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

#451

Post by ericmay » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

unknownaccount wrote: post #413

HyperSane wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can see that this isn’t the case with a trivial example, like if your significant other or a family member was killed and I or someone else riled you up and enabled you and lied to you and convinced you to go kill someone else who didn’t kill your family member not only would I be held legally/criminally accountable but we intuitively understand this as morally wrong as a society.

No free speech is harmed here and the First Amendment protects you from the government silencing your speech.

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

#452

Post by jacobolus » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #403

polotics wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparable damage? Can you imagine your young daughter one days goes to school, never comes back because she bled to death in a corridor there, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up and are a fake? One thing I really don't understand about the US of A is, while it is abominously violent, still, a pork like Alex Jones hasn't been physically attacked by anyone. It's like there's a…

Isn’t that what it will amount to? He’ll declare bankruptcy and everything he’s got will go to settling some fraction of these lawsuits.

He was just on his live show telling viewers to send money without worry: nothing they sent now would ever go to these families because he is declaring bankruptcy.

Whatever bankruptcy judge he ends up before might not be amused by such antics.

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

#453

Post by Retric » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

unknownaccount wrote: post #413

HyperSane wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Free speech isn’t simply the ability to say anything at anytime.

If you lie under oath don’t expect a free speech argument to work. Similarly if you personally spread damaging lies, free speech doesn’t help etc etc.

Free speech is most protected when when you take a political or religious stance, but the boundaries shrink dramatically when you talk about someone specific especially if they are simply a member of the general public.

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

#454

Post by voisin » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

nextaccountic wrote: post #438

voisin wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that what it will amount to? He’ll declare bankruptcy and everything he’s got will go to settling some fraction of these lawsuits.

Now, suppose that he tries to hide some assets to not pay what he owes. In this case he can be on the hook even after bankruptcy

I think his greatest asset is his personality and following, and he’ll be able to monetize that post-bankruptcy. The longer he drags out the court cases, the longer he delays that, so hopefully he just gets on with him and pays out everything he has.

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

#455

Post by thechao » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #215

FireBeyond wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I am under the same impression. Everything I've heard re: the bankruptcy filings suggests that none of his machinations will protect his assets from the courts.

I live in Texas, but I'm (distantly) familiar with California: when the defendant loses & is a complete turd, judges have (delightedly) "peered through the corporate veil".

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

#456

Post by tptacek » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #423

akerl_ wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harm is required in all defamation. Public figures additionally must prove “actual malice” on the part of the defendant, which is a term of art distinct from the common usage of “malice”

> Harm is required in all defamation. Harm is required in _most_ defamation. Some claims are considered "defamation per se", in which they are considered automatically harmful. - Indications that a person was involved in criminal - Indications that a person had a "loathsome," contagious or infectious - Indications that a person was unchaste or engaged in sexual misconduct - Indications that a person was involved in b…

Per se defamation establishes that harm has occurred whether or not it is specifically proved. I was going to well-actually the same comment you did, and instead bided my time to well-actually the predictable response.

At any rate: per se defamation isn't at play in this case.

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

#457

Post by dolfine » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #257

budder wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think people should be able to tweet things like “masks do/don’t” work without being able to be sued. It’s the same thing with covid. It was made illegal to question it

> It’s the same thing with covid. It was made illegal to question it It was not

No post body was provided.

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

#458

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #164

aschearer wrote: post #145

Quoted post unavailable.

(a) Stuff like this is supremely unhelpful and corrosive to the thread. (b) It's obviously not the case that Jones is getting a sympathetic hearing from this thread; instead, you're noticing mostly the randos posting pro-Jones stuff that lives briefly before being flagged to the bottom of the site.

The poster is wholly correct in observing that Alex Jones has a disproportionate number of defenders here. Usually a busy thread might collect 2 or 3 flag-dead comments, this one has 23.

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

#459

Post by ncallaway » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #303

anigbrowl wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamation is inherently inciteful. If I publicly accuse you of a horrible crime, and I have a sufficiently broad audience, you are going to have to deal with assholes coming up to you and saying 'you're the evil person who committed a horrible crime!'. At best you get harrassed, at worse your safety is at risk from would-be vigilantes, revenge-seekers, and people who need a punching bag for sadistic or strategic rea…

> Defamation is inherently inciteful. That might be your personal opinion, but it's not the law. If nutjob A makes a defamatory statement about you, but doesn't tell anyone to do anything, and then nutjob B harasses you after hearing what nutjob A said, nutjob B is the one who is legally responsible for the harassment. Nutjob A is responsible for the defamation, but not for what other nutjobs might decide to do. Now…

> If nutjob A makes a defamatory statement about you, but doesn't tell anyone to do anything, and then nutjob B harasses you after hearing what nutjob A said, nutjob B is the one who is legally responsible for the harassment. Nutjob A is responsible for the defamation, but not for what other nutjobs might decide to do.

Courts and jurors are completely fine with finding that the behavior of nutjob B (and C and D and E and F) that are predictable from the defamation are part of the damages associated with the defamation.

So, yes, nutjob A _does_ have legal liability for the damages caused by nutjobs B and C and D and E and F that are a predictable consequence of the defamation.

The law does not require "direct evidence" of the connection to every instance of harassment. It requires enough evidence that a jury can decide a "but for" causation is more likely than not. Jurors are perfectly capable of making deductions and inferences such as "person A with a massive platform lied repeatedly for years", and then "hundreds of nutjobs harassed plaintiffs based on the same lies", connecting those two facts, and deciding that it's more likely than not that the nutjobs wouldn't have harassed the person if not for person A's lies.

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

#460

Post by tptacek » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #406

tptacek wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) No, again, the damages announced today are compensatory, not punitive. (2) If we're talking about the "actual malice" standard, then the standard is recklessness, not negligence. (3) None of that matters here, because Jones lost the trial by default (the evidence would have clearly shown Jones to have met the actual malice standard, but it's a moot point).

Thanks for your clarifications. > (2) If we're talking about the "actual malice" standard, then the standard is recklessness, not negligence. My understanding is that "actual malice" only applies to public figures. Not private figures? EDIT: I should note that I'm working off of roughly high-school journalism + high school law levels of analysis here. I recognize I'm no expert in this subject, but we were forced to s…

Jones lawyers attempted to claim that the Sandy Hook parents were in fact public figures (again, this is all mooted by Jones eventual default of the defamation cases themselves; the conduct standards we're talking about apply pretty much entirely to the question of whether you're culpable in the first place, not what the damages are.)