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

bbc.co.uk

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

#561

Post by darth_avocado »

dragonwriter wrote: post #517
darth_avocado wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First amendment isn’t under attack. Alex Jones isn’t being punished by the govt. Ge attacked people, they responded back. Defamation law has always existed and people can always sue you for libel and slander.

> First amendment isn’t under attack. True, but... > Alex Jones isn’t being punished by the govt. The courts are part of the government, and Constitutional limits on government power apply to civil liability; the First Amendment, quite notably, restricts the conditions in which defamation liability can be applied.

> The courts are part of the government

Right, but that is not how the law is applied. In a civil lawsuit, court or the government is not the plaintiff or the defendant, and therefore first amendment protections do not apply. There are first amendment protections when public officials are involved in the defamation suit. But beyond that, it is well established that first amendment does not protect this kind of speech.

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

#562

Post by _-david-_ »

advisedwang wrote: post #399
Overtonwindow wrote: post #10

I think that is grossly excessive.

Infowars has $53MM of revenue, so this is 20 years of revenue for knowing, persistant and harmful actions and then misconduct during trial. For comparision, 20 years of income for the median american is less than a million dollars. I think million dollar damages are common even just for negligence, let alone this severity.

Revenue is pretty much useless to determine how much money they have. If the revenue was $53,000,000 it is possible they spent $52,999,999.99 of the money on expenses to get that $53 million.

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

#563

Post by pdonis »

warbeforepeace wrote: post #529
pdonis wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well he did also send one of his own employees to fuck with the family too. Dan Bidonde (probably spelled that wrong).

If it's his own employee, then it does come within the plaintiffs' allegations (since they alleged conduct by associates and employees of Jones as well as Jones himself), but it also is different from an allegation of harassment by people not connected with Jones or his company, who harassed the plaintiffs solely on the basis of things they heard Jones say. AFAIK the plaintiffs made no allegations about the latter at all, nor was the latter considered at all by the court in awarding damages.

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

#564

Post by richwater »

shadowgovt wrote: post #372
entiex wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But these aren't puntive damages, they're compensatory damages, and plainly excessive ones at that. Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused, and so should have no bearing on the amount of compensatory damages. To the extent that they did, that's an injustice. These damages are absolutely insane for emotional distress and defamation. The average lifetime earnings of a US citizen are…

> Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused That's an excellent legal argument, is the kind of thing that could probably win before a judge... And has no bearing on what a jury finds. In general, the reasoning of a jury is private to the jury. They can award maximum damages because they think Jones is ugly (all you have to do is get fourteen people to agree that's a fair thing to do…

I mean sure, but compensatory damages will be appealed and the jury determined amount will be overturned.

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

#565

Post by dredmorbius »

saltminer wrote: post #158
wyager wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abou…

I would take a different tack on this: the speech was legally unhindered, that is, free.

The consequences of the speech are, however, borne by the speaker.

I'm not sure this covers all cases of consequential burdening, but it does seem to cover many of them. A future prohibition on speech, gag order, banning from online or broadcast services, etc., might be a harder case to make, though these could still be seen as sanctions on behaviour rather than content.

I'm not defending Jones at all here, his penalties are exceedingly well deserved and have been far too delayed.

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

#566

Post by dredmorbius »

nobody9999 wrote: post #341
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His speech isn't being suppressed. The government didn't arrest him. He's being sued for damages he caused to the families of the victims he lied about. That's as American as it gets.

>His speech isn't being suppressed. The government didn't arrest him. He's being sued for damages he caused to the families of the victims he lied about. That's as American as it gets. I'd add that he is still free to continue lying forever . No one is stopping him from doing so.

No one is stopping him from doing so.

That ... may remain to be seen. Though it does seem to presently be the case.

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

#567

Post by tptacek »

_-david-_ wrote: post #554
tptacek wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems unlikely, since Jones own bankruptcy filings show withdrawals from FSS in the high 8 figures.

Is that revenue or profit though? Withdrawing a lot of money doesn't mean anything if it is being spent on product and other costs.

Withdrawals here meaning "Alex Jones and his family withdrawing money from the company". In an LLC, you'd call these "distributions".

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

#568

Post by anigbrowl »

pdonis wrote: post #494
anigbrowl wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law leaves room for the jury to form such moral determinations on their own, and in this case they have done so. I disagree that this is in any way disastrous.

Where have they done so in this case? As far as I can tell, the plaintiffs didn't even allege damages from harassment in this case. They alleged damages from emotional distress due to the defamation.

Its distressing because of the harassment it engenders and includes the fear of future harassment, as much as anything else. If you prefer a legal system where the jury is not allowed to weigh such factors and damage awards are determined in accordance with some statutory formula, that's your prerogative. Don't do any business in Connecticut, I guess.

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

#569

Post by darth_avocado »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #343
tptacek wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. The jury literally just found those damages. These aren't punitive damages, they're compensatory. Punitive damages are the next phase of the case.

I accept that the jury labeled the amount as compensatory damage. But it is obviously the case that that amount of damage was not dealt. Nobody involved had a reputation that was worth $100 million dollars.

It’s not about what the reputation was worth, it is about what he made off it. The point of the justice system is to set a precedent, if the damages are too low, you just set a precedent where lawsuits are just business expenses and you can still make money off these things.

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

#570

Post by mdp2021 »

rglover wrote: post #527
mdp2021 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should not be encouraged to nurture unsound opinions.

They shouldn't be encouraged, but if they feel so compelled they should be free to state them.

Nearby, somebody submitted a - very interesting - article about the breakthroughs of Brian Eno in Ambient Music. A train of thoughts brought me to check some lyrics from Sébastien Tellier (who may be also known for the contributions from Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo).

I did not know about his album /Politics/, for which a most amazing sleeve is conceived:

in the image he is hypersmiling, his teeth visually tricked into an impossible shining blinding white (see https://genius.com/album_cover_arts/28060 )

There is opinion, there is lying; there is good faith and there is bad faith. And there is an image of "politics" with hypertouched re-imaging of reality.

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