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As for the amount - the highest fine paid by Wall Street firms for the 2008 crisis was less than $100M. One of those numbers is unjust for sure.
So how were the damage calculated? I get that this guy is a nutjob but how can saying something is a hoax get you a 1B fine?
One of the lawyers made in the previous case what I consider an interesting argument: Alex Jones claimed under oath that his show reaches (off the top of my head) about a hundred million people. So the lawyer argued that Alex Jones should pay $1 for every person who heard him lie about Sandy Hook. By this measure, if I intentionally harass someone on Twitter I'd have to pay the victim about $50 (on a good day). Since…
I'd argue traditional media reaches many more people and the impact of intentional lies is that much greater.
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Juries are not mind readers. At best you can get to roughly what a rational person would have thought given said data, Alex Jones is not rational. It is literally unknowable.
In the context of needed a specific outcome in finite time, a legal process can never be certain of anything. We depend on process like juries to come to a good enough conclusion.
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He may not pay that amount, but he will spend the rest of his life bankrupt or spending most of his energy avoiding judgement, which is a not unreasonable fate for people who make a living lying, cheating, and stealing.
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Jones stated that the Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors. he knew that to be false. it was an egregious case of defamation. knowingly spreading lies that damage someone's reputation is called slander, and it's not protected by the first amendment. neither is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or committing perjury, or falsifying your income taxes.
So their reputation was worth a billion? Wow. That’s quite a reputation.
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He may not pay that amount, but he will spend the rest of his life bankrupt or spending most of his energy avoiding judgement, which is a not unreasonable fate for people who make a living lying, cheating, and stealing.
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Jones made money from lying, but remains free of government interference. Nobody’s killing him or even putting him in jail. That’s the very definition of free speech. But free speech doesn’t mean speech without consequences. He’s being sued by the victims of what he said. It’s not the government doing this, it’s the people he hurt, and that’s the definition of “justice”.
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Jones stated that the Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors. he knew that to be false. it was an egregious case of defamation. knowingly spreading lies that damage someone's reputation is called slander, and it's not protected by the first amendment. neither is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or committing perjury, or falsifying your income taxes.
You're making up a narrative for why suppressing free speech is acceptable in this instance, not discharging the notion that free speech was, in fact, suppressed. The fact that a conspiracy talk radio guy can get hit with a billion dollar fine for some off-hand nutso claim (that he subsequently recanted!) is a very unpromising barometer for the health of free speech in our country.
So how were the damage calculated? I get that this guy is a nutjob but how can saying something is a hoax get you a 1B fine?
He caused his fans to harass families of murdered children for years, several had to move, some multiple times. All the while Alex Jones was raking in millions in cash off it.