Australia has incredibly punitive defamation laws that protect people with enough money to go to court, so news orgs are very careful with their wording to avoid being sued.
Btw the reason most of these news companies use quotation marks for things like “traitor”, “sexual assault” is not to show that they disagree with a particular stance.
They do it to show that they themselves aren’t calling someone a traitor, instead they are quoting someone else who calls that person a traitor. So that way they are not implicating themselves in case problems arise.
Otherwise they can have legal consequences if the things that they say about a certain person lead to that person suing them. This way they can easily say “hold on, we didn’t call you a traitor, it was those people, we were just quoting them”
Or at least that’s how it is to my knowledge. (aka covering my ass in case I’m wrong :)) )
Then they should leave it out or phrase it differently, in my opinion. E.g. “The name of the alleged traitor who sold […]” That way it’s clear the person is only accused by now, not convicted, but at the same time the word ‘traitor’ isn’t singled out as questioned.
Australia has pretty brutal anti-defamation laws. Just look at what YouTuber Jordan Shanks aka FriendlyJordies went though. A politician basically admitted to corruption, Jordan essentially quoted him in the video, but then Jordan was found to be guilty of defamation because what the politician said was covered by parliamentary privilege. So, basically, even an absolute truth is not always a defence.
That being said, the dude in question is long dead, so I’m not sure who exactly could claim to have been damaged by the assertion that the dude in question was a traitor.
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Great article. I wouldn’t use quotation marks around traitor in the title! He was absolutely a traitor.
Australia has incredibly punitive defamation laws that protect people with enough money to go to court, so news orgs are very careful with their wording to avoid being sued.
Btw the reason most of these news companies use quotation marks for things like “traitor”, “sexual assault” is not to show that they disagree with a particular stance.
They do it to show that they themselves aren’t calling someone a traitor, instead they are quoting someone else who calls that person a traitor. So that way they are not implicating themselves in case problems arise.
Otherwise they can have legal consequences if the things that they say about a certain person lead to that person suing them. This way they can easily say “hold on, we didn’t call you a traitor, it was those people, we were just quoting them”
Or at least that’s how it is to my knowledge. (aka covering my ass in case I’m wrong :)) )
Then they should leave it out or phrase it differently, in my opinion. E.g. “The name of the alleged traitor who sold […]” That way it’s clear the person is only accused by now, not convicted, but at the same time the word ‘traitor’ isn’t singled out as questioned.
Australia has pretty brutal anti-defamation laws. Just look at what YouTuber Jordan Shanks aka FriendlyJordies went though. A politician basically admitted to corruption, Jordan essentially quoted him in the video, but then Jordan was found to be guilty of defamation because what the politician said was covered by parliamentary privilege. So, basically, even an absolute truth is not always a defence.
That being said, the dude in question is long dead, so I’m not sure who exactly could claim to have been damaged by the assertion that the dude in question was a traitor.