🏛️ Dominion's $1.6B defamation claim against Fox fails the actual-malice test
Sacks' legal read of the Murdoch deposition: Dominion cannot win because New York Times v. Sullivan requires actual malice, and Murdoch admitted everything except that - he conceded Fox platformed claims it knew or should have known were false, but said the motive was fear of losing audience to a rival network, i.e. greed, which is a complete defense. So Fox escapes the liability the headlines imply, and even a guilty finding would not support $1.6B of damages.
0
CONVICTION
peaked 33.8 EMBER
DORMANT
band · contested
▲ LONG FOXA
expression · bullish politics-market
MISS
outcome · R -15.1% · α -43.9%
2024-03-03
window closed
⚖ Why this verdict
fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2023-03-03 → 2024-03-03 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▲ LONG FOXA (primary play). FOXA fell 15.1% over the window → direction-adjusted R = -15.1% (the call lost money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +28.8% → α = -15.1 − (+28.8) = -43.9% — what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
- Rule fired:
· HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5· PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0▶ MISS — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a MISS earn 0 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: nobody | opposed: Chamath, Sacks
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2023-03-03)
Plays
| expression | symbol | kind | relevance | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▲ LONG | FOXA | stock | PRIMARY | Fox Corp class A is the defendant carrying the $1.6B damages exposure |
| ▲ LONG | FOX | stock | adjacent | class B shares of the same defendant |
Mention log
Sacks
politics-market w=0.97 · n=88
· E118 (2023-03-03) · explicit_prediction · strength 2
▶ 1:17:13
SUPPORT
“But I don't think they're going to be because that's not the legal standard. I believe that if a television network knowingly spreads and endorses baseless accusations against somebody, which they know or should know is basically untrue, I think they should absolutely be liable for libel or defamation. But that is not what the law requires.”
Sacks
politics-market w=0.97 · n=88
· E125 (2023-04-21) · sentiment · strength 2
▶ 29:32
REVERSAL
“So for this one network to get a fine of like 800 million, it's like pretty incredible. I mean, they should be handing out a lot more of these in my view, not just to Fox. But yeah, look, I would like to see, to that end, I would like to see the standard in New York Times versus Sullivan revised by the Supreme Court.”
Chamath
politics-market w=1.02 · n=96
· E125 (2023-04-21) · explicit_prediction · strength 3
▶ 32:48
OPPOSE
“Fox, I think, has only 4 billion of cash, so they just spent 20 some odd percent of it paying this off. And if I were a shareholder, the question I would ask is did we actually make enough money to justify having to pay almost $800 million of our cash balance? The answer is probably no. And this is the first of a bunch of lawsuits that they have.”
Who built this conviction
each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -7.3 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E118 2023-03-03 | init | +33.8 | 33.8 | E118 born by Sacks (explicit_prediction x2) [w=0.97] |
| E119 2023-03-11 | decay | -1.4 | 32.5 | E119 silent |
| E120 2023-03-17 | decay | -1.3 | 31.2 | E120 silent |
| E121 2023-03-24 | decay | -1.2 | 29.9 | E121 silent |
| E122 2023-03-31 | decay | -1.2 | 28.7 | E122 silent |
| E123 2023-04-07 | decay | -1.1 | 27.6 | E123 silent |
| E124 2023-04-14 | decay | -1.1 | 26.5 | E124 silent |
| E125 2023-04-21 | reversal | -15.9 | 10.6 | E125 Sacks flips |
| E125 2023-04-21 | oppose | -10.6 | 0.0 | E125 Chamath opposes x3 [w=1.02] |
| E126 2023-04-28 | decay | · | 0.0 | E126 silent |
| E128 2023-05-12 | decay | · | 0.0 | E128 silent |
| E129 2023-05-19 | decay | · | 0.0 | E129 silent |
| E130 2023-05-26 | decay | · | 0.0 | E130 silent |
| E131 2023-06-02 | decay | · | 0.0 | E131 silent |
| E132 2023-06-10 | decay | · | 0.0 | E132 silent |
| E133 2023-06-16 | decay | · | 0.0 | E133 silent |
| E134 2023-06-24 | decay | · | 0.0 | E134 silent |
| E135 2023-07-01 | decay | · | 0.0 | E135 silent |
| E136 2023-07-09 | decay | · | 0.0 | E136 silent |
| E137 2023-07-14 | decay | · | 0.0 | E137 silent |
| E139 2023-07-27 | decay | · | 0.0 | E139 silent |
| E140 2023-08-04 | decay | · | 0.0 | E140 silent |
| E141 2023-08-11 | decay | · | 0.0 | E141 silent |
| E142 2023-08-18 | decay | · | 0.0 | E142 silent |
| E143 2023-08-25 | decay | · | 0.0 | E143 silent |
| E144 2023-09-01 | decay | · | 0.0 | E144 silent |
| E146 2023-09-22 | decay | · | 0.0 | E146 silent |
| E147 2023-09-29 | decay | · | 0.0 | E147 silent |
| E148 2023-10-07 | decay | · | 0.0 | E148 silent |
| E149 2023-10-13 | decay | · | 0.0 | E149 silent |
| E150 2023-10-20 | decay | · | 0.0 | E150 silent |
| E151 2023-10-27 | decay | · | 0.0 | E151 silent |
| E152 2023-11-03 | decay | · | 0.0 | E152 silent |
| E156 2023-12-08 | decay | · | 0.0 | E156 silent |
| E157 2023-12-16 | decay | · | 0.0 | E157 silent |
| E158 2023-12-23 | decay | · | 0.0 | E158 silent |
| E159 2023-12-29 | decay | · | 0.0 | E159 silent |
| E160 2024-01-06 | decay | · | 0.0 | E160 silent |
| E161 2024-01-13 | decay | · | 0.0 | E161 silent |
| E162 2024-01-19 | decay | · | 0.0 | E162 silent |
| E163 2024-01-26 | decay | · | 0.0 | E163 silent |
| E164 2024-02-02 | decay | · | 0.0 | E164 silent |
| E165 2024-02-09 | decay | · | 0.0 | E165 silent |
| E166 2024-02-16 | decay | · | 0.0 | E166 silent |
| E167 2024-02-23 | decay | · | 0.0 | E167 silent |
| E168 2024-03-01 | decay | · | 0.0 | E168 silent |