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The Onion to Take over InfoWars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#241

Post by gosub100 »

tombert wrote: post #137
ChristianJacobs wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LegalEagle[0] covered this shitshow in great detail with solid commentary. Can recommend. [0]: https://youtu.be/x-QcbOphxYs This is when from when Jones' lawyer sent a copy of his phone to the opposition...

That was an impressively stupid and/or lazy fuck up, to a point where I think Jones could have a lawsuit against his attorneys there. IANAL but it does seems like "sending an entire copy of your clients phone and making no effort to redact it" could be a thing that, you know, is bad counsel.

No, the lawyers can argue about the scope of what they show the jury during trial. There are plenty of rules against biasing or inflaming the jury with unrelated material.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#242

Post by carlosjobim »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #181
carlosjobim wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you asked, but the sensible thing is of course that the court decides the amount - not the plaintiffs. That's how it works in other places. In criminal cases, I've seen victims getting anywhere between 50% to 10% of what they've demanded, or even nothing even when the judgement has been in their favour.

You're aware a judge was still involved in the process and agreed to it, right? It's not just the plaintiffs.

Yes, I'm aware and I didn't think I had to spell it out: the court should decide the amount according to their own opinion of what is fair, rather than accept a demand from one side.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#243

Post by pixl97 »

dmd wrote: post #220
z2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No joke, I use Facebook every year or so to access the marketplace and at the time my feed was roughly half rage-bait, and the other half being what I can only describe as AI-generated almost-pornography. Both had thousands of what looked like genuinely real interactions per post, mostly from developing country users.

It's really amazing how different people's experiences with Facebook are. I have been on Facebook since it started (I was at one of the original schools, I was in that famous first million users). My feed is entirely photos of friends' kids, invitations to local events (things I actually attend), folk-dancing groups I'm involved with, and the like. I have literally never, not once, not ever, seen any rage-bait or pol…

It's probably like Youtube. Look up one WWII video there and suddenly you're getting spammed with "How to be a neo-Nazi" videos.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#244

Post by pixl97 »

declan_roberts wrote: post #159
cogman10 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jones wasn't personally directing the legal strategy, he was doing the same thing you'd do. Yes he was. Jones didn't have 1 set of lawyers from start to finish on the cases. He went through about 20 different lawyers in both cases. That doesn't happen if a client isn't personally directing the lawyers. His strategy was very clearly to bring in new lawyers at each depo that didn't comply with the court order. When c…

His lawyers were objectively bad. You'd bring in a new team and fire them also. Example: they sent a copy of his cell phone to the prosecuting attorney on accident and didn't request it back in time, so 2 years of his text messages were used against him.

>His lawyers were objectively bad.

No, his lawyers were deliberately bad. There is a massive difference.

While no direct evidence, it's almost certain that Jones when to a good lawyer at first who told him that "He was most utterly and unanimously fucked" in which Jones did the you better call Saul and got himself lawyers that would try anything at all to muck up the system. While your first response may be "No bar lawyer would do something that could lose their license", after many years doing computer work in the Texas legal system and seeing myriads of interactions, my response is "Yes they fucking would".

Jones chose poor lawyers because good ones ran away screaming after he told them what he wanted to do.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#245

Post by hagbard_c »

tokai wrote: post #67
hagbard_c wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Adds nothing, inflammatory in tone, missing the point of discussion. If you weren't grayed out something would be serious wrong with this site.

> If you weren't grayed out something would be serious wrong with this site.

If [a questioning or dissenting voice] is not suppressed something would be serious (sic) wrong with this site

Not where I come from. I prefer to discuss these issues, even with ideologues and their followers even though it often seems pointless.

To put this in perspective: Ales Jones is a conspiracy theorist just like Hasan Piker ('the Jews are behind all it all'), Candace Owens (same as Piker, now also 'Erika Kirk is behind the murder of her husband'), Tucker Carlson (same as Piker), Nick Fuentes (...same as...) and many others.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#246

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

some_random wrote: post #197
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your values are sufficient deterrent for the kind of behavior Alex Jones and InfoWars exhibited and substantially profited from. They made more than the 22-44 million you're suggesting. They would still have profited from their actions. I think it needs to be large enough to be a real deterrent. So it needs to be large enough that there is a real risk of turning substantial profit into substantial loss.…

So that kinda sums it up then, people who disagree with you (including me) think that the punitive damages should be rooted in punishing Alex Jones et al, not in destroying him forever.

If he still profits from the behavior, has he really been punished?

It has to be bigger than what the business can accept as "just a cost of doing business" or it isn't actually a deterrent.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#247

Post by pixl97 »

some_random wrote: post #197
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your values are sufficient deterrent for the kind of behavior Alex Jones and InfoWars exhibited and substantially profited from. They made more than the 22-44 million you're suggesting. They would still have profited from their actions. I think it needs to be large enough to be a real deterrent. So it needs to be large enough that there is a real risk of turning substantial profit into substantial loss.…

So that kinda sums it up then, people who disagree with you (including me) think that the punitive damages should be rooted in punishing Alex Jones et al, not in destroying him forever.

>think that the punitive damages should be rooted in punishing Alex Jones

Correct. This is what happens when you go to court and play by the rules and stop doing things when you get an injunction against said behaviors.

When you tell the court to fuck off and you can do whatever you want, repeatedly, this is when you get the deserved massive punitive smack down for being an anti-social dick.

The problem you have is the complete and total lack of ability to put yourself in the shoes of any of the victims here that had got injunctions from the court many times only to have them be ignored and for have the abuse to then scale up even further. Millions in fines does not solve the behavior, he was making more than that in scamming people. A fine that is lower than profits is just a cost of doing business.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#248

Post by pixl97 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #242
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're aware a judge was still involved in the process and agreed to it, right? It's not just the plaintiffs.

Yes, I'm aware and I didn't think I had to spell it out: the court should decide the amount according to their own opinion of what is fair, rather than accept a demand from one side.

I mean, typically you have the defense and plaintiffs go back and forth on this. Turns out it doesn't pay to be a criminal loser and try to ignore the court.

TL:DR this is never going to be a problem you have, because you'll get a decent lawyer and not be a wildly massive prick about getting your own way.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#249

Post by pixl97 »

declan_roberts wrote: post #153
sophacles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't seem rather large. The man made a fortune destroying the reputations of some people, and he did so by (provably) intentionally lying about them, without their consent and with nothing paid to them. They deserve every peny of that - he stole their reputations and as with all theft, reparations are logical. In addition he grew his following with those lies, and that following will continue to give him mo…

I don't understand. Nothing stopping him from lying publicly about anybody or anything. It's not like he loses his 1st amendment card or something. The only lesson he's learned is to hire a better legal team in the future for civil (not criminal) suits.

>Nothing stopping him from lying publicly about anybody or anything

It's a bit messier than that. For example if he's going to set up a new media empire things like banks will give a pretty big fuck you to loans and such if they think all your assets will be captured by the court and they'll be left holding the bag.

This doesn't stop him from putting together money in other ways, but massively increases the difficulty on his part as every time he does he'll find a suit showing up to collect it from him.

And as others have said, this has nothing to do with good/bad lawyers. The good lawyers came in at first and told him he was totally screwed, and because he's such a pompous ass he could not handle that.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#250

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

jklinger410 wrote: post #200
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex Jones will not have a criminal record as a result of this. He has not been declared as committing a crime. He did take actions that, by civil law, created civil liabilities. He was sued over those liabilities. He failed to participate in the civil litigation process and lost badly as a result. Civil and criminal law are not the same thing and your insistence otherwise doesn't change the reality.

What happens if you don't pay your civil liabilities? Civil vs criminal is a silly distinction when it comes to discussing right suppression. Jail time is not the only way to suppress a right.

You go to jail for failure to abide by a court order. Which is still distinct from going to jail for your speech.

Alex Jones can continue to say whatever he wants, from a criminal perspective. He may be somewhat more aware of the potential costs of being a professional liar now, which might cause him to make different decisions as he analyzes the cost/benefit ratio for something he wants to say.

The government won't stop him from saying whatever he chooses to say. The government might enforce costs, should he be sued for what he says and is found liable.

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