How much is speech worth?

Not quite.

The right has been pushing it since the mid-1890s, so for more than 125 year (and counting).

Originally called “horse and sparrow” economics.

3 Likes

ah you are assuming that deal stays in place. If the numbers do not jive he will be out on his tail again. He is not worth $20 million in some sort of POD cast.

There’s no doubt Carlson is valuable to Fox (and potentially others) as a way to get viewers and therefore present advertising to those viewers.

But I think it’s equally obvious that the lies he spreads and repeats are a detriment to society as a whole. When you present yourself as a source of information, but actually distribute lies and disinformation, that is not good for society.

As to the right to free speech - it, like every other right, has it’s limits and consequences. For a current example, Fox - through Carlson and others - might have the right to spread lies about Dominion voting machines, but those lies have consequences - 787.5 million of them according to the settlement.

So perhaps Carlson isn’t as valuable as one might think. I don’t know what Fox paid him or what revenues his show generated, but I do know that he ultimately cost Fox three-quarters of a billion dollars more than they thought he cost.

That’s not insignificant to a capitalist.

–Peter

5 Likes

You mean “so far”. There is another voting machine company with an even larger suit against Fox, with the same rights and prerogatives for discovery and the rest. There are other lawsuits, some by election workers in Georgia who were subjected to death threats and other actions as a result of those lies. And there are individual lawsuits against others involved in the fiasco, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and others which may or may not pay out.

Additionally, both Dominion and Smartmatic have lawsuits pending against other cable channels including Newsmax and One America News, although those do not involve Tucker Carlson which put it outside the scope of this thread, but not outside the concept of “free speech.”

I should also mention there are lawsuits against the investors and producers of a documentary film which attempted to “prove” the merits of the “stolen election” meme, but I don’t know who those are or what company that is off the top of my head.

So yeah, “free” speech. Vastly expensive in this case, but unfortunately only after the damage to the country is already done.

[Edited to include the fact that Fox Corp now faces several lawsuits from shareholders alleging that the company was derelict in allowing the defamatory speech to air.]

5 Likes

The question is when will the GOP wise up and help build this country?

Free speech can be expensive indeed. It’s a bit of a shame that it isn’t criminal unless the lies are told under oath to various and sundry officials; perjury.

As far as I can tell, the only way for the general public to impose any penalty is to stop patronizing the company - in this case, stop watching Fox. Which is something I have done. I refuse to watch anything related to Fox, including their sports and entertainment channels. Not even videos on YouTube. Yes, that can hurt the separately owned Fox affiliate stations, but so be it. It is most likely the affiliates who have sufficient influence to get Fox News to change their ways anyway. Us mere consumers are simply the tools to be used to generate profits. The only value we have is our “eyeballs”. So they don’t get mine.

–Peter

Dominion and Smartmatic were accused of helping Hugo Chavez two decades ago but since there were no deep pockets to sue they didn’t hire lawyers to do so. BTW, observer Jimmy Carter was accused of turning a blind eye to the fraud after being invited by Hugo Chavez to a post election private interview.

One needs to have verifiable facts to accuse election fraud but not having those facts does not make elections credible, fair, and valid. I have personal experience with mail-in vote fraud with documented evidence that overturned an election at our beach social club. If anyone wants to hear the story of how I got the facts let me know, otherwise I won’t bother Fools with another Captain’s Rant. :smile:

The Captain

4 Likes

First, deport them. THEN see what they want to do next. They are not capable of helping this country. HOWEVER, they ARE capable of “helping themselves” to the US Treasury when they are in office.

2 Likes

From the link below, bolds mine.

“Do Fox News viewers think Tucker Carlson tells them the truth? Are they, in fact, reasonable? The federal judge, Mary Kay Vyskocil, who herself was appointed to the federal bench by Trump nine months ago, dismissed the case, citing Carlson’s First Amendment protections. That is, Vyskocil bought the argument Fox News was pushing that Carlson is, first and foremost, not a provider of “the news” as we know it, or “facts” as we commonly understand them, and his audience knows this. They’re apparently in on the gag. Fox News doesn’t label Carlson’s speech parody because that’s embarrassing for a company with the word news in its name to admit; it’s not factual journalism because that implies some responsibility for the credibility of the information that you spew. Instead, Fox News lawyers claim, Carlson is not “stating actual facts” but simply engaging in “non-literal commentary.

So Fox plainly admits Carlson is not a provider of facts but simply engages in non-literal commentary.

Apparently, there’s a whole bunch of folks who aren’t in on the joke. And no, the government should not censor Carlson. But obviously anyone in the free market that hands him a megaphone is putting their own greed over democracy. Sadly, not that unusual these days.

1 Like

I’m just gonna guess that a scheme involving a couple hundred votes in an unimportant election is less likely to be discovered than one which would require tens of thousands of fraudulent votes to make a difference, in an election which is watched over by denizens of both parties, law enforcement, and media around the world.

Just.a theory, of course.

7 Likes

Interesting about Hugo Chavez but not reality based just the ramblings of reporters etc…

Jimmy Carter could not do something wrong in his life. If you paid Jimmy to do something wrong he would never take the money. Not sure why Carter is a posterboy for what is wrong with anything other than just throwing the crap around for the sake of foolishness.

My point calling an election in the US “rigged” is garbage talk.

It has nothing to do with Chavez.

Calling an election rigged in the US is a power grab for 2024.

Note there is no law suit or anything else? Is the house of reps looking into those machines any of it? Nope.

Garbage…consider the source…no election in 2020 was rigged.

1 Like