Slander Has Become a Language Form in South Pasadena

GUEST OPINION

South Pasadena Library on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020 (File Photo – Margaret Prietto)

Slander has become a language form in our culture, not unlike the language that inspired the rancor that brought armed insurrectionists to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

By Mark Dreskin

It is in our neighborhood public forum in-boxes and Facebook groups as a result of unregulated content in these forums. The public has a desire to be satiated in this material. However, we can no longer respond with indifference or acceptance. Increasingly, public officials doing their jobs, especially women, are facing seditious campaigns of harassment and even personal threats. Media outlets complicit in amplifying these slanderous and innuendo driven campaigns are being increasingly held to account. Even social media platforms are facing the pressure to regulate, although the social media response of late also is likely driven by a new US administration and an emboldened EU less friendly to unregulated social media.

Two years ago, a local friend took his own life after an on-line harassment campaign that started when anonymous posters presumed he had faked a racing time on a senior running enthusiast website. People with a lot of time on their hands scoured surveillance footage of cameras along the racing routes for Zapruder film level evidence of conspiracies. No one expressed shame or remorse subsequently, and no one paid a price.

In my own community of South Pasadena, long-time friends and neighbors have led campaigns of slander and harassment in public forums, private and social media groups, and a local paper against dedicated public servants including my wife, a former councilwoman, the City’s former city manager and former finance director, both female, and, most recently, the female city attorney. The moderators of these groups have decided to stand back and give the public what it wants. There was a recent story in the New York Times about an individual named Guy Babcock. He was targeted because his family had released a disgruntled employee who then used all her time for decades to slander the family to employers and organizations (and later others who she perceived had wronged her). They were accused of the usual social pariah acts (Pizza-gate level stuff), and it cost them reputations and jobs. Curbing the activity required significant litigation.

A current example is presented by accusations involving Dominion voting machines. The company’s reputation was besmirched, and it is poised to finally reign in the lies that destroyed its reputation. What I find curious and informative about this suit is that the company knew it was being defamed and that immense reputational damage would result.  It also is interesting that the defendants may be held accountable even though they deny knowing they were lying. The lawyers are probably on firm ground saying a regular reasoning mind would assume the voting machine company was not flipping thousands of votes because it makes one wonder how a company engaging in such activities could continue to get major contracts to supply machines for elections around the world. And the defendants will likely state that they believed this was true because of the equivalent statements that were contained in unregulated unsupervised Facebook posts and other misinformation, just as the Capitol rioters now say it wasn’t their fault because they believed the former President’s words.
The courts do not think that is an excuse.

When I stand back and look at proportionality, it seems almost irrelevant if the defendants believed it or not when the harm they inflict is now the type that leads a physician who is a hero in his community to jump to his death, or to the trampling of innocent people at the US Capitol and a gun-toting search for vengeance against our congresspeople and Vice President. Notably many from this mob say in court that they were merely prone to viewing false but interesting material in on-line unregulated forums. Judges have said “no dice.”

Dominion’s action is inspiring. I encourage all of us to stand up as well and not take the harassment any longer. Stay away from any unregulated closed forum on principle, give a withering stare to those who promote or talk up the unsupportable slander they themselves see on these forums, alert people to the fact that unsupported claims are rampant and dangerous on these sites, and pursue the purveyors and supporters of this activity for the severe damage that is brought on their targets as well as their targets’ families, friends and our larger communities. Do it because, as is now obvious from the pandemic’s death toll, lies cost lives.

Mark Dreskin, M.D. is a Primary Care physician, researcher and administrator living in South Pasadena.

The Guest Opinion section reflects the opinions of the responsible contributor(s)/writer(s) only, and do not reflect the viewpoint of ColoradoBoulevard.net. ColoradoBoulevard.net does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of any posting. ColoradoBoulevard.net accepts no obligation to review every posting, but reserves the right (with no obligation) to delete comments and postings that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate.