Raptorpat

What's out there doesn't matter to their audience of it doesn't come from them directly. It needs to penetrate their bubble. Their audience probably won't grow but the current audience will remain in bizarro world.

Everyone senses weakness and is piling on. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/18/chris-christie-ron-desantis-disney-00092505 There was also a quote from Pence that happened after this article.

Even if that were a possibility, practically speaking Thomas etc. in favor of weakening the standard wouldn't do it with conservative Fox as the defendant.

The court wouldn't overturn Sullivan if this had gotten appealed to SCOTUS. The case had all but cleared Sullivan's extremely high bar, so there'd be no need to address the question of lowering the bar (on top of the practical/political factors). That's a major motivating factor in settling - no sense in fighting a battle you're unlikely to win. It is to the extent that a court order that draws a line in the sand while compelling them to make an explicit, formal admission of wrongdoing to their own audience is of vastly greater public concern (and more damaging to the long-term credibility of their current format) than the $800m they pay out while continuing to do what they do.

They were nailed to the wall to the point where the judge told the jury that they must accept as fact that it was all lies and that Fox could not rely on newsworthiness as a defense. They were nailed so hard that there was nothing they could do, and therefore no reason not to wave the flag and settle.

I guess they don't have to make any admissions beyond this statement, no public accountability, they and their viewers get to keep on keeping on in their alternate reality. But they'll be more careful about how they do it.

They needed to settle before the trial began, because that's the point at which they could no longer keep the details from their own audience.

if you had one comma to place in that thread title, where would it go

It depends on what the terms are, but I was really hoping for the public tear-down.

The bots are putting their links in their "About Me" sections. Didn't click obviously but it said CD keys.

Would *George Santos* lie?

https://twitter.com/Santos4Congress/status/1648042407907192863?s=20

what is your favorite beverage

Hi Heshi, welcome back! Check my post above for kind of a summary of the reset and the whys of it all.

good luck!

Yeah exactly, it's literally the whole point. Broken people are choosing the most retributive form of suicide they can imagine, so this stuff isn't going to dissuade them... because it's the goal. No one who plans a school shooting also plans what they're going to have for lunch after.

lol so since this all happened, the internet's been digging up everything on the speaker. They uncovered that he doesn't love in his district and commits fraud on his per diem reimbursements and a few other things related to that, and I'm just seeing now that yesterday apparently the internet leaked his affair with a lobbyist and tagged his wife in the post. Too many things I could link so just check this guy's feed: https://twitter.com/BrianManookian

That was the weirdest spambot I've seen so far.

https://twitter.com/mikepompeo/status/1647001366441897985

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/business/fox-news-dominion-trial.html

I think that base is its own beast now. Like Trump isn't in control of it, they view him favorably but he's subject to its whims like the rest of the party. The best example is right after he was elected. He was personally sympathetic to the dreamers and he very briefly tried to sell the idea to his crowds and got booed. His base put him in his place and so he shed his last remaining inkling of humanity and instead spent the next 3.95 years failing at using dreamers as a bargaining chip for his wall.

https://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1646581751924269056

The viability is in its ubiquity within that sphere/ecosystem. That why one outlet or politician leaving won't impact anything. Basically they need to replace that ubiquity elsewhere, which means they'd all need to collectively agree to land somewhere pull the trigger together. Otherwise you're just pulling a Truth Social.

I think the basic functional premise that it's built around (in the case of the political/journalism ecosystem) is having a universal platform for important/relevant entities having a direct outlet. For the rest of us, it really just is shouting into the void. But because the journalists and the politicians feed off each other in that sense, that whole ecosystem has to settle on a new platform to move wholesale.