Without making any comment about the accuracy or inaccuracy of this post, I would just point out that nobody in EA should be shocked that an organization (e.g. Nonlinear) that is being libeled (in its view) would threaten a libel suit to deter the false accusations (as they see them), to nudge the author(e.g. Ben Pace) towards making sure that their negative claims are factually correct and contextually fair.
[...] To support a claim for defamation, in most states a private figure need only show negligence by the publisher, a much lower standard than “actual malice.”
[...] A plaintiff can establish negligence on the part of the defendant by showing that the defendant did not act with a reasonable level of care in publishing the statement at issue. This basically turns on whether the defendant did everything reasonably necessary to determine whether the statement was true, including the steps the defendant took in researching, editing, and fact checking his work. Some factors that the court might consider include:
the amount of research undertaken prior to publication;
the trustworthiness of sources;
attempts to verify questionable statements or solicit opposing views; and
whether the defendant followed other good journalistic practices.
Ben says he spent “100-200 hours” researching this post, which is way beyond the level of thoroughness we should require for criticizing an organization on LessWrong or the EA Forum. I think it’s pretty clear that the post reflects this work: whether or not the post is wrong (e.g., maybe Ben was tricked by Alice and Chloe), it’s obvious that Ben did a supererogatory amount of fact-checking, investigating, and collecting takes from multiple parties.
I think there should be a strong norm against threatening people with libel merely for saying a falsehood; the standard should at minimum be that you have good reason to think the person is deliberately lying or indulging in tabloid-newspaper levels of bullshit.
I think the standard should be way higher than that, given the chilling effect of litigiousness; but in this case I think it’s sufficient to say that Ben clearly isn’t lying or flippantly disregarding the truth (whether or not he got some of the facts wrong), so threatening him with a lawsuit is clearly inappropriate. The standard for libel lawsuits needs to be way higher than “I factually disagree with something you said (that makes me look bad)”.
Per https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/proving-fault-actual-malice-and-negligence (h/t kave):
Ben says he spent “100-200 hours” researching this post, which is way beyond the level of thoroughness we should require for criticizing an organization on LessWrong or the EA Forum. I think it’s pretty clear that the post reflects this work: whether or not the post is wrong (e.g., maybe Ben was tricked by Alice and Chloe), it’s obvious that Ben did a supererogatory amount of fact-checking, investigating, and collecting takes from multiple parties.
I think there should be a strong norm against threatening people with libel merely for saying a falsehood; the standard should at minimum be that you have good reason to think the person is deliberately lying or indulging in tabloid-newspaper levels of bullshit.
I think the standard should be way higher than that, given the chilling effect of litigiousness; but in this case I think it’s sufficient to say that Ben clearly isn’t lying or flippantly disregarding the truth (whether or not he got some of the facts wrong), so threatening him with a lawsuit is clearly inappropriate. The standard for libel lawsuits needs to be way higher than “I factually disagree with something you said (that makes me look bad)”.