Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by barking_biscuit » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #259

stjohnswarts wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the judge gets final say but they rarely change these things unless the jury awards something ridiculous like a billion dollars for a broken bone.

Quoted post unavailable.

hmm that's odd as I explicitly remember a moment when Alex himself complained the had been declared "guilty" by the judge without a trial and he said "I believe I am innocent until proven guilty". The judge them reminded him that it was a civil matter and not a criminal matter, therefore there is no "guilty" and "not guilty" there is only "liable" and "not liable" and he was deemed "liable" by default when he failed to respond to the plaintiff's lawsuit.

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

#272

Post by dcolkitt » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

jerojero wrote: post #152

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.

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.

Child pornography isn’t illegal because of the contents of the speech. It’s illegal because it’s an accessory to the original crime of child molestation. That is why the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that virtual child pornography, even photorealistic, is Constitutionally protected speech.

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

#273

Post by kentm » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

omnicognate wrote: post #147

IronWolve wrote: post #30

The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on t…

The two people in that "Barnes Law" video engage in an extremely dishonest form of argument. According to them, the fact that somebody cannot name the specific evidence Jones' lawyers were ordered to produce in discovery somehow negates any views they might hold on the case, including that the default (not summary) judgement was fair. It's a cheap rhetorical trick for use when one has no better argument: come up with…

Gonna tag onto your statement here because I like it.

I'm a little bit floored that people still believe Alex Jones and Barnes' (Barnes is an InfoWars contributor) claims about discovery. They were caught in the trial itself with evidence that they hid. The whole "cell phone" moment was a big deal because it was explicitly a piece of evidence required by discovery that was not provided. They are lying about how discovery went down to appear more sympathetic.

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

#274

Post by hunterb123 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

xoa wrote: post #254

hunterb123 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That clears up what you're referring to, but we're talking past each other here. I'm not saying the information that he needed to disclose was protected, I'm saying the rest of the information on the phone that was leaked that wasn't relevant to the case was protected and can/should not be used in another investigation.

> but we're talking past each other here. No, you're just stubbornly wrong at this point. > I'm saying the rest of the information on the phone that was leaked that wasn't relevant to the case was protected and can/should not be used in another investigation. No, it's not. I cited the law on it. They have waived any privilege over any of that, it's not protected at all anymore it's free and clear for the plaintiff's…

No you're wrong on this one. What you're referencing is only specific to the civil case in Texas, it is not material to the J6 federal investigation and irrelevant illicitly obtained material cannot be used for it.

> You're ignorant of the law and unjustified in your anger about this

So many lawyers here today. I know you really want to justify abuse of the court and violation of the Constitution to meet your vendetta, but the fact is protected information was leaked without AJ's approval, and irrelevant illicitly obtained information was sent to a partisan committee. It's an abuse of the system.

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

#275

Post by jjeaff » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #103

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…

>> 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.…

It should be noted that this defamation case is not a simple case of denying a reality thus causing trauma to the victims. Jones called out some of these parents by name, put their photos and the photos of their children on his show. Then he did nothing while his audience harassed and threatened these parents for years. Some having to move multiple times and hire private security guards because of Jone's show. He continued defaming these parents on his show even up to the morning of one of the last days of this recent trial saying that the mother was "slow" and being manipulated by the government.

In my opinion, this whole ordeal is pretty close to being deserving of a criminal trial because his speech has incited violence and harassment again and again on these parents.

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

#276

Post by pstuart » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:25 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #199

Rackedup wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

He added a lot of undue trauma and made them the target of his rabid followers and they were constantly (and still are) inundated with harassing calls/emails/etc up to and including regular death threats, and some of Jones' unstable cult are fully capable of being mentally ill enough to do that. What would it be like to constantly be looking over your shoulder for someone ready to blow your head off

It's stochastic terrorism.

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

#277

Post by rvz » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:30 AM UTC

kypro wrote: post #231

friesfreeze wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People should be able to monetize lies. What? No. > And people should be able to say things about people or companies that might cause a crazy person to do something crazy. Yeah sure, but that's not the issue here. > If the parents of Sandy Hook were harassed then the issue here is surely the harassers? False dilemma. > The reason I worry about this is because if I believe someone is doing something evil does that…

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm kind of shocked that so many people agree with this so it's really helpful to better understand peoples perspectives on this. I think part of the issue here is probably that we hold different views in regards to freedom of speech, and my mine are admittedly quite extreme. I disagree with libel laws, for example. I don't believe anyone has a right to a reputation, but I do think they…

> Alex Jones, like or not, owns a media company and media companies often do lie about people. An example that comes to mind is that Kyle Rittenhouse had some very subjective and nasty things said about him by the media and by people with large followings online (perhaps deservingly, idk). Many media orgs implied, or outright said that he was a white supremacist.

I just searched for anyone here mentioning about the establishment, mainstream media, politician(s) (including a democrat presidential candidate at the time) posting libellous remarks about Kyle Rittenhouse without evidence, even before the trial and was afterwards acquitted and of all comments, only yours came up highlighting this.

Interesting isn't it how everyone mysteriously and instantly forgotten about that since now Alex Jones is the villain of the week?

> So I what I don't understand how it's okay for a large authoritative media company like MSNBC to imply Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist without evidence, but Alex Jones with his relatively small following can't suggest Sandy Hook was a hoax?

> Am I miss-understanding something here, or were these media orgs also potentially breaking libel law?

You are not mis-understanding anything. The hypocrisy of the mainstream media around defamation of Rittenhouse shows that once they believe they can get away with it, they will do it again and again to anyone else. They are looking for villains to make stories out of others and will spread those lies or defamation for profit. In general, No-one should be able to get away with that without paying fines or damages for defamation.

For smaller media companies like Jones's Infowars was sued for this and his response to Sandy Hook was indefensible to begin with so he should just pay the fine and it should also apply even to mainstream media who should not get away with their unfounded libellous nonsense towards Rittenhouse. I'd expect him to be filing defamation cases against them.

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

#278

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:33 AM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #56

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t tell if he’s a psychopath or mentally ill. Maybe whoever put the guy on air seems responsible on some level as well. We love to point the finger at this guy but a lot of people were responsible for many, many insane productions by him, and no one questioned if it should be aired long enough to realize this would be harmful to the victims’ families.

> whoever put the guy on air He put himself on the air, he's the creator of InfoWars. I'm sure other people are involved, but ultimately he's still the one to point the finger at.

I suppose I thought the network would have the final say, and they should be held accountable for the content they permit on their channels. Then again, I'm not sure how much of this occurred online in a setting that can't really be moderated. I watched an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience with him on YouTube many years ago (it was awful), and I don't think that could effectively be moderated by anyone. That's a hard problem.

I wasn't trying to say Jones shouldn't be accountable. Even if he isn't a sociopath, what he did was inexcusable. I simply meant to say he didn't work independently, and I'm surprised/concerned he wasn't shut down much sooner.

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

#279

Post by AdamJacobMuller » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:33 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #103

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…

>> 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.…

Every time I've had the misfortune to speak with actual Nazis, the first, and commonly the loudest talking point they make in support of their beliefs is that, if what they are saying is fake and is so easily debunkable, why do people feel the need to censor them?

The argument is obviously wrong, for a number of reasons, but I wouldn't mind denying them that talking point.

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

#280

Post by divided » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #253

It's really weird reading some of these threads, because people say things with such authority which are demonstrably wrong. 1) Alex Jones was famous long before his Sandy Hook crap. 2) I don't know how you could call him "conservative" when, during the Bush years, he was a vocal anti war person who claimed that 9/11 was an inside job that was being used as a pretext for war. 3) Anti authoritarian, maybe? 4) Actually…

In my experience, news programs are very precise over using “alleged” or “suspected” when describing defendants until they’ve been proven guilty. And they quickly issue corrections when known facts change.

Opinion programs, however, can be much more loose with their language. Tucker Carlson famously avoided repercussions from his speech with this defense.

This isn’t a new thing. People still call OJ Simpson a murderer despite being declared not guilty in his criminal trial. People call George W Bush a murderer despite never even being charged with a crime.

Colloquially, murderer can also be used to mean killer. Rittenhouse is a killer.

I don’t see his lawsuits going anywhere, but I’m open to there being actual good evidence and argument for it. Maybe you can provide some great clips or articles with the slander, but otherwise I think the comparison with what Jones did is laughable.