Defamatory lies and fantasy in overdrive in the age of the Internet

This was an amazing story that appeared in a recent guest opinion piece in the New York Times.  Here is how it opens:

It was a bright blue Thanksgiving Day. I was standing in a park listening to my kids play when I opened a TikTok video of a woman I had never met. She showed my faculty profile picture and contact information, and said that I had orchestrated the murders of four students at the college where I work, the University of Idaho. She claimed I was covering up an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of the victims.

I didn’t know any of the students, who had been killed only 11 days before I saw the video. The accuser knew nothing about me, lived in Texas and used tarot card readings as the only basis for her claims.

Over the next several weeks, while I was grieving with the rest of my community, this TikTok influencer uploaded over a hundred videos declaring that I had committed a quadruple homicide. The videos got millions of views. I was overwhelmed with calls, messages, comments and emails, many of which were disturbing or threatening. And I could have been anyone.

As you might expect, this had dire consequences:

I desperately wanted to spend time with my colleagues, students and friends as we grieved, but I became isolated. I stopped going to campus, moved my course online and ceased using social media. I stopped sleeping well, and instead, I walked the hallway outside my children’s rooms, utterly terrified that they would be harmed by the person hyperfixated on me, any of her believers or the person actually responsible for the murders.

She successfully sued the nutty woman and got a judgement for $10 million; but this was only in February this year and the article doesn't explain if she has actually recovered any money yet.

But this incident shows that the whole online information eco-system works to promote the spread of groundless and harmful claims, and it's definitely inadequate that it is only defamation (for those who can afford it) that is available to stop it.