As I understand the jury's decision in the Johnny Northside case, they decided that John Hoff was not lying, but should still be held responsible for the decision the U of MN made to fire Jerry Moore. This is different from what this story suggests.

I've long advocated for the implementation of a "Liar Law". If you recklessly or deliberately say something false that hurts another person, it can be prosecuted, just like assault. Remember, under the assault law, you don't even have to touch someone. You can be guilty of assault simply by making someone feel threatened or fearful. And Disorderly Conduct covers similar behavior. Start prosecuting these liars and the nonsense will stop. You lie, you go to a jail cell. End of story.

I can tell you why lawsuits in these cases don't usually happen. You have to prove "malice" and "harm" in court. Just being called names is not suffient to prove these things. They are difficult to prove. The guy in the "JohnnyNorthside" case lost his job because of the comments, so he was apparently able to prove those two things.

But sometimes how do you define false? There are persons who post on the internet on their own pages who claim it to be entertainment or how they see things, but others find offensive or hurts another person. Look at Lindsey Lohan and Saturday Night Live, she said it was hurtful, others thought it spot on.

In the "mainstream" media, why let facts get in the way? The Star Tribune and the other corporate-owned media regularly regurgitate the nonsense that spills from the mouths of the right-wingers like Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty with nary a fact being checked. Their constant stream of lies keeps the opposition buried up to its neck trying to get its point across, but the right-wing media are too busy propagandizing to bother publishing retractions. They just go on to the next set of lies and distortions from the right.

Most people reading on FB understand that posters are very subjective and offer opinions rather than facts. If anyone heard someone say "Mrs. Anderson is the meanest person in the world," they would understand the comment to be an untrue assessment of her character, since it's highly improbable that the speaker knows the objectively meanest person out of all 6.5 billion on the planet. Just so on FB. People aren't going to report libel because they understand the conversational nature of it.

"Attorneys can't sue Internet companies -- who have the deep pockets -- for what individual users say"... So the greedy lawyers want to be able to go after deep-pocketed third parties who have no responsibility for libelous posts. Imagine what kind of world we would live in if it were run by lawyers. Ooops! I forgot: Obama and most Democrat politicians are lawyers.

The term Social Media is wrong. Some of it is anti-social manufactured by people with anti-social personality traits. That scares me. For various reasons, there is a lot of hate out there, and a lot of bad people posting scum comments. There seems to be a need to vent a lot of rage under the cloak of secrecy, when you can do it pubicly.

We're all taking our cue from so-called conservative politicians who treat their beliefs as fact and take it personally if someone has the gall to challenge them. Until Republicans agree to base their arguments on verifiable facts like the rest of us, other institutions like social media will argue they have license to blur the lines between lies and truth. Doesn't the end justify the means?!!?

"why let the facts get in the way?" Fox Cable doesn't - why should anyone else?