City University of London Students Vote to Ban Tabloid News.

[Brian Peacock]

courts have no reliability...

Not true. They have SOME reliability.

They don't have perfect reliability. What does?

Same goes for the scientific process, except science doesn't lay claim to absolute truth or perfect knowledge to begin with.

[mistermack]

You mean the courts that adjudicate what news stories are true, false or in the middle? Yes, I've heard of them. Historically they all have a tendency to shut entire publications down. Need I mention any examples of regimes that did that?

Courts in Britain often decide on truth and lies, in the media.
In libel cases they have to do exactly that.

Courts in non-democratic countries reflect that type of regime.

[Forty Two]

For the leftists out there, "fake" news means anything that they disagree with or feel triggers by....

Like Pizzagate and all those people the Clintons had murdered.

None of that was reported in mainstream media.

But, sure, like when Trump is accused of soiling beds in Russian hotel rooms with hooker water sports sessions, or when Trump is accused of being a pedophile, or a rapist, or in league with the Russians....

[Forty Two]

courts have no reliability...

Not true. They have SOME reliability.

They don't have perfect reliability. What does?

Sure, but in the case of news stories, falsity is not what determines illegality. A story must not only be false, but it must be defamatory/libelous. In the US, that is a very strict standard to meet. A bit less so in Britain, as I understand it.

There's a great US Supreme Court case involving Larry Flynt and his publication, Hustler. He was sued by Jerry Falwell for publishing a really awful story about how Jerry was committing incest with his own mother and all sorts of other scurrilous assertions. No libel there.

The Obama administration tried to sneak into the US media newsrooms through an FCC measure in 2014, where it wanted to ferret out the ways newsrooms pick stories, and find out whether they are "biased" and whether they are "serving traditionally underserved communities." http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000 ... 3828260732

Going down the road of letting the government decide what stories are biased and what are not, what stories are fake and what are not, and whether stories are being reported fairly to this or that group is a recipe for disaster.

[Brian Peacock]

For the leftists out there, "fake" news means anything that they disagree with or feel triggers by....

Like Pizzagate and all those people the Clintons had murdered.

None of that was reported in mainstream media.

On the contrary, the MSM (!) covered those stories but generally reported on them as conspiracy theories, not as facts.

[mistermack]

When you have a brave, honest, independent media industry, you have something worth defending.
What we actually have is an industry owned and controlled by right-wing loonies like Murdoch.

So I do support laws that penalise them heavily, if they print lies. Whether they defame individuals, or just hurt political ideologies.
Fuck em. They are no good to anyone except their owners. You're not hurting the free press, because you haven't GOT a free press.

[JimC]

When you have a brave, honest, independent media industry, you have something worth defending.
What we actually have is an industry owned and controlled by right-wing loonies like Murdoch.

So I do support laws that penalise them heavily, if they print lies. Whether they defame individuals, or just hurt political ideologies.
Fuck em. They are no good to anyone except their owners. You're not hurting the free press, because you haven't GOT a free press.

I might enjoy seeing the Murdoch press given a whack too, but the existence of such laws available to any government is dangerous...

[Hermit]

You mean the courts that adjudicate what news stories are true, false or in the middle? Yes, I've heard of them. Historically they all have a tendency to shut entire publications down. Need I mention any examples of regimes that did that?

Courts in Britain often decide on truth and lies, in the media.
In libel cases they have to do exactly that.

In this post you advocated banning false news. "False news also ought to be grounds for a ban." Prosecuting someone for libel - even if successful - does not equal banning false news. Are you confused or merely happy to move goal posts?

[mistermack]

You mean the courts that adjudicate what news stories are true, false or in the middle? Yes, I've heard of them. Historically they all have a tendency to shut entire publications down. Need I mention any examples of regimes that did that?

Courts in Britain often decide on truth and lies, in the media.
In libel cases they have to do exactly that.

In this post you advocated banning false news. "False news also ought to be grounds for a ban." Prosecuting someone for libel - even if successful - does not equal banning false news. Are you confused or merely happy to move goal posts?

Are you being deliberately dim?
I was just answering your assertion about the practicality of someone deciding what was true, and what was not, and what's in the middle.
Courts do that in libel cases. So it's practical. It happens. It can be done and is done.
Fuck, why do I have to spell it out?

[JimC]

You mean the courts that adjudicate what news stories are true, false or in the middle? Yes, I've heard of them. Historically they all have a tendency to shut entire publications down. Need I mention any examples of regimes that did that?

Courts in Britain often decide on truth and lies, in the media.
In libel cases they have to do exactly that.

In this post you advocated banning false news. "False news also ought to be grounds for a ban." Prosecuting someone for libel - even if successful - does not equal banning false news. Are you confused or merely happy to move goal posts?

Are you being deliberately dim?
I was just answering your assertion about the practicality of someone deciding what was true, and what was not, and what's in the middle.
Courts do that in libel cases. So it's practical. It happens. It can be done and is done.
Fuck, why do I have to spell it out?

Libel involves clear harm to someone's reputation, and so is in the category of legal sanctions against doing harm to another, and so will obviously involve the courts. However, it is only a small sub-set of the category "false news". The remainder typically involves serious difficulties in deciding what is false and what is not, as it is coloured by politics and personal bias; a minefield for legal decisions, and a tempting arena for self-interested decisions by those in authority.

[mistermack]

Libel involves clear harm to someone's reputation, and so is in the category of legal sanctions against doing harm to another, and so will obviously involve the courts. However, it is only a small sub-set of the category "false news". The remainder typically involves serious difficulties in deciding what is false and what is not, as it is coloured by politics and personal bias; a minefield for legal decisions, and a tempting arena for self-interested decisions by those in authority.

If it's true, it's not libellous. So the court has to decide if it's true or not, as part of the case.
I was just saying that if they can do that in a libel case, they can do it in a false news case.

And as I pointed out ages ago, only clearly false should be classed as false. If it's debatable, it would be not guilty.

[Brian Peacock]

Hey, here's an idea, get your news from an outlet that separates the reporting of events from analysis, comment and opinion on those events.

[Hermit]

You mean the courts that adjudicate what news stories are true, false or in the middle? Yes, I've heard of them. Historically they all have a tendency to shut entire publications down. Need I mention any examples of regimes that did that?

Courts in Britain often decide on truth and lies, in the media.
In libel cases they have to do exactly that.

In this post you advocated banning false news. "False news also ought to be grounds for a ban." Prosecuting someone for libel - even if successful - does not equal banning false news. Are you confused or merely happy to move goal posts?

Are you being deliberately dim?
I was just answering your assertion about the practicality of someone deciding what was true, and what was not, and what's in the middle.
Courts do that in libel cases. So it's practical. It happens. It can be done and is done.
Fuck, why do I have to spell it out?

You were not just answering my assertion about the practicality of someone deciding what was true, and what was not, and what's in the middle. You advocated banning false news. Libel laws don't do that. They merely hold people responsible for what they say, write or publish, which is fair enough.

[mistermack]

Libel laws don't do that.

I didn't say they did.

[Hermit]

Libel laws don't do that.

I didn't say they did.

Settled then? So we agree that libel laws are not about banning the publication of untrue news stories?