this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 104 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Shareholders accusing the board of failing their obligations to protect the company from liabilities- specifically… by allowing conspiracy theories they knew were false to be aired frequently.

Interesting take. This might actually have some bite to it

[–] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'll remain skeptical for now that Fox faces any real consequences. I feel like this could just as easily go the route of "Fox didn't intend to loose money" and "companies make stupid decisions all the time" depending on how it gets argued. Probably end up just being a settlement either way, likely before discovery even starts.

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Last time they chose to offload Tucker. (edit: and Bongino!)

Maybe more will be put in the airlock this time.

[–] Currens_felis@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

Agreed. Don’t hold your breath.

[–] Hamma@lemmy.world 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ok it seems the ones suing them are pension funds. Is it irony if the people most likely to fall for the Fox bullshit are the ones who are also being financially harmed by the spreading of the bullshit by Fox?

[–] misterundercoat@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Conservative boomers and being easily manipulated by fear tactics, name a more dynamic duo.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Gen Z giving them a run for their money, falling for exact same tactics, from a modern version of the same localized media.

Boomers were radicalized by talk radio and gen z is being radicalized by YouTube, podcasts, and similar content delivery systems.

[–] macrocarpa@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Mate thank you, I've been thinking this for a while too.

No single generation has exclusivity on being manipulated.

The boomers had 'the man', millenials and gen z have the algorithm. Which is still the man but more efficient.

[–] iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 24 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

It's not even conspiracy theories that piss me off about fox. It's them, their general personal character, the essence of what God intended to be their soul.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's nothing but anger and hate yelled at the viewers.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Oh no, there's also titillation. They love a girl in a bikini- so they can scold her for being such a slut, obviously.

[–] zeppo@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, what Rupert Murdoch intended to be their soul.

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] zeppo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, if we want to look at in a theological sense, I don’t believe any deity imbued a corporation with a soul. So I was thinking in the “ethos” sense.

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I was just looking at the issue of Murdoch not possessing one, so it'd be difficult for him to have a proper frame of reference.

[–] zeppo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

That makes sense, he came up with something utterly soulless!

[–] Ddhuud@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Allowing us the wrong term. It's more like encouraging, pushing even.

[–] alcamtar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)
[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's extremely misleading. Even though Fox has been classified as "entertainment" for a number of years, that doesn't stop them from selling themselves as an actual news source. (Why people want to get pissed off for a couple hours a day as a form of entertainment is beyond me.)

Also, the conspiracy theories have caused actual harm to people. COVID-19/vaccine conspiracies probably being at the top of that list.

A conspiracy theory is only fun when you know it's just a conspiracy theory. The problem is, is that they are catering to an audience that doesn't know the difference. For example, stories of government coverups of UFOs were fun as a kid. Fox telling you that all "the gays are coming for your kids" is dangerous.

[–] Boddhisatva@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago

As a publicly held company, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their share holders. Fox News, as its name suggests, sells itself to share holders as a news organization. When they repeatedly present easily fact checked conspiracy theories as news, they open themselves up to lawsuits that damage the value of the organization and therefor cost the shareholders money.

Fox News is being sued for violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders by failing to do basic due diligence in making sure that their reporting is honest and accurate, something every other major news organization does. News organizations do this because failing to due so can lead to lawsuits that can cost millions of dollars. Fox allowed and even encouraged, I believe, on air personalities to repeatedly make false claims about Dominion Voting Systems. That action led to Fox being sued for $2.7 billion. Fox recently settled that suit for $787.5 million. That is a huge hit to their shareholders. Fox also promoted the same falsehoods against another company, Smartmatic. Smartmatic is also suing Fox for $2.7 billion dollars and their is little reason to think that suit will end any better for Fox News than the Dominion suit did.

[–] charonn0@startrek.website 1 points 2 years ago

Not criminally illegal, but it is something that can be sued over.

[–] WhyDoesntThisThingWork@lemmy.world -4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I'm all for Fox being held accountable to face consequences of their reckless actions.....

However, Fox has always been this way. Any investor who had done due diligence would know of their shady reputation. If you knowingly invest in a shady company, you can't really get pissed later about their shady actions. If you lost money, that's on you. If they had made money they wouldn't complain so it's kinda hypocritical on top of everything else.

[–] baru@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fox might always have been terrible. But there's still some rules on how the board should behave. Your post ignores that and is a bit too heavy on the victim blaming IMO.

There's no victim blaming if there's not a victim and there's no victim if adults are responsible for their own decisions and performed due diligence to educate themselves about the company before investing. So Fox having always been terrible is at the core of the issue here. They have always promoted crazy-ass conspiracy theories and it has always been profitable for them up until now, in fact I believe they were the highest rated cable "news" network for many years. If they followed a formula that always worked, they had no reason (arguably) to believe it wouldn't continue to work. In fact by changing a proven profitable formula you could argue they weren't performing their duties to continue to produce returns on investment.

But I'm not sure I can continue to have this conversation because if you're going to start using short-cut terms like "victim-blaming without making arguments to back yourself up, there's no discussion to be had.

[–] charonn0@startrek.website -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The obvious rebuttal is that Fox hasn't until recently been paying hundreds of millions of dollars for defamation.

You said it yourself though, "recently" and the title of this is "longstanding practice" so it's not really a valid rebuttal in this case.