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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

#591

Post by fogus »

paganel wrote: post #430

Blatantly copying from Twitter [1], but it's what I believe, also: > The largest fine paid by a banking executive responsible for the 2008 Financial Crisis was $67.5 million A few tens of millions would have set straight almost everyone involved, the victims getting their money, Jones having to pay out of his pocket. But $1 billion means Jones will never be able to pay the sum, and, what's more, it will also silence…

> make lots of his supporters think that was the intention all along

His listeners believe that the literal devil controls the government, Hollywood, and the minds of liberal minded people. His listeners believe that Klaus Schwab secretly controls the United States and that his goal is to feminize men and cut off children's sex organs. His listeners believe that Sandy Hook never happened and the parents are crisis actors. His listeners will believe all kinds of insane things but that has nothing to do whether justice should be served or not.

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

#592

Post by nazka »

polotics wrote: post #371
thaumasiotes wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Defamation law has always existed and people can always sue you for libel and slander. But a $965 million dollar judgment for libel or slander would have to be justified by comparable damages. That isn't the case here.

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…

You forgot maybe the most horrible of all this. You create a website and through ads and sells you make a ton of money out of it.

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

#593

Post by chatterhead »

dredmorbius wrote: post #571
chatterhead wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN doesn't like these kinds of questions. You're right - it is OK as long as he's not profiting nor has a bullhorn the size of his. Otherwise, Wolfgang Halbig would be in the same kind of shit. He isn't.

With some cause. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions > See the first seven items under HN guidelines for "In Comments": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html >

Sounds like something someone does before blacklisting you.

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

#594

Post by [deleted] »

permo-w wrote: post #511
pGuitar wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't seem like it

the person I'm talking to seems to think that an actor with a smaller audience and smaller capacity to cause damages should be punished equally to someone with a bigger audience and bigger capacity to cause damages. with great power comes great responsibility, and the law reflects this whether you think courts generally award damages appropriately or not is beside the point

[deleted]

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

#595

Post by yucky »

tptacek wrote: post #560
yucky wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fine here is fully justified. A billion dollar fine is justified because idiots read his blog and decided a baseless conspiracy theory seemed plausible? That's laughable. I didn't think I'd ever find myself on the same side of something as Alex Jones and yet here I am. These people lost their minds.

That's literally how tort damages work. The inverse of your logic would imply that defamation wouldn't be actionable at all; reputation damage, after all, concerns entirely what unrelated third parties do with your misstatements.

Yes because thinking a BILLION dollar fine is absurd for saying dumb shit online, clearly means there should be no torts at all.

What it really means is for this fine to make sense, we need to start fining other people and companies TRILLIONS. I feel like I'm in an Austin Powers movie, or worse, on Reddit.

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

#596

Post by unknownaccount »

helf wrote: post #462
unknownaccount wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but this still establishes a scary new precedent; that any podcaster/videomaker is now legally responsible for any illegal actions that their viewers commit on their own accord. I can imagine how this will result in people being scared to criticize any leader or person in power because their comment/video might inspire some crazy person to harass them for which they will be found legally responsible.

Omg no it doesn’t. You know damn well that some random streamer or podcaster isn’t the same as some of these heavy hitters of insanity. And even ignoring that then YES, YES they should be held accountable if they are knowingly spewing falsehoods and stirring up people and it causes shit like that. “Free speech” != “I can be a total fuckwad and say whatever so want without any repercussions!”

I dont think different standards should apply to someone just because they have a popular show.

Sue the individuals who actually committed the acts of harassment, not Alex Jones. The people actually responsible for the harassment are getting away with it unscathed here, while a performer is punished. This isnt justice.

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

#597

Post by klyrs »

Arrath wrote: post #18
klyrs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a huge signal to Jones that he's an absolute monster. I'd predict that he's going to flaunt the enormity if this penalty, and his fans will lap it up.

He is, in fact, live-flaunting the verdict on his stream at this very moment.

ugh, I hate being right

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

#598

Post by epgui »

notacoward wrote: post #328
epgui wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t attribute to bad faith what is easily explained by stupidity! Commenter almost certainly wasn’t writing in malice.

Sorry, can't read minds. What I can read is the many other sub-threads where the "first amendment" point had already been addressed. Maybe if some new argument had been presented it would be easier to consider good faith, but not even an old one was. Just a casual dismissal, which is almost as bad as someone making meta comments more often than substantive ones.

The fact that we can’t read minds and operate on limited information is precisely why we rely on heuristics.

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

#599

Post by budder »

sterlind wrote: post #22
budder wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

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.

Two main points:

A) is it true?

B) did it cause damages?

A) after the amount of mind boggling conspiracies by the CIA NSA etc that were proven to be true, are we really going to make conspiracy theories illegal? (In this case I don’t think it’s true, but conspiracies do exist)

B) how can you be held accountable for the actions of a mob? If I go crazy over your hacker news comment, should you be liable for inciting me?

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

#600

Post by BonoboIO »

anigbrowl wrote: post #434
maest wrote: post #293

One surprising thing (at least for me) that I don't see anyone talking about in the comments is: I had no idea Alex Jones had that much money. That's 1 billion dollars in damages.

Infowars is wildly profitable. Financial records in a previous trial revealed that their revenue was sometimes as much as $800,000/day. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/us/alex-jones-finances.ht...

Wow ... and all with lies.
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