Dominion vs Fox News

Third Party Regulation




Trump vs Biden (Nov 2020)




Night before elections were finished counting, Trump saw that he was slightly losing. He came out and announced then that he wins this election, and that if he loses, Biden cheated. He then lost. After, Trump sent his top lawyers to go out on the right wing channels (Fox, OAN, News Max), including Sydney Powell and Rudi Giullani, weeks after the election to tell the public that the election was rigged, that Biden sent vans with fake voting slips, basically all saying how Biden is a liar and a cheater.




Powell and Giuliani kept saying they had all the evidence, but never actually revealed any of it. They won 1/60 lawsuits brought to court. Basically, both lawyers were spouting BS the entire month, bringing up the name of the late dictator of Venezuela of 10 years, saying he rigged the elections (tf(???)).




Trump’s legal team was so stupid they booked the Four Seasons garden centre instead of the hotel, and Trump wanting to never look like he did anything wrong insisted that was planned. The garden centre location was a car park in between a crematorium and a pawn shop. It was small, and dumb as hell. Giuliani gave his press conference there.






Dominion vs Fox




Dominion voting machines were supposedly corrupt. In 28 states the machines, even if people clicked on Trump, the vote would go to Biden. Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6b for defamation and spreading false information. No lawsuit has ever reached this size for a media company. They also sued Giuliani for $1b.




Libel Law

This is the defamation of character.




Actual Malice

When you lie about something, when really you know the truth.




To sue for defamation, the company needs to have proof of actual malice.




Actual malice is hard to prove, because its hard to tell if (at least an individual) is just stating an opinion, or is actively deceiving. That’s why it was easier to sue Fox News than it was to sue Giuliani.




Rupert Murdoch then admitted in legal court, that he never really believed Dominion rigged the votes. He never had any evidence of it either.




A bunch of private texts were revealed, it turns out that most of the Fox News anchors didnt actually believe these allegations since there was no evidence, but on TV they had to make the people believe it.




IN PRIVATE: On Nov 8 Carlson privately texted his producer taht the allegations about dominion were absurd, according to the dominion filing. Also that day, Carlson's producer texted him about his own doubts.




“I dont think there is evidence of voter fraud that swung the election,” producer Alex Pfeiffer texted Carlson per the lawsuit.




In short, they found lots of evidence that Fox News new this was a lie, thus they were able to sue them for Defamation under Libel Law with actual malice.




Sydney Powell also mentioned the voting machine company Smart Matic, which led to Smart Matic now wanting to sue Fox News for $2.4, hasnt happened yet.

- How effective is third party regulation?

In this case, third party regulation regarding Libel Law and actual malice made it pretty effective in revealing the lies that Fox News was spouting for a month together with Trump's legal team.

-Why won't US Law Section 230 apply?

This doesn't apply to this case as the government shouldn't be involved in siding with either right or left wing when applying media regulation.

- Should Fox be held accountable?

Yes, Fox as a whole company lied about even having evidence in these allegations. It is clear defamation with clear actual malice.

- What are issues surrounding Freed of Speech?

Freedom of Speech should be free as long as it simply states an opinion. When it comes to actual malice, there will be consequences and the government could avoid this by regulating a little better.