Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 139 posts

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#81

Post by rsynnott »

akudha wrote: post #5
lalaland1125 wrote: post #2

That's probably still a net profit for Alex Jones. According to the documents discussed in court he makes $800,000 a day from his show. If anything, he probably made more covering his own trial than what the trial cost.

Jeez! 800k per day. That is obscene, for a charlatan. How much of this is profit I wonder. 4M is chump change for someone making THAT much money. Plus, who knows how much money his nut job supporters are donating to him.

> That is obscene, for a charlatan.

The sort of people who make up his audience are, by definition, gullible, so they're a particularly valuable audience for advertisers.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#82

Post by elicash »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #3

I hope they throw the book at him for punitive damages as well. Maybe then people will learn you don't get to sit there spouting blatant lies without consequence. I thought forwarding his messages to the jan6 committee was just a stunt but apparently there's some juicy stuff in there. Will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

What's your over/under? 3x? 4x?

The messages themselves only go until March 2020 so while there might be "juicy" stuff there, it won't be specific 1/6/2021 planning.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#84

Post by dmlorenzetti »

snet0 wrote: post #22
superb-owl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good profile: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infow... That disabused me of the notion of Jones as an Evil Genius. He's just an alcohol-and-attention-fueled nut.

Watching him on Joe Rogan post Sandy-Hook gave me a pause that made me wonder if, under the public persona, there was a genuine human. I can certainly imagine that, if you're getting so heavily rewarded for the OTT absurdity, vitriol and anger, you can eventually get lost in the act. Occam's razor holds true, though. He's just a clown with issues.

Alex Jones reminds me of the Introduction to Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night" -- We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#85

Post by lostcolony »

noasaservice wrote: post #67
drexlspivey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am astounded how someone can sit on the stand and spew lie after lie after lie under oath with no repercussions.

Like what police do regularly? I sat in a jury for a DUI case. Their lead witness, a narcotics cop, lied blatantly on the stand in complete opposition to his deposition. We jurors made up our minds 10 minutes in - not guilty. But this cop? He perjured himself. And not so much as a peep from the judge.

I think part of the problem with perjury is that if it's detectable you only have hurt your own case, and if it isn't detected it can't be tried.

This might be somewhat unique in that the perjury charges relate to hiding evidence as well (rather than just running counter to the evidence). And, obviously, that Alex Jones isn't a cop, so that particular fetishism of law enforcement the US operates under doesn't apply.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#86

Post by JustSomeNobody »

Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

>is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones?

No. I'm really not. His entire livelihood was based on talking bullshit and selling it. I had zero expectation that he could stop while dealing with some serious real world shit like taking responsibility.

FAFO Alex.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#87

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

rbanffy wrote: post #71
hotpotamus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder what truly unlimited free speech would mean. How is it possible that perjury would be a crime? Fraud - just free speech right? And if money is speech, then corruption is just free speech as well. It doesn't really feel like it breaks the system down, it's more like does/did the system even exist?

Free speech exists for a reason - to allow a society to introspect and for truth to be explored and expressed. When one monetizes lies and conspiracy theories, manufacturing false narratives as truth, speech ceases to offer a positive value to society and its freedom should be less protected. The justice system is designed to find out the truth about disputed events or actions. Deliberately lying to it is a direct at…

> Deliberately lying to it is a direct attack on its mission and should be considered a criminal offence.

This is almost the definition of perjury.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#88

Post by jackmott42 »

jefftk wrote: post #53
drexlspivey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am astounded how someone can sit on the stand and spew lie after lie after lie under oath with no repercussions.

Why do you think there won't be repercussions?

Because we have spent the last 6 years watching dozens and dozens of bad actors get away with it, and never facing repercussion and we have become incredibly cynical of anyone wealthy ever facing justice.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#89

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

MilaM wrote: post #50

I'm not familiar with the legal system in the US. How much of the awarded money does the plaintiff actually receive as compensation in such a case? Do they have to share some of the awarded money with the lawyers? Also, are they also entitled to the punitive part of the damages? I'm asking because in many EU jurisdictions the equivalent of the punitive damages goes to the state or sometimes to charity organizations.

> How much of the awarded money does the plaintiff actually receive as compensation in such a case? Do they have to share some of the awarded money with the lawyers?

Depends on the agreement with the lawyers. The two main payment terms are:-

A) you pay your laywer their fees no matter the outcome. In this case you keep all the money awarded to you.

B) A contingency agreement. In this case you don't pay the laywer directly for their fee's however payment for your attorney's services is "contingent upon" your receiving some amount of compensation and the award is split based on the agreement. NOTE: Some types of cases can not be based on contingency for iirc ethical rules reasons.

It _COULD_ be a fee based contingency agreement saying "If we win, you will pay all our fees", but the more common agreement is the award sharing agreement saying for example "If we win you agree to pay 33% of the award given".

> are they also entitled to the punitive part of the damages?

Yes, however often punitive awards are often capped which the jurors are not told about. So lets say X state caps punitive awards to 1 Million, but the jury gives 10 million, the punitive award is reduced to the 1 million cap.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#90

Post by throwaway0a5e »

chmod600 wrote: post #64
titzer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are no consequences for anything, the system is coming apart. There is a good goddamn reason why lying under oath, or even lying to investigators, is a crime, because truth is the bedrock of accountability. Truth is always the first victim of psychopaths.

Lying to investigators shouldn't be a crime, in my opinion. It too often creates a situation where you can just investigate someone endlessly, find no real evidence, and then convict them of lying based on some flimsy inconsistencies in their statements. I suppose some specific kinds of lies could be crimes, but there should be a high bar for both the type of lie told as well as the certainty that it's really a lie.

The feds use this all the time. "plead guilty to this thing we probably can't get a jury conviction on and we'll drop the lying charge we can easily prove"
Post reply on HN