US Libel laws are tortious, and thanks to a very famous ruling called NYT vs Sullivan, incredibly hard for famous people to use. In an even more bizarre extension of the concept of fame, if your fame (or infamy) is derived from the event about which you are being defamed, that can even afford a publication of protection under the precedent of NYT vs Sullivan.
I'm not a lawyer, I've just read a lot, I'll willingly accept corrections in the comments.
To counter this, there is one thing that will nearly always get you in hot water and it is the one thing that professionally run news publications and pundits know how to avoid. You must never accuse someone of a crime unless you have evidence to back up your accusation or they've already been convicted by a court.
And of all the crimes you shouldn't accuse someone of without evidence, it is the worst crime, often labeled the 6th, but more properly the 2nd commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Murder".
So when a Facebook spokesman sent this quote to Brietbart, you can tell they are not well versed in things you never say in public:
In a comment to Breitbart News, a Facebook spokesman confirmed that the company is removing posts “in support” of Rittenhouse, because the incident is considered a “mass murder” by the company.
Killing is sometimes legal (for example in self defence), murder is never legal. That's actually the difference between those words. They're absolutely different if you know the underlying Hebrew of the 10 Commandments, which for many years in many versions mistranslated murder into kill.
Update: I should have mentioned another point: statements of opinion are protected, statements of fact are what will get you in trouble. The word that is giving me some pause is "considered" but that doesn't appear in quotes. It is put there by the Brietbart writer. We'd need to see EXACTLY what Facebook wrote (if this was a written not verbal communication).
To accuse Rittenhouse of committing a "mass murder" at this point is going to prove problematic for Facebook on many levels:
- They are clearly acting as a publisher: a publisher's job is to decide what does or DOES NOT appear on the pages of one's organ;
- Not only have Facebook assumed responsibility for deciding the guilt or innocence of a minor on the most serious charge, with every act of taking down a post about him, they are adding to their libel against him;
Section 230 protection from responsibility for things posted on their platform gives them the right to decide what is on their platform. It has been interpreted widely to give them almost unlimited latitude and they can act with or without reasons. But in this case, by giving a reason for their publishing decision, someone has given Facebook's lawyers a very big problem.
Facebook has form on this. Back in 2018 when Facebook banned Tommy Robinson (and I was collateral damage) they put out a press statement that lied about him. They claimed he had posted an instruction to his followers to behead muslims. This would have broken British law and I am 100% certain that had he (or I because I was also an administrator on his page) posted such a thing, Tommy would have gone to prison. Facebook couldn't supply a link to this post or even a screenshot. It's obvious that if he'd ever posted something like that it would have been on the cover of the Daily Mail in 10 minutes.
We learned later from a Facebook Spokesman in an interview on Danish TV (video at the end of this post) that Tommy Robinson was on a list with war criminals and mass murderers. It is only because the UK's libel laws also make it very hard to win a case if you haven't defended your good name from the very first time it was impugned that Tommy could not sue. That is the position Tommy is in.
If you want an excellent video on whether Rittenhouse acted in self defence, I thoroughly recommend this one by Nate the Lawyer. Nate is also a former police officer and a former prosecutor. He studiously avoids taking a side.
Facebook talks about Tommy Robinson on Danish TV:
