that would not affect the reader’s conclusion.
But how is that possibly "defamatory"? Well, again, in the UK, what counts as defamatory is quite different than what counts as defamatory in the US. Apparently, in the UK, saying mean things about someone is defamatory. Indeed, the court even admits that this is about whether or not your feelings get hurt:
All of this, however, is about injury to feelings, and the issue I have to address at this stage is whether serious harm to reputation has been proved.
Injury to feelings? That's where freedom of speech goes to die. Anyone's feelings can get hurt over just about anything. People insult one another all the time, sometimes publicly. I'm constantly reading about politicians (including in the UK) insulting one another. That shouldn't be defamation. But, apparently, it is.
I have reached the clear conclusion that the Serious Harm requirement is satisfied, on the straightforward basis that the tweets complained of have a tendency to cause harm to this claimant’s reputation in the eyes of third parties, of a kind that would be serious for her.
And, yes, I understand that part of the reason why UK defamation law (and defamation law in many other countries) works this way. Historically, it was to allow those who had no other recourse to hit back at the more powerful saying things that would damage their reputation. So, for example, if a newspaper printed something that seriously harmed someone's reputation, that individual would not have any recourse. But that's not the case today. And that's clearly evidenced by the fact that this happened on Twitter where both sides got to clearly express their side and their anger. So you don't need a court to come in and claim that there was "serious harm" to Monroe's reputation, because that makes no sense. Those who respect Monroe would clearly see her tweets responding angrily to Hopkins and would pretty quickly recognize that Hopkins, in true Hopkins fashion, was saying nutty stuff again.
The court tries to do away with this point, by arguing that the two did not have many overlapping followers, so the followers of Hopkins wouldn't necessarily see Monroe's responses:
Ms Monroe’s own responses on Twitter. These are said to have mitigated harm by making her position clear. There are several difficulties with this contention. One is that denials are not at all the same thing as corrections, retractions or apologies. The response of the accused is inherently unlikely to undo the damage caused initially. A second, and probably more significant point, is that Ms Monroe had no access to the followers of Ms Hopkins. The fact that the overlap in their followers was so small tends to undermine this submission.
But if that's the case, what's the "concern" here? This also seems to ignore that the original Hopkins tweet appears to have been directed at Monroe, meaning only those who followed both would see it. Separately, given the widespread news coverage of this, people who actually cared would likely have seen the whole debate play out. Furthermore, what difference does it make that "denials are not at all the same thing as corrections, retractions or apologies." So what? In the marketplace of ideas, people present their positions and everyone gets to decide who they believe. And here it seems pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that Hopkins tweeted out some crazy angry insults without realizing what she was doing. That should harm her own reputation (even if her reputation is saying silly nonsense stuff already) without needing a court to say she defamed Monroe.
Eventually, the court comes up with a totally subjective "scale" of injury to feelings to determine how much Hopkins needs to pay:
In this case, the allegations were serious but certainly not towards the top end of the scale. The extent of publication was significant but not massive in its scale. The harm to reputation, though serious, will not have been grave. The need for vindication is not a weighty factor, as there has been no attempt to prove the truth of what was alleged. This judgment will make the position clear to those who were unaware of it already. Ms Monroe is a public figure, in the sense that she chooses to engage in public life and to engage in political discourse in public forums. The injury to feelings was real and substantial, and has continued. It has been significantly exacerbated by the way the defence has been conducted. Nonetheless, compensation for hurt feelings should be in scale with the award that seeks to compensate for harm to reputation.
Taking account of all these matters, my award is £24,000. That is divided into £16,000 for the First Tweet and £8,000 for the Second Tweet. The reason for this division is that the majority of the harm to reputation will have been caused by the First Tweet, and it was that tweet that caused the greatest injury to feelings at the time. These awards are higher than they would have been, if damages had been assessed at or shortly after the time of publication, because they take account of the fact that harm to reputation has continued, and injury to feelings has been increased by the defendant’s behaviour.
The First Tweet was a mistake. It was not fully retracted but there has been no attempt to prove the truth of what was suggested. Ms Hopkins will realise, and no doubt be advised, that to repeat the same message would be likely to result in a substantial damages award. I do not consider that there is any evidence of a threat or risk of repetition. There is no need for an injunction.
I don't understand this at all. The whole idea that someone's feelings getting hurt is defamation is completely antithetical to any reasonable support of a regime of freedom of expression. Based on the standards in this ruling, a ridiculous number of tweets happening right this very second could be subject to massive monetary awards in the UK, and that's crazy. At worst this will lead to more silly litigation over schoolyard spats that now take place online. Alternatively, it will lead people to self-censor and simply not speak out online for fear of being sued. That's the chilling effects that comes when you have laws that decide freedom of expression is not a priority. No matter your opinion of Hopkins or Monroe (and I'm no fan of Hopkins), this ruling is dangerous for freedom of expression online.
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Filed Under: defamation, feelz, free speech, injury to feelings, jack monroe, katie hopkins, laurie penny, libel, uk
Companies: twitter
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This is probably gonna get me flagged...
Remember when Trump said he was going to "open up" defamation law? This is probably the kind of thing he was talking about.
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It's more than that, it's antithetical to the definition of defamation.
Defamation is not concerned with someone's feelings being hurt--their feelings about themselves--it's concerned with other people's feelings--reputation. If people think or even might think less of you for this statement, then you have been defamed. If you think less of yourself, you've been harmed, I suppose, but it's not defamation.
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With six pictures of a chicken
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Perhaps I overlooked something
Judgement for £24,000
where does the 'sixth' figure come from?
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It would be like Trump losing a court case unjustifiably. Also she likes Trump.
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Twits
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If I were to call you “a worthless sack of dog vomit”, would you deem it fair to make me pay for hurting your feelings? Because that is what happened here — Person A hurt Person B’s feelings, and now Person A has to literally pay for having done so.
Maybe you feel morally righteous by saying “she deserved it”. And maybe she did deserve to face some form of consequences for her petty and ridiculous actions. But this particular set of consequences places an undue restriction on a particular type of speech. Now that this precedent is set, anyone in the UK could conceivably be sued for saying something that “hurts someone’s feelings”.
If you think someone deserves that fate, I would ask you this: How many times you have hurt someone else’s feelings, and how much money do you believe they should take from you to soothe their pain?
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What she does not deserve is a bullshitty libel judgement against her.
Alas, such is UK law. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words earn me a fat fucking payout.
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Injury to feelings? That's where freedom of speech goes to die. Anyone's feelings can get hurt over just about anything. People insult one another all the time, sometimes publicly. I'm constantly reading about politicians (including in the UK) insulting one another. That shouldn't be defamation. But, apparently, it is.
As the saying goes, the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it in all cases. Drag a few politicians to court for insulting people and I imagine the law would be changed right quick, though I grant it's entirely possible that the only change to it would be an addendum stating that it doesn't apply to politicians.
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Re: This is probably gonna get me flagged...
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Hello, Mr Masnick. :)
I can see that this one may be difficult to appreciate, particularly for non-Britons and even for British readers younger than a certain age.
I can't be arsed to read the full judgment - it's about Katie Hopkins and someone I've never heard of, so fuck it - but I shall say how this comes across to me, from this article.
To my mind, this is the single most important sentence in the article. The offending tweet does give me that impression and it's what basically hangs Katie Hopkins in the eyes of the judge. Since many of Ms Hopkins followers could see the allegation (however inexplicitly given), but not the replies, it was extremely bad for Ms Monroe's reputation.
To understand just why it's such a bad thing, I shall have to digress somewhat...
Forgive me for saying so, but on the whole, Americans do not seem to understand war. You - like we Brits - are very good at exporting it to other countries, but you don't seem to really have a grasp of what real war - in your own country, with your own houses and neighbours and families being randomly gassed, incinerated or blasted into flying chunky pieces - is actually like.
I'm a Londoner. I wasn't around during World War II, but I grew up in it's shadow. My childhood home was part of a terrace - a row of attached houses - and my back garden should have overlooked a mirror image of similar houses. Instead, it enjoyed a wall of corrugated iron, behind which was a street-length pile of utterly demolished rubble known as a bombsite. Behind that was another row of buildings, still standing, but wrecked beyond any hope of repair or habitation. The destroyed streets were eventually bulldozed and rebuilt into a rather nasty modern housing estate, some time in the 1980s.
It's my understanding that, during the war, the German Luftwaffe bombed over forty thousand of my people out of existence and wounded around a hundred and forty thousand more. Impossible numbers of people were reduced to homeless refugees. To this day, there are odd corners and bits of London, here and there, that have still not been rebuilt, three-quarters of a century later.
I don't know - and don't want to know - how many families were wiped out fifty feet from my childhood home. Unless they were originally war refugees from somewhere else, I doubt too many Americans have ever had to think such a thought.
Leaving aside the relatively-new and very special horrors that today's political corruption and vile oil wars have brought to the world, when we send soldiers out to kill and die in our name, we do it very seriously, to keep that kind of shit from ever coming to our door again.
And when we build a memorial to the ones that died, we take it very, very seriously indeed.
Vandalising a war memorial is a Very, Very Bad Thing in the eyes of some of us. Anyone genuinely advocating such behaviour could very easily find themselves with no career, no home and quite possibly no head attached to their shoulders.
I've no idea how Laurie Penny - the columnist who apparently did actually say Very Stupid Things - still has a job anywhere. If she ends up unemployed and homeless, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
There are more than a few pubs where - if she goes there and says the same things - she just will not make it out alive.
Ms Hopkins' tweet was undoubtedly harmful to Ms Monroe. In all likelihood, Ms Monroe felt she had no real option but to go to court. Once there, the damage to her reputation would have become far more severe if she'd lost.
Britain's libel laws are appalling, no question there at all. One day, we might actually get around to fixing them. But under that bad law, the court has rendered the only verdict that could possibly be considered just.
The business about hurt feelings is a little weirder, even for me, but I suspect the judge just wanted some excuse - any excuse - to crank up the damages, so Ms Monroe can be clearly be seen to have won and Ms Hopkins can be clearly seen to have lost badly - and to try and make sure she thinks twice before tweeting anything quite so pointlessly stupid and damaging again.
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Re: This is probably gonna get me flagged...
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No, it should have what the people of that country say it should. The UK is a democracy and it should determine for itself what it will and will not accept as acceptable conduct as a society.
This is the problem with US citizens. Democracy is great and good till the people that comprise the democracy decides something against US oriented sensibilities. Then it's terrible and why oh why don't people do it the "right" way! The US government may even initiate covert operations to steer things the "right" way, the American way (just ignore that dictator the military intervention is propping up.)
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Sure. But I will argue, strongly, that they should, as a democracy, choose to have strong support for freedom of expression. I'm not saying it just because it's an "American" value. I'm saying it because of the human rights issues involved. If you do not support free speech, and allow governments to censor, you eventually end up supporting tyranny by that very government. For they will define free speech in a manner that will stifle important voices.
Free speech is also important for innovation and progress.
The idea that someone should be punished for tweeting something stupid creates a massive chilling effect. Yes, the people of Great Britain have a right to decide for themselves, but that does not change that I can advocate and explain why they should support very strongly a free speech regime that does not stamp out a person's rights to speak their mind.
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You understand that you, personally, have only innovated censorship.
Michael Masnick, the Inventor of TechDirt, where good ideas go to be buried, anonymously and shamfully.
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anonymousanonymouscoward darkness glynmoody jnonken masonwheeler regularstone thatoneguy aphexbr davecort gristlemissile joecool max rogerstrong timmaguire42 bas davel gwiz john85851 mhajicek ronalddumsfeld bellac davimack hammy jsavona03 mhhfive sigalrm wanderer benketteridge difdi jdoe668 justok mmasnick techdescartes wolfie0827 capitalisliontamer docgerbil100 jeffp kbode ninja techdirt eca jihoelzer leigh orbitalinsertion techflaws
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Re: Perhaps I overlooked something
£24,000.0 ?
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IANAL in either the UK or US (or anywhere else for that matter...), but just because they - and other nations - both use the word defamation, and at a high, general level they might mean the same or something similar, does not mean that their legal systems define the details of the word to have the same meaning, or that their precedents over the meaning are the same.
Therefore in the UK, the legal definition and practice of the word defamation is a little different to that of the US, which is slightly different to Canada, and so on.
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Re: Perhaps I overlooked something
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New t-shirt slogan
That is a great line!
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To Wendy Cockcroft
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Limiting my answer only to the subject of Milo. All other questions are irrelevant.
The way I see it, the “Milo issue” is one without an easy “solution”.
On one hand: Yes, that racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful sack of elephant spit has every right to say what he wants to say (within legal limits) on a given subject. The government cannot — and should not — silence his speech. If someone offers him a platform while knowing full well how he intends to use it, that is their right.
On the other hand: He is a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful sack of elephant spit who has used several of his speaking engagements to target specific people (e.g., outing a trans student, pointing out undocumented immigrants) and subject said people to possible harm. (Milo’s followers are not exactly flower-toting hippies.) People have a right to protest against both his speaking engagements and those who gave him access to their platform. Protests, like Milo’s speech, are legally protected speech and should not be infringed upon.
On one hand: The violent reaction to speech from people like Milo and Richard Spencer does worry me. It reeks of its own brand of fascism: “Say that shit again and I will punch you in the face, motherfucker!”
On the other hand: Milo and Richard Spencer happen to say some really, really heinous shit — with Spencer calling for a “peaceful genocide” of non-White people — and their viewpoints do not deserve respect. Trying to argue against racists such as them will not get any actual results; they are firm in belief and practiced in rhetoric.
On one hand: Violence is never the answer.
On the other hand: Sometimes you have to deal with some stubborn son of a bitch who thinks it is.
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The business about hurt feelings is a little weirder, even for me, but I suspect the judge just wanted some excuse - any excuse - to crank up the damages, so Ms Monroe can be clearly be seen to have won and Ms Hopkins can be clearly seen to have lost badly - and to try and make sure she thinks twice before tweeting anything quite so pointlessly stupid and damaging again.
Thanks for the extra background info, good to have a better understanding on the matter.
I was with you right up until that last bit, where things took a bit of a left turn. Person A said something untrue and harmful to/about Person B, it caused demonstrable harm, and therefore is defamatory and they are liable for damages seems reasonable enough. But to increase it based upon hurt feelings I feel steps over the line, and almost seems vindictive to me, which is not something you want to see in a judge, so that part(assuming your guess as to the judge's reasoning is right) is something I do not think is reasonable or should have been done.
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Re: Limiting my answer only to the subject of Milo. All other questions are irrelevant.
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This “slander” happened on Twitter, where only a handful of people could have seen the original tweet in the moment it was posted. How it could have affected Ms. Monroe beyond hurting her feelings is beyond me, as the tweet did not appear to gain any widespread traction in the public sphere until this lawsuit happened. Any harm to her public reputation seems, at best, rather limited.
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Katie Hopkins is an awful woman, end of discussion.
However, making her pay out for a deleted tweet accusing Jack Monroe of something she didn't do is both unreasonable and unfair. She deleted the tweet, so no harm was done to Jack's reputation. Nobody believes that Jack Monroe is in the business of defacing war memorial and therefore no harm was done to Jack.
If we want to bash Katie for being an obnoxious creature then by all means bash Katie for being an obnoxious creature. That is what Twitter is for, not the flippin' courts.
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So…YouTube commenters?
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I've had someone try to get me sacked from my job for opining on online reputation issues by lying about me. This was an anonymous troll. I contented myself by posting rebuttals and challenging troll to produce evidence or STFU. He chose the latter option, I was promoted at work, and have not suffered any loss of reputation despite the troll's best efforts.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: people can say whatever they want about you but that just makes people check you out to see your side of the story. Make sure they find the person you want them to find when they're reading your blog, etc. by behaving as you want to be perceived. I can be a little snarky at times but as a rule I try to get along with everybody else. Regular TD readers will have noticed me posting: is that what you guys see?
I'm with Mike for the most part but I daresay this was more about punishing Katie Hopkins for being a horrible person on principle than for hurting Jack Monroe's feelings. That is what the British trendy liberals are celebrating, after all.
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The Twofold Principle applies: the individual must be free to act and the will of the people must be respected.
I see you have a problem with respecting the will of the people. Sort it out, you'll have fewer stress-related problems.
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If you have any links to the Sun, etc., accusing Jack Monroe of vandalising war memorials, please can you reply with them? If there is no such story anywhere, except in reports on the trial, Jack suffered no harm to her reputation because every Hopkins hater is too busy high-fiving her. I'd also like to see evidence (a link will do) of the death threats she allegedly received as a result of Hopkins's deleted tweet. That's actual harm.
Is the evidence of harm merely anecdotal or did Jack Monroe suffer as a result of Katie Hopkins mistaking her for someone else?
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In my case, I flagged it because while I couldn't see an obvious problem with it, the poster's past history makes it clear that there usually is one, and also because leaving it visible encourages people to reply - which only encourages continuation of the posting pattern.
Normally, when someone who usually makes flag-worthy posts makes one that's actually potentially positive, it's worth encouraging that behavior by leaving that one post alone - but this particular poster's behavior seems to me to lead to the conclusion that any encouragement for any of it will simply encourage the continuation of all of it, and IMO that's not something that is desirable.
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In other words you censored the poster and took away his right to free speech. Do you see how incredibly crazy that sounds?
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"You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Take it away, XKCD.
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That doesn't appear to be what the judge wrote
Which is why the judge explicitly writes that this is not the definition of defamation.
His actual reasoning being...
It appears that a significant reasons for judging that the Serious Harm requirement had been met were that the tweets were "widely published" by specified "publishees" (which I read as "someone with a reputation"). Which is either the judge not understanding social media, or a judge really understanding social media.
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I had assumed it was 40%, like most hard liquor
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