Boom, he's on his back!
Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
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Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just "saying something is a hoax". It's deliberately lying, for years, for his own profit, in a way that caused significant amounts of damage to the people he was lying about. Should that be free from consequences? No. No, it should not be. And, since there was profit from the lying, shouldn't the damages be greater than the profit from the lies? Yes. Yes, it should be.
are we holding all news to the same account regarding deliberate lying for profit? i hate double standards
"But whatabout..."
Yes, we should everyone accountable for slander & libel. Even journalists.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#153Does he even have the money to pay nearly a billion dollars?
Or is the point to bankrupt him with what seems like lawfare?
America is not a place where people like being told to be quiet. Alex Jones went mainstream on the Joe Rogan show. Millions and millions of Rogan fans see Alex Jones are legitimized by this ruling. Joe Rogan has the biggest podcast in the world.
Just some things to think about. Unintended consequences.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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”.
Why does making money change the legality of what he was saying?
Defamation is a thing you can be sued for. The plaintiffs successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation. Him making money didn't have much to do with that.
In this phase about damages, the economics can be considered as a factor. It can also imply his motivations. The testimony given in this hearing showed direct connections between defaming Sandy Hook victims and money made by Alex Jones. He knew it was a money making story from the first day.
A true believer might spend their time and money on useful evidence instead of crappy photoshops and flashy nonsense. Alex Jones wasn't doing that. He was pushing the flashy nonsense, calling it evidence, and watching the money roll in.
He never really tried to prove his theories because that isn't a required part of the grift.
Essentially, he did an illegal thing (defamation) and made money by doing that illegal thing. Economic fines and damages are pretty common to dissuade people from doing illegal things to make money.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#155I think that is grossly excessive.
I think that it is not grossly excessive enough.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#156[flagged]
Bringing up unpunished propaganda during the Bush era is irrelevant when most here would agree that was equally vile and punishable. Two wrongs don't make a right.
The predominant perspective here is that free speech should be protected, but if you are spreading lies to make a profit, society ought to take back that profit. That seems like a pretty reasonable take to me, but I'd entertain counterarguments if you have any. As for whether the punishment here fits the crime, maybe you're underestimating the scale of profit he's made off his lies?
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#157This is great news, but we should temper our expectations: It's likely that Jones will appeal and keep this tied up for years before he has to pay anything. Even if he is eventually obligated to pay some amount, it is unlikely to be what the jury just decided. And even if it is what the jury just decided, Jones' company is already "bankrupt" (yet still on the air) and he will almost certainly avoid liability through…
> And even if it is what the jury just decided, Jones' company is already "bankrupt" (yet still on the air)
I was under the impression the courts were "unwinding" (perhaps not the correct technical term) some of his bankruptcy efforts for precisely this - being illusory efforts to avoid consequences, rather than functional lack of solvency.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> suppressing free speech is acceptable in this instance
Libel, slander, and defamation are not free speech. You do not have the right to repeatedly, knowingly, lie about someone else, especially when said lies ruin peoples' lives.
> billion dollar fine for some off-hand nutso claim
It wasn't a claim, he asserted it as fact, and it wasn't just once, he did this up until he got sued, and even made up conspiracies about the trials as they were happening.
> (that he subsequently recanted!)
If Jones truly did believe he was correct about Sandy Hook being fake, the moment he found out he was wrong, he should have delivered a formal apology and begged his audience to stop harassing the families of the victims. He should have publicly rebuked people like Wolfgang Halbig and any callers who talked about the "Sandy Hook hoax" and chastised the harassers.
But he never did that. Instead it's "I already said I was sorry, I might have been wrong but I'm right like 95+% of the time, why are people so angry at me? It's all part of a plot by the globalists to shut us down, buy my iodine."
> a very unpromising barometer for the health of free speech in our country
So "free speech" is when someone with a significant media presence is able to knowingly spread lies about you that lead to over a decade of stalking and harassment with no recourse?
If you're an American, you might want to consult a lawyer on that. Our civil liberties have been heavily curtailed over the years, but this verdict isn't threatening anyone's rights.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#159I'm sure that will get reduced by the judge based on whatever state law, but it's a huge signal to Jones that he's an absolute monster.
> This case presented the greatest financial risk to Mr. Jones, because he was found liable of violating Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, by using lies about the shooting to sell products on Infowars. There is no cap on punitive damages under that law.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/12/us/alex-jones-verdic...
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
If those were the reasonable standards, every media-company would be broke. I'd argue traditional media reaches many more people and the impact of intentional lies is that much greater.
I don't think you'd find traditional media companies routinely getting convicted of defamation this egregious. Although, FOX and Newsmax are both facing $1B+ penalties over their reporting on Dominion Voting Systems. And they're both pretty much dead to rights with Dominion able to point very directly to lost revenue as a result of their deliberate lies.
Just reporting something incorrectly isn't punishable at all. Publishing something poorly sourced isn't punishable. Stating a disagreeable opinion isn't punishable. What Jones, Fox and Newsmax did was done with active malice.