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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

#651

Post by joshuamorton »

shadowgovt wrote: post #261
zackees wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It is incredibly hard in the US legal system to make a defamation claim stick. Relative to other nations (in particular the UK, which the US shaped some of its law in direct reaction to around 1776), there are several defenses to defamation. The fact that in spite of all those assume-no-malice protections for a defendant this lawsuit still found him guilty says a lot about this case specifically, and very little abou…

> The fact that in spite of all those assume-no-malice protections for a defendant this lawsuit still found him guilty says a lot about this case specifically, and very little about the risks of merely "saying the wrong thing" (at least under a US legal framework).

Weirdly, it actually doesn't. The court awarded the plaintiff's default judgement on the claims of defamation because Jones refused to hand over a bunch of evidence during discovery. Given the particulars of the case, he'd probably have lost anyway, and in some ways it's even worse that he felt it more important to hide his financials from the court and plaintiffs than to actually attempt to defend himself.

I guess this still does make your point even stronger though: the reason we're here, despite the malice protections, is that Jones didn't even try to defend himself.

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

#652

Post by thwayunion »

tptacek wrote: post #650
thwayunion wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does one possibly cause $64 million in straight damages per plaintiff? This isn't even the punitive yet. I think people in this thread are massively underestimating the value of a lifetime of labor. This number is perfectly compensatory for eg a married couple that are both MDs, biglaw lawyers, FAANG engineers, finance professionals, or any number of other well-paying white collar jobs. Being threatened the way…

You can probably divide the number you're working from roughly in half, because probably half the damages in each case are for emotional damages, which don't compensate lost earnings but rather mitigate suffering already undergone or that will continue to be undergone. It's a distinction big enough that the IRS taxes those damages differently.

Thanks. The point is that it's not at all hard to see how purely compensatory damages can get into the $64M range for two middle class or especially upper middle class people.

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

#653

Post by andrewclunn »

p1necone wrote: post #278
lovich wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster has misidentified most people defending Jones in this thread as fans when they are more likely free speech absolutists who believe any government sanctioned consequence for speech is immoral. They’d likely defend anyone who received a punishment for this type of behavior, Alex Jones just happens to be the man of the hour

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.

Individuals being allowed to say / write what they want versus school boards prohibiting certain texts from being taught or distributed as part of their curriculum... maybe they just understand what "free speech" means?

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

#654

Post by anigbrowl »

tptacek wrote: post #648
anigbrowl wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, but it's not responsive to the question I asked you. What does this opinion of mine have to do with Alex Jones? If you're suggesting that all unusual ideas are somehow adjacent to each other, I don't think much of your categorical skills.

No, that's a particular unusual idea that I think Alex Jones would find very congenial, was the point I'm making. There are unusual ideas that he would find loathsome; that isn't one of them. I'm not saying anything more than that: it's a thread about Alex Jones, and you expressed a very Alex Jonesian unusual view. Seemed notable, that's all!

So you keep saying, but I am no wiser as to why you think so and I don't care to deepen my acquaintance with Alex Jones.

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

#655

Post by andrewclunn »

tptacek wrote: post #493
anigbrowl wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is that they're all flagged dead, not that this story didn't attract a bunch of new randos to post flagged comments. Anybody can make an account here to post nonsense with practically no effort at all; it's an open-access site.

Sure, but flagging comments (and not just downvoting) because one disagrees? I keep on the ability to see such posts precisely because more and more frequently the flagged / dead posts are the most interesting and informative ones. This mass flagging approach isn't exactly countering the argument that silencing opposition and censorship is the aim of stuff like this ruling.

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

#656

Post by Rapzid »

dexwiz wrote: post #21
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.

Doubt. The people who believe this kind of stuff will just say it's the deep state trying to cover up their conspiracy or some equally asinine garbage. They have a persecution fetish, and any sort of punishment will just cause them to double down.

I'm not sure those people have the internal energy necessary to sustain the same magnitude and frequency of a abuse. Mostly the type of people who need an external source of energy. If Jones is taken out of the equation the whole thing may just dry up aside from the most remote, dark, damp corners of society.

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

#657

Post by Rapzid »

chrisseaton wrote: post #647
CyberDildonics wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand that they're reporting the news and not predicting the future right?

> You understand that they're reporting the news and not predicting the future right? No they’ve done the opposite of that here - saying he will pay is predicting the future (badly). Saying he’s been told to pay would have been reporting the news. (The headline has been changed if you weren’t aware, so they must agree it was wrong.)

Or just that the new headline is better. Honestly "to pay" would, colloquially, mean "judged against at this dollar amount" given existing context of a pending judgement.

The phrase is frequently in these situations.

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

#658

Post by jaredklewis »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #629
warbeforepeace wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex has even recently sued someone for defamation over the child porn allegations that were made against him.

Was he awarded billions? That's a very damaging allegation. Considering he's not in jail, he must have been innocent.

Jones wasn’t awarded anything because he dropped the suit a few months after filing it.

Defamation cases are civil, so ending up in jail isn’t one of the possible outcomes.

Finally, defamation cases in the US are almost never resolved by determining whether or not a statement was factually accurate, so in general it is a mistake to infer anything from the result of a case alone (you always need to know the details of the decision).

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

#659

Post by pixl97 »

yucky wrote: post #623
kasey_junk wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he made 1.2 Billion off of his grift that attacked actual people? He isn’t going to jail (which seems like it should be in play to me). He’s just not able to keep any of his ill gotten gains. It’s really hard to feel sympathetic here.

We don't need to ask "what if" because we know he made nothing remotely close to a billion. So now what?

Jones will appeal and the amount will be dropped, probably nearly 10 fold, which puts the payout in a range that Jones company has made.

It's like "babies first day in court" in this thread with all the ridiculous crap being said.

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

#660

Post by pixl97 »

betwixthewires wrote: post #551
ncallaway wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't an action brought by the government. He wasn't sued by the SEC, the FTC, or the FCC. He was sued by the parents that he defamed repeatedly over years.

That makes it even worse. Defraud or harm the entire country and you pay less than defaming a handful of people. He deserves to pay them for causing them trouble for his own gain, but if this isn't a political example I don't know what is.

This is because of your ignorance of the courtroom process with a jury...

When those large companies go in front of a jury they are respectful, they don't act like assholes to the jurors, they defend their positions well, they avoid making the jurors hate them.

Jones did none of the above. He did, seemingly, everything possible to bias the jury against him. This is the pinnacle of arrogance and stupidity.

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