this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
506 points (93.5% liked)

Technology

59678 readers
3261 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ZickZack@fedia.io 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Surely a company should be governed by the laws of the state in which they are based

This is not true and wouldn't make why sense: let's say you are a delivery company and one of your drivers runs over a dog in Texas. The lawsuit can be filed in Texas, regardless of whether your company is in Texas, California, or even outside the united states. The place you are incorporated in doesn't change the damages or laws you violated when running over the dog. Of course you can also move the venue to the state the company is based in.

You cannot (generally) move it to another state, since that state doesn't even have jurisdiction over any part of the incident.

The internet is just special in the sense that really something that happened on the internet happened everywhere on earth at the same time, meaning any venue is a place where potential damages were accrued.

[–] frazw@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agree that if an incident happens in a particular jurisdiction, the local court should handle it. That makes sense, no argument here. But here they get to choose the set of laws because there was no physical location? That just feels wrong somehow. Anyway there is a physical location and if anything, the incident was 'perpetrated' by a person who was physically located somewhere at the time. It should be handled by the court local to them at the time. In the case of organisations, I guess this would mean where the defendant company operates from. Or if we accept it is virtual and everywhere then, it should be governed by federal laws not state laws.

[–] ZickZack@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago

I answered a little more in detail in a different comment (https://fedia.io/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/411563/-/comment/2556033) but to address the last point: They did file in federal court (specifically the federal district court in north texas).

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Makes sense, but how can things like the slapp suit from bob murray have been in a state (west virginia) neither hbo ( who called bob a lot of shit and is located in new york ) , bob murray ( utah) or his company were in?
Edit: excuse me, i meant bob murray, not bill murrey

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wait, what is this about Bill Murrey? I'm out-of-the-loop...

EDIT: Never mind, I was thinking of Bill. Bill Murray. He's still cool, apparently...

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for clarifying. Wrong dude. I need to caffinate before commenting...

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Eat Shit, Bob.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] ZickZack@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Essentially the same argument: Due to the fact the HBO show was syndicated throughout the united states, he can file in the federal courts in e.g. Texas (usually the argument is something like "They damaged business relations/contracts in XYZ state, therefore we file in XYZ state").

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Despite neither having anything to do in xyz state? That sounds broken as hell :/
But thanks for explaining !

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think your example covers the case where a company has a lawsuit filed against it. And the object of the lawsuit is an event that occurred in a particular state. But why should a company be able to originate a lawsuit in the state of their choosing? Shouldn’t it either be their home state or the home state of whom ever they’re suing? Or wherever the events in question took place?

[–] ZickZack@fedia.io 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The issue with the internet is that it did take place in texas as well: The news article was available in texas, so the news corp can be sued there. Basically the argument is: "Media Matters harmed X's brand in texas using misleading information" (you can read their arguments for filing in texas under the "Jurisdiction and Venue" section of their filing).

Also remember that this is currently X's wish list: Media Matters can file for a change in venue.

Edit: Quick update.

Looking at their filing, the case will probably fail under a motion for summary judgment: They basically agree with Media Matters that they did show ads under extremist's posts. They simply argue that you need to push the twitter algorithm to its limits by doomscrolling for a long time until the algorithm fails. However, this doesn't make any of the facts provided by Media Matters (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle) wrong.