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I agree with you about all the past bad behaviour, but the e-mail about Minsky was a bad choice to be the "last straw". It was an email calling for accusation-inflation prevention, which the media portrayed as completely the opposite (and this way of manipulation information from the media should be criminal, in my opinion).

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If we made deliberate or negligent defamation a criminal offence it might restore some sanity to society.

That's similar to how "free speech"* works in Germany, and you have people like crowder saying in public that "Germany has no free speech".

I agree in principle, but I think there's lots of good arguments against it as well.

More importantly than the question of whether it's legal, I'm amazed that people can still see themselves as "the good ones" after all the things they do to their fellow humans.

* In German, we use the word "Meinungsfreiheit", which literally translates to "Freedom of Opinion", not "Free Speech", so yes, technically speaking, we don't have free speech; only the right to express our opinions.

Sounds non-insane. Opinions should indeedbe free. Facts should be free. Lies that harm should not be OK.

A nice side effect of criminalizing defamation would be that the enforcment would be up to the state. When it is a civil affair only rich people can defend themselves.

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