Hockey Widow wrote:Defamation is a sticky thing. You guys are right . A lot of us, myself included, do post rumours. This is a hockey message board and a lot of things get said. So where do we draw the line?
To me, my lesson is this, is for me not to post anything further on personal matters that I hear whether I believe them to be true or not, unless I KNOW them to be true and have proof of that that I can verify and post. That includes not repeating past rumours.
But it is hard to know sometimes what crosses the line. One of my big things is I don't want Brian (CC Brian, not Burke Brian) to be in a position to take a hit because of something I post. I also don't relish the idea of being outed, whether I swing both ways or not!
But as far as what Burke is doing, good for him that he takes a stand. Personally I think it is the wrong stand to take. I was once involved in a very serious case of defamation as a witness, not as a perpetrator of the defamation. It cost a guy his entire business when it was all over. The sad thing was that 99% of his business had no idea about the allegations he was alleging until his lawyer started to issue subpoenas. Once everyone heard about the stuff through the law suit it destroyed his reputation and business so in effect the law suit was what was responsible for spreading the defamatory and slanderous comments. Seems this is the same here.
Somehow I think Burke is trying to expose people more than he is trying to get compensation.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality. Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see, I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, Because I'm easy come, easy go, Little high, little low, Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me....
You are absolutely righ HW, none of our beeswax, but we can dream can't we?
That was my point, is he trying to expose people, maybe he thinks there is some specific sinister person behind this.
Funny thing is, I don't think many believed the rumour to be true (i certainly didn't and did not add fuel to the fire by commenting on it), it just was not credible but maybe people wanted to believe it to be true. Why? I have no idea.
I have been personally attacked on here and slagged but do I care? Not really, some know me personally, most don't. Do I really care what others think? Not really because I know it's 99% crap.
This particular rumour hurt BB and his family/marriage and that shouldn't go unpunished. If someone purposely made this rumour up to attack and ruin his reputation then I don't think any of us would accept that.
We talk mostly what is relevant to hockey in the HF, there are lines that we clearly do not cross but sometimes we do and we all have to deal with it somehow. Sort through it. That's why we have discussions on here.
Can't we all just have a big group hug and move on?