But those two instances are not equivalent. As a huge fan of public health care, from a country that has it, and has deep experience with the health care system, its a known fact that a public health system will establish a panel of experts to determine best treatment for a schedule of illnesses, in some cases there may be no "best option" for a terminal illness, so none is prescribed - hence "death panels" while emotive and a long bow to draw, at least in some sense accurate. But at the least these claims should be rebuked.

I would challenge that Damore's memo in no way states anything close to "women are biologically unfit for tech work", something that was widely claimed. And instead said that reducing populations to averages to make such spurious claims is damaging, and that there maybe some biological root that explains part of the gap in engagement in tech between men and women that cause fewer women to want to join. So in this case, yes what was published against Damore, by media companies, was an "outright lie" and should be legally punished.

That healthcare debate in the U.S. never had a single-payer program. For awhile it had a government option that was eliminated before the law passed. A "death panel [of] bureaucrats"[1] would be no more true after the ACA as it was before for insurance companies. The people who were using the Death Panel rallying cry were specifically talking about requiring "Medicare to pay for some end-of-life planning counseling sessions with a health care practitioner." This is different than what you're talking about and neither could describe that legislation as creating government death panels. It got many awards for "lie of the year."

I also tried searching for your widely claimed quote

> No results found for "women are biologically unfit for tech work".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel#Palin.27s_initial_...

>I also tried searching for your widely claimed quote

Didn't try hard enough. "Aren't biologically fit" is the same as "biologically unfit" and I am pretty certain I remember the exact latter phrase appearing on the CNN home page, which is transient and wouldn't show up on search results anyway.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNN/status/894904419766108161

"Google CEO cuts vacation short to address controversial memo that argued women aren't biologically fit for tech jobs"

"Death tax" is a colorful way to describe the estate tax, i.e. the tax levied on your estate when you die. That's not a lie by any means.

I think your point is stronger for "death panels". But I don't think it's an outright lie to say that a government panel making decisions as to whether a particular medication is "comparatively effective" is making life and death decisions for some patients. When the FDA doesn't let terminally ill patients try a drug with a low chance of success, it is arguably acting as a death panel. And don't forget that a public option was on the table for Obamacare until final passage. The bill kept changing. A public insurer would definitely have a a board determining which treatments would be covered or not, i.e. a "death panel".

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203513204576047...

> I don't think it's an outright lie

You're being kind of bias and mincing words in order to prove your point.

I read the google manifesto and I could easily summarize as what you said CNN did (which I can't find btw).

I am not going to put it in quotes and say it came from the author's mouth, because that would be an "outright lie", but I am allowed to come to my own conclusions about things.

"death panels" is a better example of an "outright lie". Because no such thing existed. No one wanted it. No one asked for it. It was created purely for propaganda.

It's ridiculous to claim that medical advisory constitute a death panel.

The specific legislation both Betsy McCaughey and Sarah Palin pointed at to justify "death panels" said it "would require Medicare to pay for some end-of-life planning counseling sessions with a health care practitioner." (Section 1233)

The "death panels" you're talking about have nothing to do with the legislation that it was libeling...which is probably why it was so effective to both uninformed people and educated people.

In many places, politicians (ie public figures) have less rights concerning such things than private people. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Public_figure_doctr...)

At the point when Gizmodo published the memo and later the New York Times, Damore was not a public figure. He became a public figure because of the media attention. As such those media networks would likely not be able to use the public figure defense in this case, but they can use the public figure defense in regard to Obama.

To make a similar parallel, political satire is legal but if you do the exact same to a private person it would be harassment. The difference between the two is that one target a human being with the intent of doing personal harm, and the other targets a political role with the intent of creating discussion.