Conspiracy theorist ordered to pay $875,000 for online posts about Nationals MP Anne Webster

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09...-defamation-payout-over-online-posts/12689178

I wonder if this will have broader global implications? There are two considerations here first being a concern with online conspiracists such as QANON who have the potential to do immeasurable harm but on the other I do not want this to be a signal that justifiable reporting and truth telling is suppressed

 

This is a slander issue, not a conspiracy theorist issue

 

Ah! But the QANON followers have been spreading rumours about paedophile rings operating throughout the world

 

It does seem grossly excessive for a defamation suit based on a few posts on Facebook.

I am concerned about the implications for free speech.

 

I disagree with their views but I will die for their right to hold and voice them.

 

But when does it cross the line? This pandemic has highlighted how easy it is to spread misinformation . People also have a right NOT to have false information spread about them

 

That's pretty trivial to debunk, how about we humiliate them with facts so their adherents are exposed to the truth rather than pushing them underground where they don't hear the truth and fester?

 

hopefully this will put a end to the Q nonsense, people need to be held responsible

like #PizzaGate, the person that started that rumor should be held responsible

 

when something like #Pizzagate causes real life dangers, that is when they most need to be held liable imo

 

Anyone who advocates for imminent lawless action should be imprisoned, everyone else should be left alone.

 

Your kidding! Try “humiliating” a Trump supporter with facts and truth?

 

I'd prefer to convince these people or at least expose them to truth through rigorous argument than let them fester underground.

Then there is the benefit for myself. I have talked to communists who want to murder the bourgeosis, I have talked to fascists who want to exterminate non-whites. I walked away with a greater understanding of my own liberal position through actually having to confront the opposing views.

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form."

 

I would do both, letting people get away with #PizzaGates will just mean more #PizzaGates