Comment on Twin Galaxies, Billy Mitchell settle Donkey Kong score case before trial

• ampersandrew@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  He can stop making videos on The Completionist unless you really want to see someone cosplaying as a journalist list things he suspects the guy did but can't prove (beyond the first video). There's a reason that an actual journalist would want to get actual numbers behind the golf tournament, for instance, or consult with someone to see if maybe it's totally ordinary for signatures to be missing from documents because they were e-filed, or perhaps make sure that their legal definitions came from something other than just the first hit that they found with a quick Google, but maybe that timeline doesn't work for the World of Tanks promo slot he sold for his video. If the "bait" that he fell for in Jirard's response was as damning as implied, it might be in his best interest to stop making videos about The Completionist.

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  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    What's the factual issue with what he said about Jirard? Like for example, would you say any of the big blockquotes in this story are specifically untrue?

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    • ampersandrew@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Click the link in my comment. There is room for almost all of what he said to be true, but he didn't prove it, and that's a big problem, because there's also room all of it or nearly all of it to be false. It's why an actual reporter would get someone on the record to confirm a fact, consult with an expert, and be sure that the things they think are damning are actually damning. Meanwhile, he and OrdinaryGamers may have made some legal faux pas in the process of putting up videos that are sensationalist for clicks. Again, this doesn't mean that their allegations are false. But it's so, so important to actually prove it, because if they're wrong, lies travel faster than the truth, and if they ever make a retraction (I doubt it), fewer people will actually hear it.

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      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I asked about the specific claims in the story I linked to.

        Claim #1 can be verified by watching Jirard's video

        Claim #2 can be verified by watching Jirard's video

        Claim #3 is a simple statement of logic, no factual assertion

        Claim #4 is a statement of what's in Jirard's video, and an argument about how the law works, no factual assertion beyond what's in the video

        Claim #5 is a simple statement of logic (predicated on what's in Jirard's video)

        Claim #6 is an assertion about what Jirard claims "constantly"; hard to verify without watching literally everything Jirard has published

        Literally nothing in the story I linked had anything to do with anything not in the public record. I was asking about those specific claims to get a sense of what exact statements of Karl's you're talking about. Your answer doesn't give me a ton of confidence that you're being precise in your allegations about Karl.

        I haven't watched your video and don't plan to for a little while because of time reasons, but I'll take a look. I am curious on the topic (why I asked you the question I did.) The only other thing I'll say on the topic is, Karl's been on the receiving end of a $100k+ lawsuit already from the subject of one of his videos; it's possible that he's saying irresponsible things without consulting with his lawyer who would otherwise advise him not to, but I think it's unlikely.

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  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Update: Moon took down his video, and posted this, saying among other things "Karl is right: I didn't engage with the entire body of evidence, thereby getting crucial facts wrong."

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  • aperson@beehaw.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I like Ernie Smith’s take:

    tedium.co/…/the-completionist-open-hand-foundatio…

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    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Often, when I am covering a topic I lack familiarity or specificity with, I bring in an outside source—in the case of nonprofits, that meant talking to sources like lawyers and financial experts on the challenges that can face charities. (Lawyers, it should be noted, often don’t speak in absolutes about specific situations when talking to media outlets.)

      Jobst didn’t do that, essentially meaning he was interpreting the documentation himself.

      Citation needed. I don't know that Karl consulted with a lawyer before making this video, but given that he's right in the middle of getting sued and has spent over $100k on legal fees defending himself in that lawsuit, it'd be pretty surprising if he didn't talk to his lawyer before making this video, but instead just sort of sprung it on him as a little surprise.

      I'm curious what Ernie's reason is for asserting specifically that he didn't talk to a lawyer about his video.

      Dude is filling time for hours, because that’s how the format works, and that lends itself to slip-ups. It doesn’t seem like he was being intentionally misleading, for the most part.

      By saying that he'd donated money he hadn't donated, he was just... filling time on his stream? "For the most part?" Doesn't that aspect of the issue deserve a little more attention than half a paragraph?

      I have more I'd like to say about other things in this article, but honestly most of it is just beside the point. Like I said, the actual situation is actually extremely extremely simple. Seeing these huge videos or articles, which talk about charity fraud but spend almost all their runtime dealing at incredible length with issues other than "Did Jirard commit the technical definition of charity fraud?", actually specifically emphasizing that it wasn't a big deal if he did for the short time they touch on it, seems very weird.

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      • ampersandrew@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        But these two attempts at defending what Jirard did are genuinely ridiculous.

        Taking issue with how Jobst constructed his videos to attack Jirard is not the same as defending Jirard.

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• mctoasterson@reddthat.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  …and Todd Todgers (sic)

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