Are they not powering down? The claim usually has to be false to be considered grounds for libel. Just opining negatively about someone isn't enough to get to court even if you technically could file a frivolous case.
I assume that the "libel" being spoken about was calling them traitors to Hive, sarcastically.
Well he stated that it "was evidence of them being traitors". Libel generally requires 2 components a false claim and unjust harm to someone's reputation. Impeaching someone's character does not equate to libel. Someone could frame this as "weak" evidence but that doesn't make it a false claim.
If we were to tone police the statement to something less incendiary but still steelman the position, it would be something like "The fact that 12 of 20 of the top witnesses are powering down is bad optically and could shake consumer confidence". The claim is true not false and even if someone could dismiss the traitorous rationale as incorrect, it still isn't libel. It would just be a weak argument or false equivalence.
This is the exact reason that it's important to have proper discourse on chain. Downvoting posts a person don't like to oblivion is a much less effective measure than communicating why a person's reasoning is faulty. But it's a lot easier than having discourse and gives people inverse slot machine dopamine rushes when they're griefing other people. As long as the perverse incentive structures exist, it's likely that model will dominate over a more truly "proof of brain" model.
Sarcasm isn't real.
Oh fair enough. I could have used that before I went on that little deep dive. Would have saved some time on commenting.
;)