wake_up_bomb wrote:
The notion of threatening legal action against an obscure forum with little traffic because of this beggars belief though
sodlikeproductions.motion-forum.net/t1877-lol-geoff-rense

Hells bells, better known people like Icke and Jones have all kinds being said about them on various forums. Frredom of speech IMO certainly includes the right to call Jeff Rense a douchebag.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
That was when Sod came here and then got himself banned

Otherwise, it's the post conspiracy fringe. It needs to exist.

dogsmilk wrote: All I can see on Sodlike Productions is people being profane, abusive and making malicious and offensive remarks about people. Then they're surprised when this has consequences for them. And they all start swearing about that and claiming that they're somehow telling the truth, when there is not even the slightest chance that any publication in the world would touch any of their remarks with a bargepole, the lawyers would burn the piece of paper that they were written on. Furthermore, if they feel able and qualified to sit there completely slating someone who is in the public eye based on speculation, at the very least they didn't ought to hide behind a username and an avatar. I just don't have any time for people like that, I find them utterly childish.

And people of that level of intellect and maturity can never, and will never, understand that free speech has consequences, however many people read it. If you put something out on the Internet, it is in the public domain, even if two people read it. If you were to put child pornography out there, you couldn't really defend yourself by saying "well, not many people viewed it". I'm not comparing the severity of the two, merely the principle.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Well the stuff that could be potentially libellous comes from Henry Makow. I'd say it's Makow's responsibility if he's putting stuff on his public website and telling people it's true.
Otherwise, IRL if I call someone a cunt I don't expect them to get on the phone to their solicitor (unless it was part of ongoing harassment or something). If Jeff Rense really does feel motivated to threaten someone for saying his moustache looks gay, I'd suggest he should think seriously about his priorities in life.
I personally really would not want a world where everyone keeps sueing every time they get called a douchbag.

The point about not many people viewing it is about the totally pointlessness of threatening legal action because someone is slagging you off in a dark corner of the internet. You can find lots of other examples of people slagging off Jeff Rense on the intenet. Very few people even know sodlike exists, so it would be a terrific waste of money to get lawyers looking into something that very few people even see.
Child porn is very different because it is a matter of state law enforcement of something universally prohibited and regarded as inherently harmful simply by the nature of its existence - not an individual deciding to pay a lawyer to stop someone slagging them off. If you wre down the pub and someone
a/Called you a cunt
b/Showed you child porn images on their phone
I'm guessing a/ and b/ would provoke very different reactions.

I don't look at it very often, but I find Sodlike to often be entertaining.

Like I said, Sod...!!! has his haters

dubmeup wrote:
He did play silly buggers when he first came here, but I'd like to see him come back.
There is no-one quite like Sod...!!!

Firstly, what you expect and what actually happens are two different things. Secondly, I'm 100% certain that if Mr. Rense had gone to his lawyers and said "someone's called me a cunt, have I got a libel case?", they would have to said to him, "get out of our office, and stop wasting our time". Having dozens, maybe hundreds, of people continually writing malicious and slanderous posts about you over a period of possibly years, with no intervention from the site owners is a different kettle of fish, and the lawyers have obviously looked at it and said, "yes, you do have a libel case". It's a bit rich for Sodlike to then make out that they're the little guy and the wronged party, when this is in essence hundreds of people ganging up on one person, who has sought to defend himself.

If this were Monsanto suing a little farmer to put them out of business, or McDonald's infamous McLibel case then I would view it differently. If it were Rense suing people for libel for criticising him even-handedly for having David Duke on his show, then I would also view it differently.

All I am pointing out is that people think that they can say anything on the Internet and because they have a username they are somehow anonymous and it has no consequences. The complete opposite is the case, quite rightly so.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
The thing is though, if you do a search for "rense" on Sodlike it only comes up with that one thread with about 3 people on it.
On the other hand, there's reams of posts attacking Icke.

You also have to be careful with this line of thinking.

Does 5000+ friends for "David Cameron is a cunt" on Facebook mean poor Dave should be taking action against thousands of members of the public besmirching his good name?
www.facebook.com/pages/David-Cameron-is-a-cunt/120200631339487

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Sod has been banned from here about... six times or so, and his idea of rebuttal is to block up blast chat, where he's been logged in for @ a week straight. I have a pretty good sense of humor, but I don't find sod funny, more patrhetic attention seeker than anything. He's funny like Dane Cook, or Russell Brand...as in "How the F**k are these guys considered to be comedians??" funny. Trolls are boring, sod was banned for good reasons. So was spectero. Good riddance. Sod was spamming every thread, spectero is just nasty to some people outright, really good posters. Neither had anything to offer, they were here for their own benefit. F**k 'em, bye bye.

As for rense, he has already shown his colors.... or is that spots..... stripes? Many times over. Info is info regardless of the source, so his site can sometimes be very useful. I hope he doesn't sue for that. He obviously makes good money, or at least has sound "financial backing" if he can afford to sue internet trolls for saying nasty things about him.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Begger me WUB, you really aint familiar with sodlike are you

For hundreds, read about half a dozen

I'm not in disagreement with you with regards to the responsibilities of free speech as you know. Sod...!!! knows my feelings about it too. He's the only person I've ever written a rap to

FTR though, Sod...!!! aint the bad guy in this story.

ronisron wrote:
No you don't




Sorry, couldn't resist

dubmeup wrote:
I can see why you think sod is clever.

ronisron wrote:
Hahahaha Touche

I don't think he's clever though. He left Cornwall after all. That's proof he aint clever

dogsmilk wrote: I don't know anything about Sodlike, I would imagine that they might have purged their site of other potentially defamatory material on Rense. I've never been on Facebook, so I don't know anything about it, but it seems unlikely that the PM would bother with a libel suit. This isn't really analogous.

As I say, all I am pointing out is that free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want about anyone or anything and it brings no consequences. People seem to be completely oblivious to this, particularly on the Internet. As I say, I believe that had Rense gone to his lawyers with absolutely no case at all, they would have told him that he had absolutely no case at all. The fact that they didn't would suggest to me that he has a case.

That's all I have to say on the subject! Most people will probably disagree with me, that's fine.dubmeup wrote: Is Sod the owner of Sodlike productions? I didn't know that. I suppose it would make sense given the name! I haven't ever looked at any other 'conspiracy' forums, other than this one and the DIF. The only other forum I can remember ever looking at is HousePriceCrash. So I don't really know anything about Sodlike.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
The thing is, in the US, a lawyer will take any case provided you have the $$$. Perhaps Rense's whole function here is to go after an easy mark and just have the site shut down. One less voice of opposition. If this goes anywhere near public, it makes Rense look (even more) like an ass, and gives sod what he so desperately craves -- attention.

ronisron wrote: This is a fair point, and there are frivolous lawsuits filed in the US, but I would be surprised if a libel lawyer would take on a case due to someone simply calling someone else a name. You'd have to have more evidence than that otherwise you'd just be laughed out of court.

But my point is that it is already public by the very nature of the Internet. This is what people don't seem to understand. That's why there are legal disclaimers on this site that we have to sign up to and agree to.

That is genuinely the last thing I have to say on the subject, I want to watch the tennis now!

wake_up_bomb wrote:

WUB wrote: I think it's more like this. Sod holds the keys to the looney bin that is Sodlike. Being an inmate of the place it's a case of "the lunatics have taken over the asylum". Sod...!!!
ron wrote: Having got to know him a little bit, I think his cravings are more for ale, drugs, music, art, literature and fine assed b*****s

hey sod dont let em bully you. its obviously a work of satire, anyone with half a brain can see that. see how far his tiny balls will take this thing. (not very far i am sure.)

dubmeup wrote:
Well, on one of those fronts it appears he and spectero have hit it off quite well on blast chat.... not sure about the fine ass part, but she sure is a bitch.