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Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#151

Post by wernercd »

bandyaboot wrote: post #136
noduerme wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> He tried to convince the world that the crime didn't actually happen and even worse tried to convince the world that the dead were actors and other nonsense. I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American. I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have. I appreciate the thought behind those laws. But I appreciate freedom of speech more.…

The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.

and it's still more important to have free speech because who decides "truth" and "lie"... and what happens when those in power switch and the other side decides.

Want Biden or Obama to have some power? Are you going to be okay with Bush or Trump gets that power?

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#152

Post by jerojero »

tootie wrote: post #106
gerdesj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories" I think you are a supporter of freedom of speech in general - that's something I thoroughly approve of too. I also think you are able to understand the difference between seeing a horrendous crime and seeing that crime and attempting to profit from it. That seems to be what this bloke did: He tried to change and engorge the narrative regarding t…

I fervently believe that there's no practical way for government to regulate speech so they shouldn't try. If there were a magic way to stop people like Jones from talking that wouldn't chill free speech in general, I'd take it in a heartbeat. He's not contributing to the marketplace of ideas. He's spreading lies deliberately for his personal profit.

Is posting an image part of your free speech? Absolutely yes.

Then let's see, when was the last time you were exposed to a child pornography image? Hopefully never (though we do have this whole pornhub drama going on).

It is obvious that there are ways of controlling speech and we do it all the time. I think only Americans believe in this absolute negative liberty view of speech.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#153

Post by speakfreely »

bandyaboot wrote: post #136
noduerme wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> He tried to convince the world that the crime didn't actually happen and even worse tried to convince the world that the dead were actors and other nonsense. I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American. I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have. I appreciate the thought behind those laws. But I appreciate freedom of speech more.…

The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.

I think this is an important point. Many of us here live in cities, but in rural America there is a stunning amount of people who really believe that Joe Biden lost the 2020 election and that there was a massive, coordinated campaign of voter fraud. In many dominantly red states, this is not considered a fringe conspiracy theory but more or less generally accepted as fact.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#154

Post by tootie »

krapp wrote: post #118
tootie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fervently believe that there's no practical way for government to regulate speech so they shouldn't try. If there were a magic way to stop people like Jones from talking that wouldn't chill free speech in general, I'd take it in a heartbeat. He's not contributing to the marketplace of ideas. He's spreading lies deliberately for his personal profit.

So you agree that Alex Jones is deliberately spreading lies for personal profit, and that this is harmful, but believe there shouldn't be any laws against it or any punishment for the consequences? Does that include the judgement he's facing now? Governments have been regulating speech since the beginning of governments. Every society doesn't exist in a state of maximal speech oppression as a result, so it cannot be…

No, sorry. I don't mean to imply he shouldn't be penalized in this case. I'm talking about literally everything else he says that doesn't get prosecuted. For example, saying the election was stolen is perfectly legal even though it's a destructive lie. Without a plaintiff who can cite specific harm, there's no crime

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#156

Post by sleepybrett »

jonas21 wrote: post #95
remarkEon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have a link to what he actually said? Now I’m curious. I hadn’t really been aware of this most recent Alex Jones shenanigan.

He said that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, it was fake, it didn't happen. They play portions of it in an interview with him here: https://youtu.be/-HzOqZeX3Yk?t=524 He also claimed the parents were actors, and it was all done in front of a blue screen: https://www.mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2016%3A11%3A29%3A51...

He did this for years, after it was blindingly obvious to literally everyone but his followers that it wasn't some kind of 'deep state globalist false flag hoax with crisis actors'.

Those followers would track down the parents no matter the circumstances, if they moved, they would be found and harassed, if they changed their names, they would be found and harassed. Jones kept platforming a lunatic named 'Wolfgang Halbig' who spent years as one of Jones' primary sources on sandy hook. Halbig would show up to the parent's houses and taunt and 'question' them and their neighbors. It was abhorrent.

After a while the parents (via counsel I think) reached out to inforwars and asked them stop. They did not. At one point one of the infowars editorial staff in an email pointed out that they were in a legally precarious situation and should back off the sandy hook shit. It didn't stop.

It was only when the suits were brought that alex tried to cool things down on his show. Then he did everything he could to delay the trials which eventually ended when he was found in default on all four pending suits. This is the first to go into damages phase.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#157

Post by martin1975 »

The chance of AJ paying out any money on this will be slim to nil, IMHO. I have no idea how they even came up with that figure on those parents other than some lawyer thought it'd be cool to just ask for so much money because they figure AJ can afford it. If there are any real damages, they are certainly not in the stratospheric amounts the jury awarded....

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#158

Post by krapp »

wernercd wrote: post #151
bandyaboot wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.

and it's still more important to have free speech because who decides "truth" and "lie"... and what happens when those in power switch and the other side decides. Want Biden or Obama to have some power? Are you going to be okay with Bush or Trump gets that power?

Political parties and Presidents don't decide what truth is and what lies are in the United States, or other free countries.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#159

Post by danso »

luxuryballs wrote: post #137
slibhb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Jones had stuck with "Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to take your guns," he would have been in the clear. The issue was his claim that the families whose children were murdered were "crisis actors".

It’s also interesting because he could still be 100% correct and they actually be crisis actors and the whole nine yards but that doesn’t actually matter in the outcome of the case as far as I can tell.

How would Jones be found liable for defamation if his claims were “100% correct”?

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#160

Post by andrewljohnson »

FireBeyond wrote: post #114
roenxi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Jones can afford to pay any of these figures that it says interesting things about how ineffective deplatforming is and really rather undermines the "big tech is a monopoly!" argument. Most people can't make $4 million in a lifetime, let alone these figures.

He claimed that a judgment of $2M would bankrupt Infowars. But emails revealed that, at times, revenue was $800K -per day-, and the judge asked him to explain how potentially less than 3 days revenue would have that effect.

InfoWars made $800K in one day, not _per_ day. Jones claims that was their best day ever.

Which makes total sense to me... businesses have huge boom days, and plaintiff lawyers will happily imply you should multiply that figure by 365 days.

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