Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families • Hacker News Board

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#191

Post by toomanyrichies » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

robswc wrote: post #122

Arrath wrote: post #3

While nothing can bring back their children, siblings, or classmates, one hopes (but doesn't expect) that this will help consign a particularly vile and repugnant conspiracy theory to the dustbin of polite discourse.

This will certainly not help and has only breathed new life into the conspiracy. The (un)fortunate thing about most people that are absolutely nuts is that they have nothing to lose.

At this point, I've come to think that nothing would help these people. Nut jobs will see what they want to see. So we might as well make pied pipers like Jones face the consequences of their actions, like what we saw with today's ruling.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#192

Post by roganartu » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

Taniwha wrote: post #102

saltminer wrote: post #23

As someone who's been closely following the Infowars/Free Speech Systems trials (watched all the depos, trial footage, etc.), all I can say is that I'm glad these families are finally getting justice. Even though I'm sure it'll be tied up in appeals for awhile (and reduced on appeal), hopefully it'll prevent future harassment campaigns against families when tragedies occur. And before anyone says "but why wasn't Jone…

People keep saying "it couldn't happen to a nicer person" when it literally wouldn't happen to a nicer person

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person” and other variations are usually used in a facetious manner. Basically, it’s sarcasm.

The people using this turn of phrase are effectively saying “good, he deserves it for being a bad person”.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#193

Post by adamrezich » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

fairity wrote: post #156

adamrezich wrote: post #79

[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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#194

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #176

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not at all what happened. Jones lied in a deliberate attempt to provoke harassment of these poor people. If owned a radio show and I go on and said you were a child rapist and should be stopped by any means necessary would you believe me faultless if you got attacked?

> a deliberate attempt to provoke harassment of these poor people That seems superbly unlikely. If that were true, what would he stand to gain from that? What did he have against these people? I can't imagine he was just sitting there chuckling maniacally "yes yes I'm going to hurt these people who just lost their children". That's an imagined cartoon

Money? His audience eats that shit up. He may not have had anything personal against the victims, but he needs grist for the mill of the type of content he creates.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#195

Post by salt-thrower » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #146

GamerUncle wrote: post #46

This is more than the amount that people that lied about WDM's in the middle East were ever fined with. Consider they killed millions. Please know that I am not siding with Jones but this is ludicrous.

It does seem based far less on his actions than on their personal opinion of him. That ought to make everybody nervous.

If you follow the trial at all, you'll see that this was not just "he said a bad thing one time and people are mad at him." He has a strongly demonstrated pattern of lies, perjury, obstruction of the legal process, and encouraging harassment against the Sandy Hook families. Most of the people saying "everyone should be afraid of this" are arguing in bad faith.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#196

Post by PartiallyTyped » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #99

His lies encouraged harassment and death threats. Did they ever fine / jail those doing the harassment and death threats?

Some comments above claimed that indeed some people faced criminal charges for their actions.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#197

Post by alexnewman » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

Stupid question, why not 1 trillion? Is it dischargeable in bankruptcy? I assume he won’t even get close to 1B. Figure it gets cut to 500M in appeals, and he doesn’t make 100M in his lifetime. What happens?

I believe The largest fine paid by a banking executive responsible for the 2008 Financial Crisis was $67.5 million

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#198

Post by cjohnson318 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #13

serioussecurity wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punitive damages were a large fraction of the award.

Are you sure about that? The jury recommended punitive damages, but as I understand it, in Connecticut the judge decides the punitive damage amounts in a later trial phase. I think today's number includes no punitive damages.

And oh boy has he not been cooperative with the judge so far.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#199

Post by guilhas » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #30

budder wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

He made hundreds of millions of dollars spreading his lies. He shouldn't profit from that, and should be forced to give all the revenue to the families he effected with his lies. You shouldn't be able to profit off of others misery like that, get caught out, and then go whoopsy and pay a small percentage of all the money you made off of it. That just encourages you and others to do it again.

But maybe he does not think they're lies. He thinks he is spreading the truth. Doesn't that make a difference, from lying on purpose for profit?

The same for the people giving him money. They don't care what he says, they never believed Sandy Hook was real for starters. They give him money because they want to see it "uncovered" and investigated from the only "journalist" that takes it

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#200

Post by ferrumfist » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

wara23arish wrote: post #174

techsupporter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them have been (for example: https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-harrassment-0225-... ) but the main problem is that it is, as most of us posting here know, difficult to track down the individuals directly performing the harassment. Alex Jones is directly inciting people to go harass the plaintiffs so he bears liability for his actions.

did he really say go harass these people or did he just say they’re crisis actors and its hoax? Im genuinely asking because i don’t understand how this works. I was under the impression that saying “Trump is a murderous liar” is fine, if I say “Go kill trump”etc then thats incitement. Does that make sense?

> “Trump is a murderous liar”

You could argue that using drones to kill people is murdering, you can point to times when he lied. It also just strikes me as different when saying things about someone who is in public office and saying things about private citizens who aren't in the spotlight at all.