He would have lost on not using “alleged” – the complaints about the guillotine stuff wouldn’t survive any court challenge (which, I agree, would have been very costly if not ruinous).
I suspect that throwing in an exception in this case regarding the iconography was mainly about placating the Sacklers’ lawyers to make them go away this time. I understand that and will understand Cory’s avoidance of using the image or tag in further posts about the Sacklers. Otherwise, he should keep using it for the reasons I mentioned above.
It’s a shame, because the juxtaposition of the guillotine with a pill-splitter was just perfect in this case.
That’s a risk any media outlet’s publisher takes on just about any story criticising a wealthy person or corporation. Imposing a blanket chilling speech restriction due to one vexatious threat by one well-funded party is not something that this site is prone to do, as the many “go f*ck yourself” letters published here in response to similar lawyer’s letters written on behalf of deep-pocketed clients will attest.
