Hopkins gets her come-uppance ?

This is how to respond to Hopkins without ending up in court.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/12/tweet-to-katie-hopkins-just-say-sorry-jack-monroe

I've given up on moving the bed on my own. It has a heavy base and has to be lifted into exactly the right position to lock in place on the bedends, which I don't think I have the muscle for. If DS drops in this afternoon he will find a job waiting for him.

I've dismantled the KS one and stored it up on its side leaning on the wardrobe, with the mattress (Dunlopillo and very floppy and unmanageable) stowed in behind it, so no acess to the wardrobe. I've moved the bedside tables from either side of the double bed to where that bed WILL be eventually, so if DS doesn't drop in I shall sleep tonight with no bedside table for my specs, mobile, box of tissues etc etc.
The plastic crates from under the double bed are stacked in the bath, the only spare space left in the house. Just as well there is a separate shower. I might raise the enthusiasm to go through the contents later this afternoon and weed out some of them.

Re your previous post Elegran I hope you didn't put everything back again that you took out from under the bed
I have been clearing a bed as well, a garden bed and debating where I could find a space for the plants, then decided that no, I did not need to keep them all, the untidy, scrappy ones, the ones I don't really like. So they're in the recycling bag.

This is KH's ultimate ambition (and she is not the only exponent of that aim)- get talked about. She doesn't care what you say about her, she has asbestos stuffing. Any publicity is good publicity, any quarrel is worth fomenting if she is in it. I wonder how many column inches she has harvested over the libel case? How many suckers will be reading her effusions in the hope of being shocked and titillated? Don't feed her!

Jalima And so does moving a double bed from one bedroom to another - plus everything that is stored underneath it and shifting the retiring kingsize bed to a temporary home until the Furniture Initiative can collect it. Frequent breaks necessary for refreshment and checking what nonsense there is on GN. I'll be sleeping amid chaos tonight.

Ps don't forget the discussion about the variations between freelance, employed, self-employed, contractual, NI contributions etc

The garden beckons

Sorry, I missed out a Very Important information debate on the difference between free speech and bearing false witness - which apparently has still not been defined accurately enough. Sheez!!

Three pages to argue over the respective responsibilties of publisher and writer for a libellous statement, and whether a publisher is reponsible for the libel that a freelancer writes when it is not published by them?

What timewasting gfery! Why does anyone get pulled into this?

Ankers I think I posted earlier that free speech is one thing unless it breaks the law and incites hatred but libel is different. KH accused JM of something she had not done on a public forum and refused to apologise and put the record straight.

Well...er...quite!

I must have missed (or maybe I didn't) any suggestion that the law should be changed. Some people have suggested that the law shouldn't have been been enforced.

Thank you dd (not least for ploughing through the judgement!!) You have summarised it very clearly and succinctly and I hope that will forestall anybody going off at tangents or tilting at windmills arguing against something which doesn't exist.

Ankers Maybe you should plough your way through the whole judgement, although I warn you it's boring.

The judge took into account that Jack Monroe is sometimes controversial and uses bad language herself. He also recognised that she didn't respond in the best way to the Tweets. He said the award would have been higher,if she'd responded better.

Nevertheless, she has quite a high profile and has a reputation to uphold. Katie Hopkins implied that she had approved something which most people would find shocking. The way the Tweet was written was deliberately confrontational. The Tweet was on Hopkins' home page for long enough (at least two hours) for other people to read it and believe it. Some of these people then sent abusive Tweets to Monroe, which caused her distress. The graffiti on the war memorial had already made headline news, so people were feeling outraged about it.

When Hopkins realised her mistake, she deleted the Tweet, but refused to apologise or retract the comment. After Monroe demanded an apology, Hopkins then made the 'social anthrax' comment. The judge said that if Hopkins had retracted the comment at that point and not made the further Tweet, there might not have been a case to answer. It was because she couldn't admit that she'd been wrong (a bit like Trump, although the judge didn't say that) that she lost the case. She didn't turn up for the hearing, so couldn't be cross-examined.

Most of us on GN use usernames, so our reputation (if we have one) can't be defamed. As the judge acknowledged, Hopkins herself cultivates an impression that she's an outspoken 'rentagob' and she makes money from that image, so it would be difficult to know what kind of reputation she has to be defamed. It would be different if people were to accuse her of lying about her epilepsy or some other personal detail. Any comments on here probably confirm Hopkins' own self-created image.

I have seen that and you have I hope read my opinion. No point in arguing discussing at cross purposes is there?
Don't see what there is to add.

My point MB is at 07.36am. I am not going to repeat it.

MB. There was one thread in particular on the news and politics thread, about 2 months ago, that got so bad that if gransnet went through it, there would not have been much left of it!
I presumeit is still standing in all of its glory

Threads about threads -not allowed. Some threads do get very overheated but I do not recall anything which fits the description of criminal libel which I quoted yesterday.
.

i have seen none which incite to terrorism or any illegal activities

My point is that this is another criterion of criminal libel which is particularly applicable to the internet.
Calling people names or being offensive, while unpleasant and nor desirable, does not constitute either hate crime, slander or libel.

What KH was sued for was libel (accusing JM of defacing war memorials) and that was the judgement of the court.
No, I dont think there were those, but my point is,what KH actually got sued for wasnt either? Or was it?

'Social anthrax'!! That's absolutely appalling. How could any 'right thinking' person expect to get away with calling someone else that?

MB. There was one thread in particular on the news and politics thread, about 2 months ago, that got so bad that if gransnet went through it, there would not have been much left of it!
I presumeit is still standing in all of its glory.

^ I have seen none which incite to terrorism or any illegal activities.^
No, I dont think there were those, but my point is,what KH actually got sued for wasnt either? Or was it?

The presence of the three IFs in your contention remind me of the (old) saying "if we had any bacon, we'd have bacon and eggs, if we had any eggs".

Yes I know, but I think you can see my point.

Actually where on GN, Ankers?
Racist or homophobic posts are fairly promptly deleted and I have seen none which incite to terrorism or any illegal activities.
The presence of the three IFs in your contention remind me of the (old) saying "if we had any bacon, we'd have bacon and eggs, if we had any eggs".

I don't think anybody is suggesting the law should be changed. It has already been updated to take account of "internet libel".
Free speech is one thing, slander and libel another.

the actual stuff that is written daily on gransnet

If the stuff, on the news and politics board in particular, and gransnet in general were tweets, and if the posters were not annonymous, and if the posters were famous enough to potentailly have their reputation damaged, then the actual stuff that is written daily, is sometimes far far worse than what KH was sued for.

Not at all saying that KH should have said it[she shouldnt have], and not at all saying that she should not have apologised[she should have done],but perhaps that is why some people are saying that the defamation laws are draconian.

I am not convinced that the law should be changed though.

thatbags I don't think that Monroe can be accused of anything. She was being defamed and had every right to take the action she did. Her high profile might lead other people to have the courage to stand up to this kind of defamation, which is getting out of hand on social media.

I thought reading the Monroe v Hopkins judgement in its entirety might cure my sleeplessness, but unfortunately not.

Just some observations:

Hopkins was writing for the Sun, not the Daily Mail, when she wrote the tweets, so I'm not sure why the DM would pay her legal fees, unless they see her as an asset.

There were two tweets. The first one was on Hopkins' home page for at least two hours. Hopkins has over half a million followers, who could potentially have seen the tweet. They wouldn't have realised that there had been a case of mistaken identity.

Even after Hopkins realised her mistake, she refused to issue an apology or retraction and called Monroe 'social anthrax'.

The judge refers to “right-thinking people generally”, who would have been offended by the implication in Hopkins' accusation.

There was no attempt at retraction by Hopkins. Therefore, “right-thinking people generally” would have continued to believe that Monroe had been offensive, despite being entirely innocent of the accusation.

Hopkins has referred to the tweet as a 'joke'. I am extremely glad that most people don't seem to share her sense of humour, especially as she now thinks of herself as a cross between Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

I don't believe she should be censored. It's far better that her comments stand and be fought by “right-thinking people generally”. We will end up with the society we deserve.

This seems to have morphed into what we think about KH and while I find her loathsome I agree she is perfectly fee to be as obnoxious as she likes as I for one have no intention of reading her .
However the initial point was about a judgement of the court regarding this particular instance of libel on Twitter for which she appeared to express no remorse in the shape of an apology, preferring to "bully" JM who, I imagine has rather less disposable income and daring her to seek redress in law.
For that reason, I am glad that the court saw sense. The damages are paltry by libel action standards, the costs considerably more. It was a brave thing to do to risk losing and althoughJM has also made a name for herself via her initial cookery blogs, she will not be in the same income bracket as KH.
So, those who wish to go on debating free speech/crass articles/DM/Breakfast TV by all means please do. But that was not my OP and as so often happens we seem to have come a long way via (again) heated posts, equally hot air and assorted dead-ends.