DailyKenn.com — (synopsis) Florida's SB 1780, an anti-defamation bill filed by Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Lake Mary, is offering relief to victims of hate speech, particularly those accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia. The bill aims to make such accusations "defamation per se," presumptively holding speakers at fault and making them liable for damages of at least $35,000 and court costs.
Key points of concern regarding SB 1780:
• Limited Defense Options: Individuals accused of defamation under the bill would face restrictions in proving the truth of their statements. Pointing out the accused person's public statements or expressing discriminatory views may not serve as a defense.
• Exclusion of Anonymous Sources: The bill automatically presumes allegations based on anonymous sources to be false, limiting the use of such sources in defense.
• Limitations on Public Figure Status: The bill restricts the ability to argue that the accused is a public figure, particularly in cases where fame or notoriety arises from internet content reaching a large audience.
• Inherently Implausible Allegations: Making allegations deemed "inherently implausible" is disallowed, with the bill defining such claims as those so improbable that only a reckless person would circulate them.
• Impact on Journalistic Excess: Traditional journalistic privilege may not be a valid defense against damages.
• Broad Application: The bill applies to all forms of media, including print, television, and online platforms. It encompasses individual social media posts as well.
Oddly, woke critics who otherwise would be champions for the cancel culture, argue that the bill would have a chilling effect on free speech in Florida. This is the second attempt at an anti-defamation bill by Sen. Brodeur, following a previous attempt (SB 1220) with similar language, which did not advance beyond the Rules Committee last year.
Transcript:
$35,000, that's how much money you will get minimum, how much money you will get if somebody calls you a racist, maliciously calls you a racist in the state of Florida. If this House bill, this Senate bill is signed into law by the governor, I'm fairly sure the governor will sign it into law if it passes the House and the Senate in Florida and I think it's going to. So if they call you a racist, you get $35,000 minimum plus court cost.
If they call you a homophobe, you can get $35,000 plus court cost or more. If they call you a transphobe or any of those other hate speech terms that the woke left love to use to destroy and discredit other people and just for the fun of it, just kind of guess it, who suddenly just out of nowhere has taken a real interest in free speech, yeah, you guessed it first time. The woke left is opposed to this bill because I think they just seem to enjoy calling people, excuse me, they seem to enjoy discrediting people by mislabeling them, by gaslighting them, by calling them these hateful terms.
I mean if somebody's not a racist, don't call them a racist because, well, you know, the woke left, they think everything is racist, it seems. I mean you can take virtually any object or anything that anybody says at any time and the woke left, they have this mindset where they can see racism, the evils of racism in what they are saying. Now if it's true, truly racism, okay, yeah, I will side with that.
But these people, they just see it everywhere. It's kind of like somebody that sees a conspiracy everywhere or they see the second coming everywhere. I mean everything, every time there's a thunderstorm, it's the second coming. Every time there's a thunderstorm, it's caused by climate change, man-made climate change where every time there's a thunderstorm, if it's caused by climate change and climate change is caused by racism, then thunderstorms are caused by racism. These people actually think this way. Now that may be an extreme, extreme example, but not by much.
I mean they can turn anything into racism. I gave you a good example. Michelle Obama, remember her? She said that she's invisible to white people. Yeah, she actually said that. Now what she meant was she was out walking her dog incognito, according to her. During her president's term in the White House, of course she was also living there, so she was in the White House, we could say, out walking her dog and some white person walked by and pet her dog but did not look Michelle in the eye.
Michelle's conclusion was that person is racist because the person was white. She's been treated as invisible. People will come up and pet my dogs but will not look me in the eye. They don't know it's me. That is so telling of how white America views people who are not like them. We don't exist.
And when we do exist, we exist as a threat. And that, that's exhausting. Now, being a person who is autistic, I find it difficult to look people in the eye. If I look at a photograph, it's not even a real person. I have difficulty looking the photograph in the eye. That's just a neurological situation. It's got nothing to do with racism. It doesn't matter what race the person is. This is troublesome.
And I don't think Michelle thought of that. It's just she interprets everything that white people do, at least this is my opinion, as racist. So what are you going to do? Now that may be an extreme, extreme example, but not by much.
I mean they can turn anything into racism. I gave you a good example. Michelle Obama, remember her? She said that she's invisible to white people. Yeah, she actually said that. Now what she meant was she was out walking her dog incognito, according to her. During her president's term in the White House, of course she was also living there, so she was in the White House, we could say, out walking her dog and some white person walked by and pet her dog but did not look Michelle in the eye.
Michelle's conclusion was that person is racist because the person was white. She's been treated as invisible. People will come up and pet my dogs but will not look me in the eye. They don't know it's me. That is so telling of how white America views people who are not like them. We don't exist.
And when we do exist, we exist as a threat. And that, that's exhausting. Now, being a person who is autistic, I find it difficult to look people in the eye. If I look at a photograph, it's not even a real person. I have difficulty looking the photograph in the eye. That's just a neurological situation. It's got nothing to do with racism. It doesn't matter what race the person is. This is troublesome.
And I don't think Michelle thought of that. It's just she interprets everything that white people do, at least this is my opinion, as racist. So what are you going to do? Now, what's the other side of that? Well, the flip side of that is there was a guy a few months ago who was walking, I think he was walking out of a convenience store, gas station, you know, and he passed a guy who was black and looked at him.
And the guy shot him, I mean, killed him because he looked at him. Bureau police have made an arrest in a homicide investigation. Officials say they arrested a 15-year-old boy. He faces charges on first-degree murder. Police say he shot and killed a complete stranger outside of a convenience store. They say this happened on Saturday night. Officials tell us that teenager has a juvenile criminal record, but they can't share any other information with the public because of his age. So which are we going to go with? Is it racist not to look at people or is it racist to look at people? And the point that I'm making here is that you can call somebody a racist for anything. I mean, literally anything.
Look at them, you can call them a racist. Don't look at them, you can call them a racist. It is so widespread, it's impossible to avoid. Now, there's this new thing going around, particularly on the internet. Don't know if you've seen this or not, but if you have blue eyes and I have blue eyes, that is an indication that you are a racist by virtue of a natural characteristic. Well, I've got news for you.
Everybody is a racist. I mean, everybody. Well, okay, somebody's brain dead, maybe there's an example there of an exemption, but everybody's racist and it's a form or it's an expression of ingroup bias. Everybody has ingroup bias. It is natural, it is part of our human nature. Well, it's part of every creature's nature except for reptiles.
We all have ingroup biases. And one of the ways that's expressed is through racism. Now, that doesn't make it right, but it makes it real. And you can't just go around calling everybody a racist if your intention is to either defame them or inflame them. In my opinion, you should not be allowed to do that. Maybe, but then again, there is that free speech exception.
So what we got to do as patriots, as conservatives, we got to make up our mind, are we going with free speech or not? So if they can call us the R word, can we call them the N word? Or can we call them the R word and can they call us the N word? Should we be allowed to call anybody anything without repercussions, either from the government or being punched in the nose by the person to whom we are addressing? Those are things we have to take into consideration here. But what I take away from the story is that we got to be consistent. We just have to be consistent.
If we can't say this word, call somebody this word, like the N word, or we can't call them colored people, we have to call them people of color. Well, we're going to have to be consistent across the board. And I don't know how to do that without, you can't call anybody anything because anybody can be offended by anything, just my opinion.
This is from the Tallahassee Democrat. And this article seems to be a little bit biased against the bill. But it says, be careful what you say. If an anti-defamation bill in the Florida Senate passes, just pointing out that someone said what they said may no longer protect you. I think we already have that situation in some areas. Remember the guy, I think he started at the Papa John's pizza restaurant.
And in a conversation, he mentioned that somebody called somebody else the N word and the media went crazy and called him the R word. So I think that's already a problem. The story continues under defamation, false light, and unauthorized publication or name of likeness. That's the name of the bill. Otherwise known as SB 1780, Senate Bill 1780, filed by Senator Jason Brodeur. Not that that matters because most of us have no idea who he is outside of Florida. Practically all accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia would be considered defamation per se. So where is the line? Where is it free speech protected by the Constitution? And when is it defamation not protected by the Constitution? Now, my personal opinion would be if it is false, it's not protected by the Constitution. But then again, what is true? Oh, that's a bit of philosophy.
That's a philosophical question that's been around ever since Johnny Cash sang a song about it. The lonely voice of youth cries, what is truth? Making speakers, I'm continuing the sentence here, making speakers presumptively at fault and leaving them liable. Are you ready for this? For damages of at least $35,000 and court costs. Now, what caught my attention here were the words at least. In other words, you can sue them for more than this. But if this article is correct, that's the minimum. So I think I'm going to move to Florida. And what I'm going to do for full time is just kind of walk around and try to get people to call me, get rich people to try to call me a racist, you know, or homophobe or transphobe. And if you could sue, you know, two or three of them, minus court cost every year, you could probably live on that.
I don't know about Florida. It's kind of expensive living down there. But yeah, just an idea. Not making a suggestion. Just thinking out loud. All right. You wouldn't be able to defend yourself by pointing out actual discriminatory things or opinions. The person shared. So if a person actually is a racist, you still can't call him a racist.
If this bill passes, according to the writer of this article, that anything based on anonymous sources would automatically be considered false. So you've got to be able to prove that the person is actually a racist, but that's not going to help you. If I'm understanding what this guy's saying, the bill contains numerous ways to protect people from being accused regardless of their public statements and to help them seek damages beyond what existing laws would allow.
Okay, my overall take on this thing is I'm an advocate of free speech. I'm on a side, I'm going to fall on the side of free speech. I think you should be able to call people whatever you want to call them. And if there are damages done, then they can prove the damages in a court of law. And I'm not sure that having your feelings hurt is real damages, but that's enough for me to decide. If you got something out of this video, give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, be one of our friends, share this on social media, because that helps a lot. And we'll see you all next time.
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