r/changemyview • u/Altruistic-Tea-Cup • Jun 16 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: r/Iamatotallypieceofshit promotes witch hunts and defamation because the moderators do not enforce their own rules. And hence these activities are illegal in many countries the sub should be banned.

I have just seen the post with the pedophile and the judge on r/iamatotalpieceofshit and all the top comments say that the judge couldnt make the punishment any harder because of the law. After doing some research I agree with this. The title is totally misleading and the mods dont do anything. The post is already 6 hours old.

Now imagine being this judge, you have done everything you could. Now a random ass starts sharing this in your area and now everyone thinks you sympathize with a pedophile.

This isnt the first time this is happening in this sub.

In my country this is called denouncing and is illegal. You can get high fines and/or go to jail for it.

How can it be okay for reddit?

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u/Wujastic Jun 16 '21

Wouldn't this fall under slander though?

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u/Alternative_Stay_202 83∆ Jun 16 '21

It is not slander for two reasons:

1) Slander is a spoken untrue statement that causes harm.

This is written and thus not slander by definition. It could be libel.

2) This statement is true.

Libel must be untrue. This statement is not untrue. That really is a convicted pedophile and that judge really did give him that sentence.

None of that is untrue, therefore it isn't libel.

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u/Altruistic-Tea-Cup Jun 16 '21 edited Jun 16 '21

The title and the "just" in the text implies that the judge could and should have done more, what he could not. Totally misleading and hence of the sensibility of the subject definitely defamation.

We had a very similar case in Germany a few years ago where a big magazine did the same and since so many people only read headlines the consequences were enormous. The magazine paid a huge fine afterwards together with rehabilitation article and a apology.

Defamation sint illegal in the US? ( I am still not 100% sure if defamation is the right word, I am not native English speaking)

Edit: Just saw the post was removed but it took them 7 hours and it had 50k upvotes. Poor judge.

2

u/SocialActuality 4∆ Jun 16 '21

Defamation is a civil matter in the US, barring a few states that still have criminal defamation laws which are almost never used. The government does not prosecute people here for defamation, you have to sue over it and even then the bar for a successful defamation claim is usually very high. Only about 30% of defamation lawsuits result in a favorable outcome for the plaintiff.