Orlando Police Chief Threatens Critical Blogger, Saying Truth Isn't A Defense

from the oh-really? dept

We've seen plenty of government officials get upset about various things critics have said about them, and Tim writes in to let us know that down in Orlando, Florida, the local police chief is threatening to sue a web critic who put up a site highlighting how the chief had her gun stolen from her car, and then that news was kept secret for a while. While there are some complications here (the site the blogger is using is the chief's name, ValDemings.com, for example), it's hard to see how there's any defamation here at all, despite the Chief's claims. She does claim that he portrayed the situation in "false light," but as the article notes, the Florida Supreme Court recently ruled that "false light isn't a legitimate cause of action and has the potential to chill free speech."

But what may be most scary is the following quote from Demings' attorney:

"Truth is not always a defense. I hope he [Harris] gets himself a really good lawyer."

While it's true that some have been trying to push the boundaries of libel law to get rid of "truth" as an absolute defense, that troubles most people, and it's hardly common. Of course, in the meantime, in trying to shut up this blogger, Demings seems to be doing a great job kicking up a lot of attention about the fact she lost her gun...

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Yet Another Truth Telling Computer... Haven't We Seen This Before?

from the believe-it-when-I-see-it dept

For years and years and years, we've been hearing about hugely ambitious projects to try to create "thinking" machines that can absorb a ton of information and spit out facts. Yet, every time, when the true tests begin, the project never gets very far, for a variety of reasons. First, the technology usually isn't that good. Having a computer decide what is "truthful" isn't exactly an easy problem -- especially when plenty of humans can't even agree on what is, and what is not, truthful. Second, these companies have failed to come up with a reason why anyone would really want/need to use such a thing. After all, how useful is a "truth" machine compared to a simple search engine? These projects come and go, and there's always someone insisting that the holy grail is on its way. The latest is Stephen Wolfram, something of a high tech oddity. He built a tremendous success with Mathematica and clearly is a sort of techie's techie. That's why it's not as easy to simply dismiss his claims to have created just such a knowledge system. That said, I'm still not convinced there's a particularly good use case for the product -- and, even if it's much better than what's come before, chances are it still has an incredibly long way to go. Wolfram is a super smart guy -- and I do hope he's figured out how to really create such a thing, but given how many similar claims we've seen in the past, it seems only wise to express some significant skepticism.

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Truth Is No Longer An Absolute Defense Against Libel?!?

from the um...-that's-not-good dept

Thanks to Jon, for pointing to us a very scary recent court ruling that appears to have done away with one of the most basic free speech rights: that truth is an absolute defense against libel. Apparently, a federal appeals court in Boston feels that there are exceptions to this rule, and that even the truth can be libelous. If that seems incredibly problematic, you're right.

The case involved the office supply company Staples, who had fired an employee for abusing the company's travel and expense reporting system. After letting the guy, Alan S. Noonan, go, the company sent an email to many employees letting them know why Noonan was fired: "A thorough investigation determined that Alan was not in compliance with our [travel and expenses] policies." Noonan sued for libel, but Staples pointed out that since it was entirely accurate, there was no case.

However, the appeals court noted a century old Massachusetts law that suggests that truth is a defense against libel except if the plaintiff can show "actual malice" by the defendant in publishing the statement. Even though an earlier ruling had ruled that particular law was unconstitutional, the appeals court said that earlier ruling didn't apply. Instead, it said that since Staples had never named an employee fired for similar reasons, there was "malice" in sending out the email it sent. This may only apply in Massachusetts and it's highly likely to eventually be overturned (either in a rehearing by the entire appeals court, or eventually the Supreme Court), but in the meantime, it represents a very troubling change in the commonly accepted understanding that true statements can't be found as libelous.

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Is The Internet Bad For Truth... Or Is The Truth Bad For Truth?

from the perception-and-reality dept

It's been nearly two decades since I first read Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea's The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Like plenty of people influenced by that book, parts of it have stuck with me ever since -- even if it's been at least a dozen years since I last picked it up. One key thing that I remember taking away from the book is a recognition that "the truth" isn't always as clear as it seems -- and anyone claiming to tell you the full truth is misleading you in some way or another. One key scene (which I think was actually buried in a footnote in an appendix, but as I said, it's been many, many years...) is where the authors point out that the only way people recognize the real truth of a situation is by figuring it out for themselves -- and present a scenario whereby that happens. If you took a low level army private and put him between two equally high ranking generals, with one screaming for the private to sit down, and the other demanding he stand up -- the likely response is for the private to "wig out" and finally make a decision for himself. To me, investigating the "truth" is always something along those lines. I find it compelling to have various generals screaming totally contradictory concepts until I have no choice but to look at all of the evidence and decide for myself.

Apparently, some people feel quite differently.

Over in Forbes, there's a column by Melik Kaylan, where he claims that the internet is "bad for truth" because it presents so many contradictory ideas. He bemoans the fact that, in the good old days, the truth was whatever the elitist and limited media told you was the truth, no matter how wrong it might have been. But, these days, with so many different and contradictory voices, Kaylan worries that the actual truth just gets blurry and people simply surround themselves with the truth that they want and ignore the "official" truth.

This is, really, just a rehashing of the old "echo chamber" insult that gets thrown at various online communities -- and I've yet to see much evidence that it's true at all. Folks involved in extreme communities often seem to actively seek out opposing viewpoints, if only to trash them. Yes, I'm sure there are some folks who refuse to read anything critical of their own viewpoints, but those people are so far gone already, I'm not sure it really matters. As someone who is occasionally accused of having "extreme" points of view, I actively read the viewpoints of various critics and people who disagree with me, because it helps me to continually understand that "truth" that I seek. It keeps me sharp as I keep refining and adjusting my own beliefs -- whether it's figuring out why someone I disagree with is wrong, or if I can't figure it out, refining my own beliefs. Not everyone is necessarily like that, but I'd argue that people are a lot better off having more information at their fingertips to make their own decisions than when they got the word from on high from some "official" source.

It's not that the internet is bad for truth. It's that people have started to realize that the "truth" provided to them from official sources wasn't true at all. The real problem for "the truth" was that the actual truth didn't match up to it. That's not the "fault" of the internet -- it's one of the benefits of the internet.

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The Uneasy Balance Between Wikipedia And Truth

from the it-ain't-always-there dept

I've long been a staunch defender of Wikipedia -- a site that I think many of us find quite useful. Most of the criticisms directed at Wikipedia come off as misguided -- and usually come from people who only just realized that anyone can edit it and insist this is somehow bad before recognizing that this usually tends to be pretty good, because it means mistakes tend not to last very long. That isn't to say that mistakes aren't made -- or even that they're not made quite frequently. But, as long as you recognize that Wikipedia, by itself, is not meant to be the definitive source, then it is still an amazingly useful repository of information that can be used as a starting point.

However, Simpson Garfinkel has an interesting article pointing out that there is one element of Wikipedia's relationship to "truth" that should be examined. That is, the site very highly values verifiability over truth. In other words, it will always side with a citation over personal knowledge -- even if that citation is incorrect. This leads to some odd situations, when you think about it. After all, people will point out that Wikipedia's advantage over something like Britannica is that mistakes stay for much longer in Britannica. But, that might only be true if the Wikipedia entry isn't based on a false citation.

If the Wikipedia entry is based on a false citation, and there's no other citation that contradicts it, then it's likely that Wikipedia's entry will remain wrong, but citable. So, the easy editing of Wikipedia is a bit meaningless if the source of the false fact is not also editable (or if there's no citation that shows the original citation is wrong). I've seen this myself lately with the short entry about me. While I do take quite seriously the typical admonition not to edit your own entry, I have checked it at times. What amuses me, is that it tends to have my birthday wrong (flipping the month and the date, such that my real birthday -- December 8, or 12/08 -- is flipped to August 12, or 08/12). I've been watching a couple of people (one of whom I'm pretty sure I know) argue back and forth about the date, with the person who keeps flipping it back to the wrong date claiming at one point that he is me. He's not. Of course, I don't take this as evidence of Wikipedia's failure, but more a reminder of what the site is and what it's not. It's a useful starting point for investigation, which is quite often reliable and sufficient, but I wouldn't recommend betting your life on it. Or even your birthday.

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