One way to stop the Big Lie is to impose big legal costs on the conspiracy theorists
(link) https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/why-newsmax-apologized-rather-face-defamation-lawsuit-n1266099
Why Newsmax apologized rather than face a defamation lawsuit
By Jessica Levinson, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
Last Friday, the right-wing television outlet Newsmax issued a public apology to one of Dominion Voting Systems' top employees over its false allegations that the voting technology company engaged in fraud in the 2020 election. Newsmax's belated capitulation to the truth shows that defamation claims could be a major way to combat disinformation.
Seventy percent of Republicans believe President Joe Biden didn't win enough votes to be elected, according to a recent CNN poll. This isn't just wrong; it's deeply problematic that, six months after the election, half of the members of one of our two major parties have concluded that there's solid evidence that democracy was subverted when it wasn't.
- snip -
How does a voting technology company clear its name — and the stench of political disinformation in the process? Dominion filed defamation suits against Fox News, Giuliani, Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, while Coomer separately sued Newsmax. A defamatory statement is, generally put, a false statement that harms someone's reputation. Defamation laws vary by state, but they all generally require that plaintiffs, Coomer in this case, be able to demonstrate three things: that the people they are suing communicated or published a false statement of fact, that the people communicating or publishing that false statement of fact had the requisite state of mind (meaning they knew or had reason to know the statement was false; again this varies a bit) and that they suffered damages as a result.
It's another victory in the battle against the Big Lie after the threat of legal action from Smartmatic, another voting machine company, also forced retractions from Newsmax and Fox News in December. The fact that Newsmax went even further when it apologized to Coomer and retracted its claims about Dominion in the face of a defamation lawsuit shows that these suits can lead to real action.
- more at link -
Hit them where it hurts the most. Maybe it won't shut up the crazies, but hopefully the smart business people will stop giving them free airtime to tell their lies.
If they aren't too smart, well maybe these big lawsuits will put them out of business. Same difference.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The RWNJs won't censor themselves, we already know that. Remember the old "fairness doctrine" that Reagan destroyed? That used to be a sensible solution, because every news outlet was required to offer equal time for rebuttal and it always made them think twice before allowing these crazy people to takeover their channel. Nowadays there's no such thing as equal time or even fairness - indeed it doesn't cost the news channels anything to give free airtime to the crazies.
The point of this article is to MAKE IT COST THEM by bring lawsuits against them. Newsmax is just a little guy compared to Faux Noise, they can't afford this, so they buckled. Maybe in the future they will think twice about the crazy rightwing nutjobs. We certainly hope so.
