It's like when Snopes was "fact-checking" the Babylon Bee (a satirical news website). They initially labeled some of their articles as false, but then re-labeled it more appropriately as satire after receiving push-back.[1]
I'm not even saying Twitter should be sued here. But Twitter is now engaged in speech of their own, rather than just moderating a platform for other peoples' speech.
[1]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-lawmaker-go-back-c...
So, even ignoring 230, is mislabeling a satirical argument as false libelous? It is without a single doubt not libelous.
First of all, defamation (the larger category that includes libel) usually requires a statement of fact, whereas something being satire vs. just plain wrong is a matter of opinion. It is very hard to sue over matters of opinion, by design. This is why saying “the president is stupid” or “the president is racist” aren’t libelous; those statements are opinions and not objective statements of fact.
Second, defamation either needs some form of harm, or it needs to be in a narrow category of statements that are defamation “per se”. The latter category is very narrow and not relevant here, so we can focus on the former. What, pray tell, harm did the president suffer?
Finally, the president is a public figure, and the bar for defamation against a public figure is very very high. The standard is “actual malice”, which requires that Twitter knew that they were lying and did it anyways. If Twitter genuinely believed that the video was not satire, even if you think that’s dumb, then they have a rock solid defense against defamation.
So no, this was not libel. Nowhere close.
Um, no? I agree the subject of this conversation is whether Twitter is liable for libel.
> So no, this was not libel. Nowhere close.
OK, so that's a an answer to my question as to whether it exposes Twitter to libel. Thanks!
The contortions that people keep going through to find a way to make Twitter liable is both getting old, and frankly it’s embarrassing.