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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
#412Earlier 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.
"some off-hand nutso claim (that he subsequently recanted!)"
You know this isn't even close to the truth.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
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They aren't independent actors because they were highly impressionable people whose actions were influenced by Jone's lies.
This is what the erosion of personal responsibility and accountability looks like. Alex Jones isnt responsible if stupid impressionable people watch his show and do stupid things. That is absurd and absolutely chilling in regards to free speech. Perhaps it even sets a new precedent that everyone who posts a comment/video/podcast online is now responsible for any illegal actions that any of their viewer commit.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#414Earlier 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.
Kind of an aside, but this theatric style of writing is irritating to read on HN. It also confuses the point here: Jones's payment isn't about what "should" be done based on personal morals, but what is dictated by law, and that is what GP is asking and the question you are ignoring.
Well, the question of law was already decided.
And, legally, I'm pretty sure (but IANAL) that "deliberately lied", "repeatedly", "for profit", and "causing harm" were very relevant in deciding how much the fine should be.
(Except, as entiex pointed out, that this was only compensatory, not punitive. Still... the harm went on and on and on for the families, as the lies went on and on and on. Is that allowed to be figured into the amount of compensatory damage? I think so.)
My overall point: It wasn't just "saying something is a hoax". It was much more than that, and therefore the damage is much more, so the fine is much more, and justly so.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#415Bad headline. The jury ordered Jones to pay this; the headline as written suggests he made a commitment to do so, which is untrue (he plans to appeal). 'Alex Jones must pay' or 'Alex Jones ordered to pay' would be more meaningful.
It is much simpler: one is expected to just copy the original unless there are very valid reasons to edit it... Edit: the submitter explained - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33183697 - that the original title at the time of submission is the given one; the target news agency then edited the page. Oh well - some possibility for which we must take a mental note.
I believe the person did so but then the BBC edited their own headline later.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#416Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
The full quote is > This will only send the signal to millions of people, that the establishment wants to shut Alex down for speaking the truth. I don't think OP is arguing Alex Jones spoke any truths per say, he's arguing that's how it'll be interpreted by his supporters.
Genuinely, do you have an idea how to correct people who are convinced that down is up?
So most people I know who do a dramatic 180 hit a breaking point.
For all that the inaccurate "boiling a frog" metaphor describes how things work fairly well, a lot of people hit a wall at some point -- for instance, when "those people are bad" becomes "your best friend Joe is bad" -- and rebound. Once they hit that breaking point, the scales have fallen, and they begin re-examining everything.
This happens both with people raised in a particular worldview, as they gain experiences outside their original upbringing, and to people who fall into a cult, as the cult gradually ratchets up the craziness.
Of course, not everyone ever finds such a breaking point, and trying to push someone to find a lever to crack open their worldview antagonistically usually just makes someone double down, but a lot of people do find their way out.
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument is that his supporters harassed sandy hook victims, to my knowledge nobody was hurt and certainly nobody died from the harassment. If this isn't enough, what would be enough? And what would be appropriate compensation if he had encouraged violence against them/etc?
No one was physically hurt but they were certainly hurt psychologically and financially.
To the tune of over eighty times the average lifetime earnings of an American each?
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#419Bad headline. The jury ordered Jones to pay this; the headline as written suggests he made a commitment to do so, which is untrue (he plans to appeal). 'Alex Jones must pay' or 'Alex Jones ordered to pay' would be more meaningful.
This is the third comment in this thread along these lines- Isn't this just splitting hairs? Is there any significant percentage of defendants in such cases that have judgements like this against them that don't actually appeal and just write a check on the spot? I am asking honestly here- I am not sure if this is just typical engineer type "well actually..." type stuff going on, or if some attempt to downplay and di…
No, it's just the semantic ambiguity. I think more people should rewrite HN headlines for clarity when they're confusing (in this case, the BBC subsequently changed the headline but it doesn't auto-update on HN).
Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am yet to see a "free speech absolutist" defend anyone on the left (where's the outrage about Republican school districts banning books?). It just seems to be a convenient excuse for being friendly with fascists.
I haven't heard of that - could you describe the books being removed from schools? Are they still teaching books like 1984, Brave New World and Animal Farm?
Book bans are on the rise across the US[1], in blue and red states. In blue states it tends to be books like to “kill a mockingbird”, “huckleberry Finn”, or other books with racially charged language. In red states they say they are removing “CRT”, and “pornographic” or “sexual content”, but their definition of sexual and porn includes any mention of homosexualities existence and their definition of CRT includes any mention of minorities having been oppressed at any point in time.
It’s kind of a shit show all over
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/books/book-ban-us-schools...