Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

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manages via the fame of its name [. . .] What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping

I think the original author should name everyone involved. I understand why he didn't, but people can only get away with this shit because they do it anonymously and no one talks to each other.

This is a much less extreme example, but years ago my former landlord threatened to kill me over a small claims court case (http://jakeseliger.com/2010/08/28/dont-rent-an-apartment-fro... if you're curious) and I wrote a post about what happened using his real name. Perhaps not surprisingly, since then I've gotten two emails thanking me for the story—one from someone who'd rented from him and had a bad experience and one from someone who avoided him.

In general it's a good idea to keep non-public conversations non-public, but when the people starting those conversations rely on them in order to do nasty stuff the principle should no longer apply.

> I wrote a post about what happened using his real name.

Be careful giving this advice.

This only worked because A) (minor) you filed a police report and B) (major) he didn't have enough money to drag you through a serious defamation lawsuit.

If he decided to drag you through a defamation lawsuit, you would likely have lost because you wouldn't have had enough resources to defend aggressively.

It's good to out bad actors, but do make sure that you aren't putting yourself in a vulnerable situtation.

As long as one speaks/writes the truth and can back it up with evidence, one should not fear defamation/slander suits.

Unless you're in America, land of the dysfunctional legal system, home of the brave.

Or, as the author is, in the UK where defamation litigation is seen as a potent weapon: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/feb/22/simon-si...

You've got that backwards. America <edit>and Canada are</edit> the only country in which truth is a defense to defamation.

Remember the British guy with the Nazi fetish? The tabloid that published that story lost even though it was true. In other countries (notoriously India), criticizing a government employee's performance is defamation (even if true).

Edit: Looks like Canada also allows for truth as a complete defense to defamation. That makes two nations out of 180+.

> America is the only country in which truth is a defense to defamation.

Citation needed.

No it isn't. It is a defense in at least Canada as well.

Being a Kiwi, decided I better confirm what the story was here in New Zealand.

As with US and Canada 'truth' is a defence against defamation here also: http://www.medialawjournal.co.nz/?page_id=273

"The publisher will succeed with a defence of truth if it can prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the story was true. Minor errors may be excused, but not those that go to the heart of the defamatory sting or stings."

So guess you can add NZ to the list, but there are no doubt others - how about France, Australia, Austria.. Senegal?

Perhaps it is actually the UK that is the outlier in this regard?

I believe truth is also an allowed defence in Australia: http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia...

I suppose I ought sue you then, as you've defamed my homeland?

This tangent might sound mean but I often wished there was some glassdoor-like site or startup for shaming bad behavior, especially lying. Starting with rental agents.

If you stuck to reporting facts, how would that put you in danger?

Why hasn't anyone sued glassdoor?

Glassdoor heavily cooperates with companies to take down reviews that are too negative or specific.

Also, anyone can post reviews, which the companies take advantage of. We had an HR person at my previous company whose job responsibilities included posting one positive (4-5 star) review of the company per week on Glassdoor and similar sites. As you can imagine, doing so is a much cheaper way of dealing with negative reviews than suing the websites.

Good to know, thanks for the insight.

To some extent, Yelp and similar sites fill this role. There are a couple of problems with this.

1. It's fairly simple to post a fake review.

2. Yelp has been accused of what amounts to blackmail by offering to hide bad reviews if businesses buy advertising on Yelp.

3. It's not rocket science to see how 1 & 2 could team up

4. There is no objective standard for a good or bad review, so how do you accurately quantify the aggregate? If the restaurant was out of the dish the reviewer wanted because it was a half hour before closing on a busy night, that one star review carries the same weight as someone who legitimately had terrible service, cold food, and got food poisoning.

This amounts to Yelp being nothing more than the yellow pages, in my opinion. I don't see how this would change for other services.

(1) is mostly solved by valuing long, well written reviews over star ratings and allowing users to upvote / downvote. You can also allow up voting / down voting of user-posted reviews to create a reputational penalty for non-useful reviews.

(4) is addressed by volume. That's easier for something like restaurants than apartments or recruiters though.

Your comment seems to completely absolve the company that hired these people. Why give them a pass but not the people they're paying to do this?

I don't get this at all. Where does GP say anything suggesting Google either should be or is absolved of wrongdoing? Did you perhaps reply to the wrong comment?

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