This is beyond stupid, yet is a bit scary. I would just say this to people that think this is okay, 1984 was a cautionary tale, not a how-to book.
Considering what people get away with in terms of online harassment, and when you have the media attack individuals completely unfairly like FOX NEWS has done and get away with, I don't think there's any kind of lawsuit here. With libel you have to be able to state that what was written is false (and satire doesn't count by the way) and you additionally have to show how you were damaged by that. This is a weak case considering other individuals who actually have had their lives destroyed by lies online and still don't have a case.
About as expected as it can get. These "tough guys" that call others snow flakes tend to be the softest.
This is tied to trump's threats against SNL. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that trump, hannity, and some of their cronies talked nunes into filing this suit. They want to see where it goes. If it goes in their direction, we'll see a flood of suits coming from the trump organization and the trump administration attacking anyone and everyone that says anything even remotely critical. This isn't random. It's incredibly stupid, should never be heard, and deserves the mocking he's getting...but it's not a random event. It's a test balloon.
There is no (government) regulation. It's a hot debate topic on if there should be. Social media are self-regulating. What exactly they do is a black box. The tools they use is sometime even a black box to themselves. Social media (and ANY companies) doesn't have the man power (literally) to manage a large customer base with large data exchange. Others want efficient and are moving away from manual labor based decision. They rely on algorithms to make decisions. This impact nearly everyone today and will become more impactful as more decisions become algorithm based. Decision such as which social media posting to block, which search item results pops up, what's your mortgage interest rate, what's your insurance rate, and so on. The algorithms aren't bias-free. Even without any intention of bias from human, they can become biased. Amazon tried to build an algorithm for making hiring decision - they did a pilot run and they cannot remove the male-bias and shut it down. As these companies likely do not know themselves how these algorithms made decision exactly, or if they do, they aren't telling us how, regulation can play a part --- what data set is used, how decision are made, what are the reason for the decisions. Transparency into the algorithm and data set would go a long way. Furthermore, some built-in process (algorithm) to spit out the "reasons" for the decision that is made available to user is needed. If we just sit back and let company self-regulate, we are allowing decision made that impact us without accountability --- to a point where, lets said there is a lawsuit and the judge ask, how did you come up with these decision? Guess what, they might not even know. There isn't a person behind the decision to provide an answer.
Devin Nunes Trends As Hashtag 'Director Of Butt Licking' Rep. Devin Nunes continues to be the butt of much internet fodder as he seeks to silence his critics, including one very feisty cow. Adam Parkhomenko's (@DevinNunesCow) filing to quash was just as hilarious as you'd expect, with his lawyer Scott Surovell (and Virginia State Senator) proving to be more than adept at epic trolling. Source: Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos
Criminals doing crimes. Who is not surprised? As The Washington Post reports, when Nunes’ lawsuits against Twitter failed to gain the name behind the cow account, someone else pitched in: then-Attorney General William Barr. That included using the Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue a grand jury subpoena demanding the identity behind the account. Twitter, fortunately, refused to obey and filed a motion to quash the subpoena, saying, “Congressman Nunes had previously and unsuccessfully attempted, in several ways, to obtain information about his critics.” With courts repeatedly ruling against Nunes, the DOJ request looked to Twitter like a backdoor attempt to route around those legal rulings and extract the information. Because it was. When Twitter tried to get an explanation from the DOJ as to why they were asking for this information—information only pertinent to an individual defamation suit—the DOJ responded that the information was “part of a criminal investigation,” and hinted that the owner of the Devin Nunes’ Cow account had threatened to injure someone. However, they would not provide Twitter with any proof of such a threat. In essence—and in fact—the DOJ took on the role of personal attorneys to Devin Nunes. This subpoena, filed in the wake of Trump’s defeat at the poles, represented nothing less than an attempt to turn the United States government into a battering ram that Trump’s favorite congressman could use to batter down multiple court rulings so that he could personally harass and sue an individual. In trying to gain this information from Twitter, representatives of the DOJ not only operated far outside the agency’s rightful area, but made false claims about the owner of the account and falsely represented to Twitter that crimes had been committed.
Since suing the cow went so well (not)... sue-happy devin nunes turns his crack legal team onto Rachel Maddow because they were mean...
