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The Onion to Take over InfoWars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Your comment was bad because you don't know the context of Jones' case and how the penalty was arrived at, and are thus extrapolating without any merit to other people.

Neither Hassan Piker nor Candace Owens, nor any other of the many inflammatory voices on the left or right of the new media ecosystem, have done anything remotely close to the type of harassment that Alex Jones exposed the Sandy Hook victims to. Directly accusing grieving parents and children of being completely fake paid "crisis actors", again and again, with images and "analysis" and so on, is beyond anything another media personality has had the poor taste and temerity to try - perhaps in history, certainly in America.

Even then, the only reason the judgement ended up at such a gigantic number is that Alex Jones and his lawyers refused to argue their case to any extent, and in fact directly attacked and antagonized the court and the judge. They lost the case through summary judgement after repeated refusals to follow the normal procedural rules or even to show up in court. Then, they repeated the same refusal to participate or argue their case during the damages settlement, again forcing the court to simply award the amount requested by the plaintiffs, which is always set to a huge number as a negotiating tactic.

So no, the fact that someone argues that Alex Jones deserved this punishment fully is not in any way in conflict with believing that Hassan or Candace Owens or any other new media personality deserves anything similar.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#62

i don’t understand how this is not a 1st amendment violation can someone explain the difference between what alex jones said about sandy hook and what other people say about 9/11 being an inside job, hologram planes, fake this fake that etc

First amendment prevents the federal government from preventing speech or punishing for speech (subject to a few exceptions).

This was not that.

This was a civil defamation case; the parents bought a case of actual material harm and harrassment of epic proportions before two seperate judges in two seperate states and both courts made the finding that Jones had indeed caused harm and harrassment .. and continued to do so over years.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#63
post #53
post #17

When this all started, the Onion released a priceless 'press statement': "Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron. No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special in…

The Onion is satire, so ... But Alex Jones is currently busy with Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others to bitterly criticize Trump for the Iran war. Trump retaliated by calling all of them "low IQ". Given that Carlson's media company has an investment from the ubiquitous 1789 Capital (Thiel and Trump Jr.), we don't know if this is theater to keep the isolationist MAGA in the fold. It could also be that they sacrifi…

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Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#64

i don’t understand how this is not a 1st amendment violation can someone explain the difference between what alex jones said about sandy hook and what other people say about 9/11 being an inside job, hologram planes, fake this fake that etc

This is not a case about Sandy Hook the event - it is a defamation case by the victims of that event, that Alex Jones directly attacked.

This is the biggest difference - no one is claiming that all of the people who lost their loved ones in the 9/11 attacks were actually actors paid to pretend that they were grieving for their parents and children and friends. No one was encouraged to personally attack said victims and survivors to "expose their lies" because of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Furthermore, defamation law works very differently for claims against public personalities ("Bush did 9/11!") compared to claims against private persons ("this random child shown crying in news reports after her classmates were supposedly killed is actually pretending!"). Also, vague accusations of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy / cover up are far harder to litigate than very clear claims of massive fraud. Finally, the Sandy Hook victims were generally able to show specific damages they suffered, attacks against them by people in their community, because of Jones' actions; Dick Cheney may have been more generally hated because of claims about 9/11 conspiracies, but was not directly harasses in the same way.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#65
post #58
post #17

When this all started, the Onion released a priceless 'press statement': "Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron. No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special in…

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What exactly is patronizing here? Or is it just calling them the most vulnerable?

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#69
post #53
post #17

When this all started, the Onion released a priceless 'press statement': "Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron. No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special in…

The Onion is satire, so ... But Alex Jones is currently busy with Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others to bitterly criticize Trump for the Iran war. Trump retaliated by calling all of them "low IQ". Given that Carlson's media company has an investment from the ubiquitous 1789 Capital (Thiel and Trump Jr.), we don't know if this is theater to keep the isolationist MAGA in the fold. It could also be that they sacrifi…

They’re just reading polls and reacting accordingly. There’s no principle involved.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#70
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Onion is satire, so ... But Alex Jones is currently busy with Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others to bitterly criticize Trump for the Iran war. Trump retaliated by calling all of them "low IQ". Given that Carlson's media company has an investment from the ubiquitous 1789 Capital (Thiel and Trump Jr.), we don't know if this is theater to keep the isolationist MAGA in the fold. It could also be that they sacrifi…

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