Are you sure they're vulnerable to legal action? I've been following the trials and travails of lawsuits filed by a couple of real scumbags, Brett Kimberlin and Bill Schmalfeldt. Kimberlin has been practicing 'brass knuckle reputation management' for a number of years, threatening (and filing) suits against people commenting or writing about him online. Schmalfeldt has done the same. But so far, they've had little luck obtaining judgments against their targets.
Defamation cases aren't easy. I've prevailed in two. So I know what is involved, how they play out, what the bar for success is etc.
The problem that most people fail to realize about defamation is that 1) it has to be false; because truth is 99% defense against such a claim 2) it has to be such that a reasonable person would believe it
Libel per se is pretty cut and dry.
Defamation cases against a public figure are even harder because there has to be malicious intent, and/or someone posted (libel) or said (slander) something they knew to be false, but posted/said it anyway. In the case of the above examples, well, there it is.
That's what OSC was explaining to that TheGremlich guy who didn't seem to "get" it. Claiming that me or my company has committed "trade defamation" is false because not only has that not happened, he has no basis for such a claim, as that would be for CIG to make (and they would fail miserably). And we went overboard by stating on Reddit that he has also been reporting that to the FTC (he also posted it on Twitter). He knows it to be false, has no way of proving it to be true, and his Twitter account alone, as well as his Reddit posts, already show an engagement in a pattern of conduct from which a case for "malicious intent" can be made.
Go to
www.eff.org and read some of their resources. They are written in plain English that any layman can understand.
