Stupid Legal Threats: You Can't Write About Me Because of Your Blog's Name

http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/23/today-in-unusually-stupid-legal-threats-you-cant-write-about-me-because-of-your-blogs-name/

by tokenadult • 13 years ago

105 40 13 years ago

popehat.com

Zikes• 13 years ago

One wonders if Dr. Fernandez is now similarly concerned with his name being associated with popes and/or hats.

stretchwithme4• 13 years ago

Oh, dear. I hope no one thinks he's a hacker now.

darxius• 13 years ago

Another classic example of the Streisand Effect. If he really wanted something changed or the fact that it wasn't a retraction more visible, he could of emailed the owner of the blog and politely asked if there was a compromise that could be reached.

hmottestad2• 13 years ago

I guess this is what happens when you get angry and threaten someone who knows better than to be scared.

I wonder what the author would have done if the initial email had been a plead, especially if only to make the article say something like "NOT A RETRACTION" in the title.

If it had been me I would have responded much more kindly to a plead than to a threat.

Centigonal• 13 years ago

Plea. :)

hmottestad2• 13 years ago

nouns and verbs, so much fun. Thanks.

stretchwithme4• 13 years ago

This is like suing because someone did a profile on you and published it on Yahoo.

pyre• 13 years ago

But someone might see that profile an think that I'm a 'yahoo!'

stretchwithme4• 13 years ago

Wouldn't that have happened anyway :-)

phaemon• 13 years ago

This is like suing because someone did a profile on you and published it on Rapist Watch.

If that had happened, I doubt there would be many saying, "Well, they never accused me of being a rapist, so I guess it's OK."

stretchwithme4• 13 years ago

It really depends on what is said. Rapist watch can profile people who watch for rapists too.

incision• 13 years ago

I certainly don't agree with the way the doc has chosen to handle this, but I sympathize to a degree. There's no shortage of ignorance about how the Internet works among otherwise educated people.

Also, the author seems a bit disingenuous.

>The web site in question is Retraction Watch. I recently discussed other foolish threats made against them, and discussed their mission: offering a "window on the scientific process" by which scientific articles are criticized, retracted, or modified."

The full statement is "Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process". This is a 2200+ word post, seems unlikely those three words had to be clipped in the interest of brevity.

>He's acted like an angry blustering oaf who is pathologically intolerant of criticism. Ask yourself — how much do you trust the work of a scientist who threatens to sue for true reports of peer review of his work? Would you feel comfortable ingesting a drug developed by a chemist who threatens criminal charges against someone who reports — truly and accurately — that other scientists have raised questions about his conclusions? Would you hire a consultant who makes foolish public legal threats without first acquiring any grasp whatsoever of the applicable law? Would you invest in a pharmaceutical company whose Chief Scientific Officer utters civil and criminal threats against reports of scientific dissent?

That seems unnecessarily nasty.

benjamincburns• 13 years ago

> That seems unnecessarily nasty.

He seems quite concerned with the Streisand Effect. Maybe there's a bit of link bait going on here? If he can convince the good doctor to threaten suit against him, maybe he can be the benefactor instead of Retraction Watch. </tinfoil-hat>

[Edit: If nothing else, heated/opinionated discussion makes for interesting reading.]

comex• 13 years ago

> That seems unnecessarily nasty.

Being unnecessarily nasty to and making fun of people who make misguided legal threats is par for the course for popehat. It's fun to read, but in my opinion not really laudable.

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

Chances are that he's thinking in a civil law mindset, seeing as he's from Argentina. Some other countries have far stricter laws on defamation than the US. Indeed, I actually think US laws are a bit too weak, resulting things like exploitation of mugshots for commercial profit and so on.

Houshalter3• 13 years ago

>resulting things like exploitation of mugshots for commercial profit and so on.

What? I personally think all defamation laws are bs, but regardless, what is wrong with publishing mugshots?

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

Ask someone who's been arrested in error.

dredmorbius2• 13 years ago

There are several instances of:

1. People being arrested in error.

2. Mugshots being published.

3. People requesting mugshots be taken down.

4a. Mugshots disappearing from site A but reappearing on site B. Rinse, wash, repeat.

4b. An "administration fee" being charged for the service of taking down mugshot. See 4a.

There are crimes which are considered so heinous that even being publicly accused can carry a very substantial social stigma. Consider the recent exceptionally public allegations against a prominent Silicon Valley insider of rape by another SV insider.

In other cases, the increasing use of background checks, not limited to criminal convictions but including searches of social media, news, and the general Internet, means that such false allegations might appear.

Again: take the case of individuals who were falsely accused of being the Boston Marathon bombers, including a missing college student and a high school student fingered by the New York Post (which "stands by its reporting" for whatever the hell that means). Or today's story that a man arrested in connection with ricin-laced letters being sent to congressmen and the President being released.

If that still doesn't work, picture this: you wake up tomorrow to find the police at your door. Why? An ex-girlfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or co-worker, or child at the charity you volunteer with, or some total stranger, has just made up completely random shit about you. Or your image is similar to that of someone photographed doing something Really Really Bad. Or your Twitter / Facebook / HN account has been hacked and is spewing bile or terrorist threats.

It all sounds very abstract until it isn't.

There's a reason why the authors of the US Constitution insisted on due process.

lutusp2• 13 years ago

A quote: "Among the doctrines that defeat Dr. Fernandez' theory are these: truth is an absolute defense to defamation."

Would that it were so. In the U.S., where these events took place, there is a legal principle called "false light", in which truthful remarks can still lead to a judgment against a defendant on the ground that the truths were selected in such a way as to cast the plaintiff in a false light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light

chacham15• 13 years ago

You are missing a BIG part of that tort: "made with actual malice." You cant be sued for accidental false light, you have to purposely cast a false light on facts with malicious intent.

"Truth is always an absolute defense against a defamation suit in the United States."

-Your favorite source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law)

lutusp2• 13 years ago

> You cant be sued for accidental false light, you have to purposely cast a false light on facts with malicious intent.

It's more accurate to say that the plaintiff has to substantiate malicious intent in court. Whether there is actual malice is more a matter of philosophy than law. Since the standard in civil court is preponderance, making that showing isn't as difficult as it might be in a criminal court.

Then there's the issue of whether the plaintiff is, or can be portrayed as, a public figure -- that changes everything.

lyndonh• 13 years ago

The blog post is an ad hominem attack.

I think the researcher mixed up who is connected to what site; but over all he is right: his paper has not been retracted (yet and possibly won't be).

Should he sue or threaten to sue about it ? Probably not; at least not until he can show damages.

Threatening the Streisand effect is pure trolling - If you defend yourself you're guilty ?

freddealmeida• 13 years ago

That's OK, he has lawdingo. :-)

zowch• 13 years ago

Not really the case here because the article specifically calls out what happened, but it can't really be the case that the name of the blog or site should play NO role in determining defamation, right?

If I run a blog called "Murderer Watch: Keeping an Eye on Murderers and Things" and I post "Bob Jones is 34 and lives in Atlanta, GA," that can't be totally okay just because those are all factual statements, right?

Stupid Legal Threats: You Can't Write About Me Because of Your Blog's Name

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