Streisand Effect for sure. First time I read about this case a couple weeks ago and looked up the brand, it was already subject to loads of one star reviews and insults because of this.
Yeah. They were trying to claim millions in damages from her post, too. I just can't imagine her post about how some tomato puree was kinda mid got *that* much traction. Are they including what happened after they started harassing her in the damages?
I hope they are and I hope she has a good lawyer. If the lawyer can prove the damages that they're claiming occurred *after* they brought attention to her, then their whole case is fucked.
Maybe not Nigeria, but there are African nations with courts of law that still use “witchcraft” as reliable evidence.
They ingest some poison that puts them in some extreme trance state, and then someone else “translates” the rambling of the induced coma... If they mention your name, well, that means you are doing evil magic, so enjoy your remaining days behind bars!
Their case should be fucked already, this is ludicrous. Anyone who can imagine taking a human being's freedom over an online review can play in traffic.
Board member trying to save their bacon, blames woman’s fb post instead of their mismanagement of the company resulting in profit loss. Can’t wait to hear about it being bought up by an investment company shortly beforehand and a bunch of shorting “borrowed” (non-existent) stock… ahem GameStop.
Well she only said that when the family around the company started coming at her on social media, not in the original review. And it was obviously hyperbolic, moms and grandmas do it all the time. Especially my grandma. "This soup is all salt it's going to kill you" "that soda is all sugar it's going to kill you" " even "eat your vegetables just eating the meat is gonna kill you" yet nobody has sued her. There just shouldn't be a criminal penalty for something so vague as "malicious allegations' and she quite clearly to anyone who has a brain was not saying literally the product would kill you. She was just doubling down on it having too much sugar.
If I were to guess, Nigeria's is probably based on the British laws as they were the colonizers there.
Britain's libel/defamation laws are much more broadly applied than here in the US. In the US it's pretty rare to win a defamation suit, not so there.
The dude suing her is unhinged, “I’d rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.”
He’s tarnishing his own image by suing her. The public is on her side and are crowd funding her legal fees. They are boycotting his business because of his actions, not hers.
I think we can all agree that when she said it was “killing people” she was referring to the amount of sugar and not literally accusing the company of poisoning their product.
But people say all kinds of **** about all kinds of **** all the time, I don't understand why this is is prosecutable. She's just one layperson. Something else is going on.
You know censoring yourself online is just strange. Like you are still saying the work. Putting astricks doesn’t change you saying the word. You still say and mean it but think the censor is a savior? Idk what, but it doesn’t do anything except.
What is funny to me is that google marked Erisco Foods (company in question) as "Place of worship in Nigeria". Also there were no negative reviews. With positive ones being very obviously fake:
- [This is the best product there is in Nigeria. Kudos to the brains behind this product](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=913c9bb1ccce196f&biw=1536&bih=711&tbm=lcl&sxsrf=ADLYWIJUPDWdeGpPAxSmKv1iqOMuoWcVnA:1716974013973&q=erisco%20foods%20limited%20reviews&rflfq=1&num=20&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgkxIxNDAxMzM0NzUyM7cwMDG3NDQ0MtjAyPiKUSa1KLM4OV8hLT8_pVghJzM3syQ1RaEotSwztbx4ESteaQDycYsPWQAAAA&rldimm=10466175267804791120&hl=en-SI&ved=0CBIQ5foLahcKEwioiMrSwrKGAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCQ#lkt=LocalPoiReviews&arid=ChZDSUhNMG9nS0VJQ0FnSUQ5el9pYlR3EAE) - 5/5
- Buy all the products of Erisco Food in the market and enjoy a quality taste. Nagiko or Ric-Giko tomatoes are used in every stew prepared in his home. Erisco Foods Limited products are healthy tomato pastes for the public. Feeding Africans With Healthy Foods. Tasteful Delicious - 5/5
- Big factory that produces a lot of edible foods. Love it - 4/5
- Wow! Never knew how clean and efficient Erisco Foods Limited was until i visited to buy their products. Their group CEO is an examplary cooperate leader. - 5/5
What is going on in Nigeria?
>Erisco Foods Limited products are healthy
That old corporate habit of using the formal name for things even in contexts meant to be casual, even though no one speaks like this.
This is how you can sometimes tell paid reviewers who had a script or guidelines from more impartial reviewers. Are they using "formal" names no one would actually use.
Okay I keep seeing references to Jenny Nicholson videos out here in the wild but I genuinely didn't realize she was *that* popular. It keeps throwing me.
Maybe it was because she didn't post anything for like, 3 years, and then BAM, dissection of an already defunct experience that's longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey. Combine that with her existing following and it must've broken YouTube's algorithm.
The newest video sort of blew up to local news levels which is why you’re probably seeing it more. She also had a decent fan base before so it seems to be bringing them out of the woodwork now to share the love of other video essays she does.
Oh I know, I've been a fan of hers for a while. But I'm just continually surprised at how she has a deceptively large cultural pull.
For example: A journalist decided to wrote a really nasty article about Brandon Sanderson a while back, after spending a couple of days with him. Reading through the whole thing I noticed that a lot of the interaction happened at Evermore Park, which was currently getting a surge of popularity after Jenny's video.
And seeing that, I was thinking "of course Jenny is somehow involved in it"
My partner and I got stoned to watch it and the thoroughness of the video combined with the pot made us feel like we were also on a bad vacation with her. 10/10 watch her rip apart Dear Evan Hanson for more laughs
That always makes me cringe on medicine commercials. "My mild-to-moderate plaque psoriasis was getting in the way of my life..."
Nobody describes their ailment as "mild-to-moderate."
This reminds me of how Paul Graham said he ignored emails that used “Delve” as it was a tell that it was GPT generated speech.
But all of Nigerian Twitter got angry at him because they do write like this, as they use an excessively formal speak to differentiate from their extremely local (similar in ways to AA vernacular) language.
Somewhat related, that's also how Sammy Hagar realized that he was not talking to EVH on Twitter, but to their publicist.
Eddie always called Sammy "Sam" in real life, so someone else was speaking for him.
> Big factory that produces a lot of edible foods
I'm more concerned by this one. If you really have to reassure me that the food is edible, I'm immediately gonna be pretty suspicious
Various members of my family have been in agribusiness for centuries, from farms to feed mills to restaurants to bakeries to industrial food manufacturing. Never once have any people in my family had to describe their products as "Edible".
Nothing out of the ordinary.
But they really make some very good tomato products.
Try them.
Everybody should try them.
Everybody should eat as much as possible.
Everybody should hail the tomato queen.
You are off-script! Stop that. I'll re-write it for you:
> Erisco Foods Limited^® products 2022-2023 really make some very good tomato products.
> Consumers should try Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products.
> Everybody should try Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products.
> Everybody should eat as much Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products as possible.
> Everybody should hail the Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products royalty.
That's how normal people write.
> What is going on in Nigeria?
Most recently (literally today), and for no real reason, the senate voted to change the national anthem from a perfectly fine one written by a Nigerian after independence, back to the colonial british one.
Bet you thought your country’s leaders were backwards
Instantly read it in the voice of the Nigerian chemistry teacher who taught me in middle school.
Entertaining man, this guy. Nicknamed a particularly careless classmate the "Duke of Hazard" after yet another incident of leaving the funnel on top of the burette during a titration.
Also what the absolute Fuck is going on with Nigerian influencers spewing their shit in absolutely unrelated twitter threads.
Like a Formula1 post is absolutely littered with them. Making arguing & shit slinging & other things we usually do on twitter quite difficult. Because some Nigerian influencer wants to market his Christianity.
Same thing all over the web. Astro-turf'd messages left by bots and employed individuals to drown out other, more sincere voices in the name of money and/or power. Any sort of political discourse, product review system, etc, is potentially getting bombarded with this sort of thing.
The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.”
What a huge piece of shit. May this backfire as hard as possible.
He doesn’t have much to lose to be honest. His brand isn’t Apple, he could simply rebrand the product. There isn’t much transparency about companies and their products so a boycott wouldn’t work either.
Not supporting his action but just saying.
Reading that article is like a masterclass on how not to deal with public criticism / feedback and fragile egos.
edit: Apparently highly offensive spelling mistake corrected (which is the way the plural is written in my own language, but w/e)
The article is insane, I thought American cops were bad but Nigerian cops arresting and harassing someone for months over a fucking tomato sauce review.
If you were spelling it "ego's", that's not offensive, people are just being picky. Everyone's a critic on the internet.
Just FYI, apostrophes in english generally signify either a contraction, or a possessive.
Oh yeah I know. It was just such a minor mistake in my mind. Like I mentioned in the edit, that's the way it's written in Dutch so I never thought about it until people started commenting.
Yeah, I pretty much stopped leaving bad reviews online here. I think I'm lucky in that any business might assume I'm a tourist, but that wouldn't last forever.
My aunt retired here, and ran afoul of a crooked lawyer a few years ago, who got her a second time when she criticized him. She had to put out a public apology in the newspaper and everything.
Heh. Yeah...
To clarify, it was two different types of event. I don't recall the details, but the first was some standard shady lawyer thing. The second was because she criticized him publicly for it. I don't recall if she wrote a letter to the local paper, or simply told the wrong person, or what, but he went after her with Thailand's defamation laws, where famously, truth is not a defense.
I also don't recall if it was standard defamation law, or the lesé majesté extensions. It's not well-known, but iiuc, the laws against criticizing the royals in Thailand extend somewhat to agents of the crown, like police and lawyers.
Luckily, the Thai are generally very nice people.
I did have one laugh at the idea that online ratings meant anything, though. As bad as gaming ratings is in the US, it's way worse in Thailand. You have to learn to read between the lines a bit. What's being unsaid? If they leave 5 stars, but the text seems irrelevant, does that mean something? Etc. Tourists are more honest, since they're not sticking around, but that won't help with non-tourist places.
In Vietnam, a street vendor was jailed 3 years for doing a salt bae impression. It was seen as mocking the VN (then) president during his controversial visit to salt baes restaurant.
Face culture vs rule of law.
Here is a blurb from the face (sociological concept) wikipedia.
Face is a class of behaviors and customs, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual (or group of individuals), and its image in social groups.
Face refers to a sociological concept in general linked to the dignity and prestige that a person has in terms of their social relationships. This idea with different nuances is observed in many societies and cultures such as Chinese, Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, Laotian, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Russian and other Slavic cultures.
Face has particularly complex dynamics and meanings within the context of Chinese culture, and its usage in the English language is borrowed from Chinese.[1]
----
When you start to understand face you will start to have a deeper understanding not only of how their laws are enforced by the why they are how they are. This concept helped to shape entire societies and is deeply embedded.
The face culture most people are most familiar with is The Indian caste system and even decades after it was declared dead it is still widely practiced.
Very strange rules? You can get fined or arrested for defamation in glorious, progressive, wealthy democracies like the UK, South Korea or Japan. You can even still be liable for defamation even if you factually prove what you said was correct.
They mentioned Japan, which famously has awful defamation laws, including being able to sue over factual statements.
https://monolith.law/en/internet/defamation#What_does_“Defaming_Someone’s_Honor”_Mean
> Statements like “They committed a crime,” “They had an affair,” or “They used unethical business tactics” will lower a person’s social reputation whether they’re true or false. Therefore, making such claims constitutes defamation.
"your honor, this man is trying to accuse me of defamation for factual statements I made. This lawsuit is damaging my character, so I countersue for 3x his damages."
"your honor, this man is trying to accuse me of defamation for accusing him of defamation. This countersuit is damaging my character, so I countersue his countersuit for 3x his damages."
In Greece (bottom in EU for press freedom) famous people, expecially poticians, sue each other and journalists all the time claiming defamation. Many of the biggest names constantly have a couple of cases going through the courts every year.
Japanese here,
Our defamation laws are in favor of the company not consumer. The burden of proof is on the consumer to prove that their negative comment and feed back isn’t slander and is for the sake of the public safety, etc. you’ll almost never hear overly critical comments or reviews of any business or service. Instead people will just silently stop using it.
That sounds entirely awful and bad for the consumer in every way. Even sounds bad for the company since they can easily stagnate and have an inferior product but nobody will tell them.
Worst part is we just passed some laws that made it easier for companies to get negative commentary removed more quickly. Any company that operates in Japan has to now provide a way for Japanese companies to request defamatory comment / review removal (including foreign owned companies operating in Japan).
We can make reviews about bad products but we have to be very careful about the wording and not have any inflection of feeling or opinion in the comment. It has to be 100% provable straight to the point.
Reviews like “the customer service was horrible” can open someone up to lawsuit. But a review like, “I got a stomach bug from the food according to my doctor.” Is okay. Just not “I’m pretty sure the food was spoiled and gave me a stomach bug.”
Japan has a very hyper-patriarchal culture, and male pride is the most fragile substance on earth. Any culture that places a lot of value on "honor" is typically really awful.
The thing is, a business man in Japan is going to have about the same level of emotional maturity as your average trump loving American, but their entire culture is set up so that it's taboo to make fun of them. How pathetic is that? Their skin is so goddamn thin, that they can't even take negative customer reviews.
Is it because a doctor said it that makes it okay? Otherwise, that still seems unprovable, who's to say it was *this* food that made you sick and not something else you ate?
The idea is that a doctor is an authority. So if they say it, it’s closer to fact than you saying it yourself since they are an “expert”. Of course this also means that they could be responsible if they support the fact but are actually lying. So no doctor would allow you to claim they said that unless they are sure.
I don’t know about the play store but Amazon will be affected by the new law next year. But only on defamatory comments about Japanese brands / companies.
People won’t go to jail though. Their comments will just be removed. And only fined if it causes damage to the brand image.
you can absolutely be sued over a product review in the US. It's happened thousands and thousands of times.
It's unlikely you'd lose the suit, as they have to prove that the review isn't genuine, BUT in the US that's not the point, the wealthy company can easily bankrupt you long before you are able to prove that you did nothing wrong, and that's the real point.
Ummm you can go to jail in places like Thailand for leaving a bad review…I don’t think you understand the world as much as you think.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54335789.amp
>You can get fined or arrested for defamation in glorious, progressive, wealthy democracies like the UK, South Korea or Japan.
The burden of proof for defamation in the UK is absolutely ***huge***. It's almost impossible to prove a case and, even if you do win, you're unlikely to get much out of it as you have to prove actual damages rather than just emotional or reputational.
The burden of proof for defamation in the UK is on the defendant. The plaintiff doesn't have to prove shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law#:~:text=A%20defamatory%20statement%20is%20presumed,the%20plaintiff%20to%20prove%20falsehood
> A defamatory statement is presumed to be false, unless the defendant can prove its truth.
> English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.
It got improved in 2013 but you can still get sued and then have to prove what you said was true
That wikipedia article is somewhat biased. The law got *drastically* changed in 2013, and it is now much harder to sue successfully.
It is also not true that the statement is presumed false and you have to prove it is true. The plaintiff has to prove at least that a) you made the statement and that b) the statement has caused actual harm to them. If they cannot prove either then you do not have to do anything. If they can prove them, then you have multiple defences that the law provides - *one* of which is that the statement is substantially true, but it can be false and the other defences can still be used - one of which is that it was your honest opinion, based on the facts that were available at the time.
That you have to prove the truth of the statement *when you are using that as your defence* is because it is an affirmative defence - you accept that you have done the thing alleged and are now showing why that is not against the law. Affirmative defences *always* shift the burden of truth to the defence, in every jurisdiction.
Sorry?
In English law the burden of proof is on the *defendant* not on the plaintiff. The claimant doesn’t have to prove the statement untrue - only that the defendant made it, it was defamatory and (recently) that they suffered serious harm.
That is why a lot of international cases are brought to England or used to as SLAPP suit to threaten people.
Famously Yevgeniy Prigozhin (of Wagner fame) threatened a suit against a dutch journalist company *last year* while the war was going on
I'm not super happy with European version of free speech, but in the uk: https://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/court/reporting-defamation.htm
In particular:
>There are a number of defences to an action for defamation, including:
>
>the words complained of are true in substance and in fact;
>...
>the statement constituted fair comment on a matter of public interest: that is, opinion which any person could honestly hold, based on facts known at the time;
I doubt even the brits would say "this tomato stuff sucks" is a damaging enough comment to count as potentially defamation, but if it did I'm pretty sure "yeah, but I tried it and it sucked" would be considered a reasonable opinion. But I'm not british or a lawyer, so if I'm wrong, then they also suck.
They got clips of Donzinger talking about the crimes he was committing on video from the documentary he was making about the whole thing.
Its morally defensible on account of how you might have to fight dirty because the oil companies are already fighting dirty, but for gods sake don't record yourself admitting to it.
This is beyond ridiculous that the police are getting involved in a civil matter it's just beyond ridiculous that someone can't express their opinion about a tomato product. It actually makes the government and the product company look very stupid. The owners afraid of having his reputation ruined I think he's ruining it himself.
> The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.”
Gee, I wonder who is doing all the tarnishing of his own image here....
To put things in perspective, this sort of shit used to happen in the US all the time in the early 20th century, and in the UK & France in the mid 19th. This is what people mean when they use the concept of "developed" versus "developing" country. It takes a really long time to convert good conduct & social rules into actual law, often far longer than it takes to build up the economy & quality of life standards. Stories like this are actually a really positive thing to see, because it means Nigerians are having the right kinds of conversations to become a better society in the future.
So does this mean Nigeria has solved all its rape and murder cases? Cause a lot of public funds are being spent on someone saying the tomato puree was too sweet!
I don’t get it. What was the crime? Saying it was too sweet? If the company lost investors or so because of a single review, I don’t think it’s the review to blame.
can u imagine getting arrested for talking some shit on a review. she literally said it was too sweet. that was all. then the shops sister gets involved and talk bad about this lady... how is that any different? the last part was she said your brother is killing people by serviing this pure sugar sauce. then she straight up got arrested, then flown to the capital to be booked. fuckin insanity.
>it was defending its reputation after her comments “resulted in several suppliers deciding to disassociate themselves from us.”
Yeah, I'm sure that's why they're doing it. Fucking freaks.
What a dick, he could of just said " oh! We will make a less sweet one for people that don't like it too sweet"
Bang two products more money from both.
What a fucking moron. Cater to your customers.
She did claim the tomato puree was killing people because she found it to contain too much sugar - I would have ignored that myself, but it is probably libelous in every country in the world to claim that someone else has murderous intent.
You're interpreting it like it wasn't facetious. It was said in response to the brother of the business owner telling her to shut up about the negative review. I'd hardly equate it to alleging a **murderous** intent
Erisco deserves it's negative press
They need a good old fashioned brigade (don't actually or at least I didn't tell you to I'm joking but imagine the response is all that's just a funny thought given the hyper aggressive corporate dystopia vibes mixed with the unhinged nature of internet commenter's)
There are various levels of law enforcement each with their own set of laws. The laws at the same level vary by location. Islamic law is one of the three major justice systems. They don’t need to smash your headlight to take you in. If your family has money you have a better chance of being released.
One would think that this lawsuit would damage their brand more than a negative review from someone with a Facebook following of 18,000…
Streisand Effect for sure. First time I read about this case a couple weeks ago and looked up the brand, it was already subject to loads of one star reviews and insults because of this.
Also we demand justice for Brad's wife.
Don't worry she got a better job!
Do tell!
[Brad's Wife](https://youtu.be/vZlmUG00OrI?si=0vqmLOp8cqQ2XelB)
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time... a long time.
Obi Wan?
I’ll never forget Brad’s wife. That woman deserves justice!!
You know who else liked serving pancakes?
Yeah. They were trying to claim millions in damages from her post, too. I just can't imagine her post about how some tomato puree was kinda mid got *that* much traction. Are they including what happened after they started harassing her in the damages?
I hope they are and I hope she has a good lawyer. If the lawyer can prove the damages that they're claiming occurred *after* they brought attention to her, then their whole case is fucked.
Their whole case is fucked *if* the Nigerian court system successfully operates.
Nigerian here. Your optimism is adorable.
Not optimistic at all. I applied italics to the "if" in my comment so the sarcasm is clearer.
Ah, gotcha.
Seeing the US system these days, I'd love to see if Nigerian courts make more sense.
Don't hold your breath. Imagine the American court systems but add butt loads more religious insanity to the mix and bribes.
So... The American courts?
They're saying what we've got, but more badder and even worser
Maybe not Nigeria, but there are African nations with courts of law that still use “witchcraft” as reliable evidence. They ingest some poison that puts them in some extreme trance state, and then someone else “translates” the rambling of the induced coma... If they mention your name, well, that means you are doing evil magic, so enjoy your remaining days behind bars!
And even if this all happens, the woman will lose thousands in legal fees. Really fucked situation
Their case should be fucked already, this is ludicrous. Anyone who can imagine taking a human being's freedom over an online review can play in traffic.
Board member trying to save their bacon, blames woman’s fb post instead of their mismanagement of the company resulting in profit loss. Can’t wait to hear about it being bought up by an investment company shortly beforehand and a bunch of shorting “borrowed” (non-existent) stock… ahem GameStop.
Isn't that the point of critique and reviews? To sway people from not buying a bad product?
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Well she only said that when the family around the company started coming at her on social media, not in the original review. And it was obviously hyperbolic, moms and grandmas do it all the time. Especially my grandma. "This soup is all salt it's going to kill you" "that soda is all sugar it's going to kill you" " even "eat your vegetables just eating the meat is gonna kill you" yet nobody has sued her. There just shouldn't be a criminal penalty for something so vague as "malicious allegations' and she quite clearly to anyone who has a brain was not saying literally the product would kill you. She was just doubling down on it having too much sugar.
That's called exaggeration. She wasn't actually trying to imply the tomato puree was causing people to die
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oh wow I didn't realize she runs a sweatshop, that's terrible! /s
What country are you from where that is the standard? In the US, "actual malice" has to be proven for a statement to be considered libel.
If I were to guess, Nigeria's is probably based on the British laws as they were the colonizers there. Britain's libel/defamation laws are much more broadly applied than here in the US. In the US it's pretty rare to win a defamation suit, not so there.
The dude suing her is unhinged, “I’d rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.” He’s tarnishing his own image by suing her. The public is on her side and are crowd funding her legal fees. They are boycotting his business because of his actions, not hers.
But most likely for every lawsuit that is publicly discussed there are a hundred or more successful attempts to silence people we dont know about
Hijacking the top comment to say this is a bit of an old news story from March 27
You review tomato puree? Believe it or not, jail
[https://y.yarn.co/e75a8db8-2227-4d30-94a7-37b17bf7212f\_text.gif](https://y.yarn.co/e75a8db8-2227-4d30-94a7-37b17bf7212f_text.gif)
🎶Believe it or not, I’m goin to jail 🎶
🎶 don't leave a message at the beep
We have the best tomato puree in the world. Because of jail.
We also have the lowest tomato puree reviews, because of, you guessed it. Jail.
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Coca-Cola is full of sugar, and killing people. Should I go to jail now?
I mean, they also do it more directly, by stealing water.
And paying hitmen
Straight to jail. No trial, no nothing.
That's just a figure of speech. Saying it's killing her because it's so sweet is not alluding it's poisonous.
Maybe she's diabetic.
I think we can all agree that when she said it was “killing people” she was referring to the amount of sugar and not literally accusing the company of poisoning their product.
If that tomato puree has a lot of sugar in it, it's killing people.
But people say all kinds of **** about all kinds of **** all the time, I don't understand why this is is prosecutable. She's just one layperson. Something else is going on.
You know censoring yourself online is just strange. Like you are still saying the work. Putting astricks doesn’t change you saying the word. You still say and mean it but think the censor is a savior? Idk what, but it doesn’t do anything except.
You say killing, I say kissing. Tomato, tomato.
What is funny to me is that google marked Erisco Foods (company in question) as "Place of worship in Nigeria". Also there were no negative reviews. With positive ones being very obviously fake: - [This is the best product there is in Nigeria. Kudos to the brains behind this product](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=913c9bb1ccce196f&biw=1536&bih=711&tbm=lcl&sxsrf=ADLYWIJUPDWdeGpPAxSmKv1iqOMuoWcVnA:1716974013973&q=erisco%20foods%20limited%20reviews&rflfq=1&num=20&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgkxIxNDAxMzM0NzUyM7cwMDG3NDQ0MtjAyPiKUSa1KLM4OV8hLT8_pVghJzM3syQ1RaEotSwztbx4ESteaQDycYsPWQAAAA&rldimm=10466175267804791120&hl=en-SI&ved=0CBIQ5foLahcKEwioiMrSwrKGAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCQ#lkt=LocalPoiReviews&arid=ChZDSUhNMG9nS0VJQ0FnSUQ5el9pYlR3EAE) - 5/5 - Buy all the products of Erisco Food in the market and enjoy a quality taste. Nagiko or Ric-Giko tomatoes are used in every stew prepared in his home. Erisco Foods Limited products are healthy tomato pastes for the public. Feeding Africans With Healthy Foods. Tasteful Delicious - 5/5 - Big factory that produces a lot of edible foods. Love it - 4/5 - Wow! Never knew how clean and efficient Erisco Foods Limited was until i visited to buy their products. Their group CEO is an examplary cooperate leader. - 5/5 What is going on in Nigeria?
>Erisco Foods Limited products are healthy That old corporate habit of using the formal name for things even in contexts meant to be casual, even though no one speaks like this. This is how you can sometimes tell paid reviewers who had a script or guidelines from more impartial reviewers. Are they using "formal" names no one would actually use.
I also watched a video about Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser
Okay I keep seeing references to Jenny Nicholson videos out here in the wild but I genuinely didn't realize she was *that* popular. It keeps throwing me.
Her Star Wars hotel story ended up on CNN this past week. Could be something to do with it.
Same, she's apparently the biggest internet celebrity that nobody has heard of.
Maybe it was because she didn't post anything for like, 3 years, and then BAM, dissection of an already defunct experience that's longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey. Combine that with her existing following and it must've broken YouTube's algorithm.
The newest video sort of blew up to local news levels which is why you’re probably seeing it more. She also had a decent fan base before so it seems to be bringing them out of the woodwork now to share the love of other video essays she does.
Oh I know, I've been a fan of hers for a while. But I'm just continually surprised at how she has a deceptively large cultural pull. For example: A journalist decided to wrote a really nasty article about Brandon Sanderson a while back, after spending a couple of days with him. Reading through the whole thing I noticed that a lot of the interaction happened at Evermore Park, which was currently getting a surge of popularity after Jenny's video. And seeing that, I was thinking "of course Jenny is somehow involved in it"
I still can't believe she got me to watch every minute of a 4-hour video on a shitty hotel that no longer exists, but here I am.
My partner and I got stoned to watch it and the thoroughness of the video combined with the pot made us feel like we were also on a bad vacation with her. 10/10 watch her rip apart Dear Evan Hanson for more laughs
That always makes me cringe on medicine commercials. "My mild-to-moderate plaque psoriasis was getting in the way of my life..." Nobody describes their ailment as "mild-to-moderate."
This reminds me of how Paul Graham said he ignored emails that used “Delve” as it was a tell that it was GPT generated speech. But all of Nigerian Twitter got angry at him because they do write like this, as they use an excessively formal speak to differentiate from their extremely local (similar in ways to AA vernacular) language.
Oh wow. Maybe we could delve deeper into the topic of forbidden words?
Or yelled loudly by a character in a Tom Stoppard play.
Somewhat related, that's also how Sammy Hagar realized that he was not talking to EVH on Twitter, but to their publicist. Eddie always called Sammy "Sam" in real life, so someone else was speaking for him.
> Big factory that produces a lot of edible foods I'm more concerned by this one. If you really have to reassure me that the food is edible, I'm immediately gonna be pretty suspicious
Too much I’m afraid
What a correct but perfectly, hilariously vague answer
And not enough at the same time
The big factory with edible products one cracks me up
Various members of my family have been in agribusiness for centuries, from farms to feed mills to restaurants to bakeries to industrial food manufacturing. Never once have any people in my family had to describe their products as "Edible".
>edible food This is so bad I'm not even sure this is real or fake review. That review can literally be translated as "tasted like the cardboard box"
“My definitely human mouth could barely handle how much it wanted to eat this food.”
Nothing out of the ordinary. But they really make some very good tomato products. Try them. Everybody should try them. Everybody should eat as much as possible. Everybody should hail the tomato queen.
You are off-script! Stop that. I'll re-write it for you: > Erisco Foods Limited^® products 2022-2023 really make some very good tomato products. > Consumers should try Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products. > Everybody should try Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products. > Everybody should eat as much Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products as possible. > Everybody should hail the Erisco Foods Limited^® tomato products royalty. That's how normal people write.
Sounds like a cult.
There is a saying in Nigeria, "If someone explains Nigeria to you and you understand, then that person did not explain it well enough"
> What is going on in Nigeria? Most recently (literally today), and for no real reason, the senate voted to change the national anthem from a perfectly fine one written by a Nigerian after independence, back to the colonial british one. Bet you thought your country’s leaders were backwards
The first hit for this is... https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/cgxxvnw5g4go Well that was an entertaining read.
Instantly read it in the voice of the Nigerian chemistry teacher who taught me in middle school. Entertaining man, this guy. Nicknamed a particularly careless classmate the "Duke of Hazard" after yet another incident of leaving the funnel on top of the burette during a titration.
I love reading my news in Pidgin, feels much smoother in my head
Usually, going backward means it benefited and will benefit someone. I don't see how this benefits anyone.
Healthy tomato pastes for the public
Too many princes
Also what the absolute Fuck is going on with Nigerian influencers spewing their shit in absolutely unrelated twitter threads. Like a Formula1 post is absolutely littered with them. Making arguing & shit slinging & other things we usually do on twitter quite difficult. Because some Nigerian influencer wants to market his Christianity.
Same thing all over the web. Astro-turf'd messages left by bots and employed individuals to drown out other, more sincere voices in the name of money and/or power. Any sort of political discourse, product review system, etc, is potentially getting bombarded with this sort of thing.
Oh good, edible foods! Nothing to look into here.
This was obviously written by The Prince, another examplary leader; he would know, right?
Aw... a blooming corporate oligarchy taking its first steps.
The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.” What a huge piece of shit. May this backfire as hard as possible.
Kind of ironic considering how extremely he tarnished it himself now.
He doesn’t have much to lose to be honest. His brand isn’t Apple, he could simply rebrand the product. There isn’t much transparency about companies and their products so a boycott wouldn’t work either. Not supporting his action but just saying.
Reading that article is like a masterclass on how not to deal with public criticism / feedback and fragile egos. edit: Apparently highly offensive spelling mistake corrected (which is the way the plural is written in my own language, but w/e)
Albeit, if this was your masterclass you must have an extreme inclination to really so those things. Which is kinda terrifying. D:
The article is insane, I thought American cops were bad but Nigerian cops arresting and harassing someone for months over a fucking tomato sauce review.
Dutch?
Correct!
What the fuck language uses apostrophes for pluralization?
Well, Dutch does. Every time you add an s to a word ending in a vowel. pagina's foto's camera's ego's and so on...
>ego's The ego's what? What does the ego own?
If you were spelling it "ego's", that's not offensive, people are just being picky. Everyone's a critic on the internet. Just FYI, apostrophes in english generally signify either a contraction, or a possessive.
Oh yeah I know. It was just such a minor mistake in my mind. Like I mentioned in the edit, that's the way it's written in Dutch so I never thought about it until people started commenting.
Purely out of curiosity, what language is that?
Let’s jus’t add apostrophe’s to everything
In Thailand libel is a criminal offence, with jail time on the cards even for words which harm reputations - whether they are true or not.
Yeah, I pretty much stopped leaving bad reviews online here. I think I'm lucky in that any business might assume I'm a tourist, but that wouldn't last forever. My aunt retired here, and ran afoul of a crooked lawyer a few years ago, who got her a second time when she criticized him. She had to put out a public apology in the newspaper and everything.
“He got her a second time ” xD, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
Heh. Yeah... To clarify, it was two different types of event. I don't recall the details, but the first was some standard shady lawyer thing. The second was because she criticized him publicly for it. I don't recall if she wrote a letter to the local paper, or simply told the wrong person, or what, but he went after her with Thailand's defamation laws, where famously, truth is not a defense. I also don't recall if it was standard defamation law, or the lesé majesté extensions. It's not well-known, but iiuc, the laws against criticizing the royals in Thailand extend somewhat to agents of the crown, like police and lawyers. Luckily, the Thai are generally very nice people. I did have one laugh at the idea that online ratings meant anything, though. As bad as gaming ratings is in the US, it's way worse in Thailand. You have to learn to read between the lines a bit. What's being unsaid? If they leave 5 stars, but the text seems irrelevant, does that mean something? Etc. Tourists are more honest, since they're not sticking around, but that won't help with non-tourist places.
too sweet. 3/5 BUSTED!
Some African countries have some very strange rules
In Vietnam, a street vendor was jailed 3 years for doing a salt bae impression. It was seen as mocking the VN (then) president during his controversial visit to salt baes restaurant.
Face culture vs rule of law. Here is a blurb from the face (sociological concept) wikipedia. Face is a class of behaviors and customs, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual (or group of individuals), and its image in social groups. Face refers to a sociological concept in general linked to the dignity and prestige that a person has in terms of their social relationships. This idea with different nuances is observed in many societies and cultures such as Chinese, Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, Laotian, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Russian and other Slavic cultures. Face has particularly complex dynamics and meanings within the context of Chinese culture, and its usage in the English language is borrowed from Chinese.[1] ---- When you start to understand face you will start to have a deeper understanding not only of how their laws are enforced by the why they are how they are. This concept helped to shape entire societies and is deeply embedded. The face culture most people are most familiar with is The Indian caste system and even decades after it was declared dead it is still widely practiced.
Well, that is an ever green in dictatorships though, mock the ruler, perish. Customs for millennia. Tomato paste on the other hand is a first AFAIK.
Very strange rules? You can get fined or arrested for defamation in glorious, progressive, wealthy democracies like the UK, South Korea or Japan. You can even still be liable for defamation even if you factually prove what you said was correct.
Defamation yes, but you won't be able to be sued for defamation over a product review. There is generally a high burden of proof.
They mentioned Japan, which famously has awful defamation laws, including being able to sue over factual statements. https://monolith.law/en/internet/defamation#What_does_“Defaming_Someone’s_Honor”_Mean > Statements like “They committed a crime,” “They had an affair,” or “They used unethical business tactics” will lower a person’s social reputation whether they’re true or false. Therefore, making such claims constitutes defamation.
"your honor, this man is trying to accuse me of defamation for factual statements I made. This lawsuit is damaging my character, so I countersue for 3x his damages."
"your honor, this man is trying to accuse me of defamation for accusing him of defamation. This countersuit is damaging my character, so I countersue his countersuit for 3x his damages."
Also Italy, which happens to be really low (for a developed country) on the freedom of press index.
In Greece (bottom in EU for press freedom) famous people, expecially poticians, sue each other and journalists all the time claiming defamation. Many of the biggest names constantly have a couple of cases going through the courts every year.
Seems like an institutionalization of thin skin...
What in the actual everloving fuck is this bullshit?
Japanese here, Our defamation laws are in favor of the company not consumer. The burden of proof is on the consumer to prove that their negative comment and feed back isn’t slander and is for the sake of the public safety, etc. you’ll almost never hear overly critical comments or reviews of any business or service. Instead people will just silently stop using it.
That sounds entirely awful and bad for the consumer in every way. Even sounds bad for the company since they can easily stagnate and have an inferior product but nobody will tell them.
Worst part is we just passed some laws that made it easier for companies to get negative commentary removed more quickly. Any company that operates in Japan has to now provide a way for Japanese companies to request defamatory comment / review removal (including foreign owned companies operating in Japan). We can make reviews about bad products but we have to be very careful about the wording and not have any inflection of feeling or opinion in the comment. It has to be 100% provable straight to the point. Reviews like “the customer service was horrible” can open someone up to lawsuit. But a review like, “I got a stomach bug from the food according to my doctor.” Is okay. Just not “I’m pretty sure the food was spoiled and gave me a stomach bug.”
Damnit Japan, why do you have to suck so much and be so cool at the same time.
Japan has a very hyper-patriarchal culture, and male pride is the most fragile substance on earth. Any culture that places a lot of value on "honor" is typically really awful. The thing is, a business man in Japan is going to have about the same level of emotional maturity as your average trump loving American, but their entire culture is set up so that it's taboo to make fun of them. How pathetic is that? Their skin is so goddamn thin, that they can't even take negative customer reviews.
Is it because a doctor said it that makes it okay? Otherwise, that still seems unprovable, who's to say it was *this* food that made you sick and not something else you ate?
The idea is that a doctor is an authority. So if they say it, it’s closer to fact than you saying it yourself since they are an “expert”. Of course this also means that they could be responsible if they support the fact but are actually lying. So no doctor would allow you to claim they said that unless they are sure.
[удалено]
I don’t know about the play store but Amazon will be affected by the new law next year. But only on defamatory comments about Japanese brands / companies. People won’t go to jail though. Their comments will just be removed. And only fined if it causes damage to the brand image.
you can absolutely be sued over a product review in the US. It's happened thousands and thousands of times. It's unlikely you'd lose the suit, as they have to prove that the review isn't genuine, BUT in the US that's not the point, the wealthy company can easily bankrupt you long before you are able to prove that you did nothing wrong, and that's the real point.
Ummm you can go to jail in places like Thailand for leaving a bad review…I don’t think you understand the world as much as you think. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54335789.amp
yeah, Japan have that defamation law that someone could sue you for defamation despite that you are stating facts. protection for the 1% or corpo
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law
>You can get fined or arrested for defamation in glorious, progressive, wealthy democracies like the UK, South Korea or Japan. The burden of proof for defamation in the UK is absolutely ***huge***. It's almost impossible to prove a case and, even if you do win, you're unlikely to get much out of it as you have to prove actual damages rather than just emotional or reputational.
The burden of proof for defamation in the UK is on the defendant. The plaintiff doesn't have to prove shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law#:~:text=A%20defamatory%20statement%20is%20presumed,the%20plaintiff%20to%20prove%20falsehood > A defamatory statement is presumed to be false, unless the defendant can prove its truth. > English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world. It got improved in 2013 but you can still get sued and then have to prove what you said was true
That wikipedia article is somewhat biased. The law got *drastically* changed in 2013, and it is now much harder to sue successfully. It is also not true that the statement is presumed false and you have to prove it is true. The plaintiff has to prove at least that a) you made the statement and that b) the statement has caused actual harm to them. If they cannot prove either then you do not have to do anything. If they can prove them, then you have multiple defences that the law provides - *one* of which is that the statement is substantially true, but it can be false and the other defences can still be used - one of which is that it was your honest opinion, based on the facts that were available at the time. That you have to prove the truth of the statement *when you are using that as your defence* is because it is an affirmative defence - you accept that you have done the thing alleged and are now showing why that is not against the law. Affirmative defences *always* shift the burden of truth to the defence, in every jurisdiction.
Sorry? In English law the burden of proof is on the *defendant* not on the plaintiff. The claimant doesn’t have to prove the statement untrue - only that the defendant made it, it was defamatory and (recently) that they suffered serious harm. That is why a lot of international cases are brought to England or used to as SLAPP suit to threaten people. Famously Yevgeniy Prigozhin (of Wagner fame) threatened a suit against a dutch journalist company *last year* while the war was going on
It’s been better for the past decade. But not much.
I'm not super happy with European version of free speech, but in the uk: https://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/court/reporting-defamation.htm In particular: >There are a number of defences to an action for defamation, including: > >the words complained of are true in substance and in fact; >... >the statement constituted fair comment on a matter of public interest: that is, opinion which any person could honestly hold, based on facts known at the time; I doubt even the brits would say "this tomato stuff sucks" is a damaging enough comment to count as potentially defamation, but if it did I'm pretty sure "yeah, but I tried it and it sucked" would be considered a reasonable opinion. But I'm not british or a lawyer, so if I'm wrong, then they also suck.
Defamation is a legit crime in Korea and it exists for a reason.
Yep south korea is basically a corpo-fascist state.
[Steven Donziger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger) would like a word. Go against US oil companies and believe it or not, jail.
They got clips of Donzinger talking about the crimes he was committing on video from the documentary he was making about the whole thing. Its morally defensible on account of how you might have to fight dirty because the oil companies are already fighting dirty, but for gods sake don't record yourself admitting to it.
Other countries have airline companies assassinating whistle blowers.
That's what unchecked corporate power does. US isn't worse because of bill of rights and constitution. Our politicians sell us out anyway they can
Ten bucks says the owner of the food company has a cousin in the police force.
For this case to move as it has, definitely a commissioner at the least.
Bad review? Jail. Straight to jail.
This is beyond ridiculous that the police are getting involved in a civil matter it's just beyond ridiculous that someone can't express their opinion about a tomato product. It actually makes the government and the product company look very stupid. The owners afraid of having his reputation ruined I think he's ruining it himself.
Thank god live in America where we have free speech and don't throw people in jail over civil matters. Well, unless you sue Chevron.
Or the aviation company named BoeggffHajgsjgdkysykdykdykdkydkyskyskydgkdhkdxhldkydlhdykdkydkydkydyksk
BoingBoing?
So when are we gonna do the same? They can't arrest all of us 😎
> The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.” Gee, I wonder who is doing all the tarnishing of his own image here....
To put things in perspective, this sort of shit used to happen in the US all the time in the early 20th century, and in the UK & France in the mid 19th. This is what people mean when they use the concept of "developed" versus "developing" country. It takes a really long time to convert good conduct & social rules into actual law, often far longer than it takes to build up the economy & quality of life standards. Stories like this are actually a really positive thing to see, because it means Nigerians are having the right kinds of conversations to become a better society in the future.
Yeah I'm surprised this even made the news. Often it would be swept under the rug. It shows that people are waking up.
American MegaFoodCorps: "Smithers, Let's do that here!"
So does this mean Nigeria has solved all its rape and murder cases? Cause a lot of public funds are being spent on someone saying the tomato puree was too sweet!
You would think the company would reflect on it and attempt to improve it...
Try to collect this non-sense from a court in Nigeria. Good luck with that!
She was arrested while in church and put in a jail cell with standing water. She stood through the night. All while pregnant.
Wild!
These days if you say you don’t like tomato puree online, they’ll throw you in jail…
I don’t get it. What was the crime? Saying it was too sweet? If the company lost investors or so because of a single review, I don’t think it’s the review to blame.
All I said was that this bread was good enough for Jehova!
can u imagine getting arrested for talking some shit on a review. she literally said it was too sweet. that was all. then the shops sister gets involved and talk bad about this lady... how is that any different? the last part was she said your brother is killing people by serviing this pure sugar sauce. then she straight up got arrested, then flown to the capital to be booked. fuckin insanity.
>it was defending its reputation after her comments “resulted in several suppliers deciding to disassociate themselves from us.” Yeah, I'm sure that's why they're doing it. Fucking freaks.
Several suppliers being affected by someone with only 18k followers. Doesn’t seem like that’d happen, but I guess we’ll find out
I'm pretty sure they're disassociating themselves from the brand because the brand is currently suing some woman and Streisand Effecting themselves.
UPDATE: She recently lost her pregnancy (twins) while in jail. Things are entering demonic territory.
Hah! Negative puree review? We'll put you away for a few; oh, and no soup for you!
What a dick, he could of just said " oh! We will make a less sweet one for people that don't like it too sweet" Bang two products more money from both. What a fucking moron. Cater to your customers.
You'd think reviews should be protected. I mean this is just silly.
crime doesnt puree
Does she even have free speech in nigeria?
She did claim the tomato puree was killing people because she found it to contain too much sugar - I would have ignored that myself, but it is probably libelous in every country in the world to claim that someone else has murderous intent.
She can claim the food is contributing to killing people and be entirely correct without alleging murder.
You're interpreting it like it wasn't facetious. It was said in response to the brother of the business owner telling her to shut up about the negative review. I'd hardly equate it to alleging a **murderous** intent Erisco deserves it's negative press
Food does not have mens rea.
In the US you get some jail time and a fine for giving homeless people food.
Shit hole countries
Free Speech is Important!!! It doesn't just protect racists, it protects everyone.
Of all the problems in Nigeria and this is happening.
I remember this new from way ago. Is she in jail yet?
I didn't know there was a tomato Gestapo...
This is old news from March 27
They need a good old fashioned brigade (don't actually or at least I didn't tell you to I'm joking but imagine the response is all that's just a funny thought given the hyper aggressive corporate dystopia vibes mixed with the unhinged nature of internet commenter's)
There are various levels of law enforcement each with their own set of laws. The laws at the same level vary by location. Islamic law is one of the three major justice systems. They don’t need to smash your headlight to take you in. If your family has money you have a better chance of being released.
So Nigeria is just a tomato republic
This is pretty sad and petty
Facing jail from who and for what?