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

bbc.co.uk

271–280 of 787 posts

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

#271

This is more than the amount that people that lied about WDM's in the middle East were ever fined with. Consider they killed millions. Please know that I am not siding with Jones but this is ludicrous.

bad thing unpunished, therefore other bad thing not worth punishing?

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

#272
post #21
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.

odds are Alex Jones will move somewhere with a poor judicial relationship with the US and add this to his narrative

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

#273

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Jones runs a 9-figure media and supplements business that misappropriated and sold the memories of 20 children and the reputations of their parents to boost his numbers, and then refused to participate in the trial that established his culpability. He might be the least sympathetic corporate defendant in US history. Even the tobacco CEOs could reason that the science was overblown, and that the companies were protect…

The biggest numbers I've seen were 8 figures (Rolling Stones published something suggesting 160 million over 3 years, while he was still on YouTube at his peak, which is 53 million a year), and that was for total revenue which to my understanding is debated as being too high. Jones himself is probably worth less than 10 million especially considering his share of InfoWars is now worthless

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

#274
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither contains a call to action.

I don't think that's a great standard. For example if I consistently call a group of people subhuman and vermin that should not exist I may not have a call to action but the ideology I'm promoting is pretty clear. It's not unreasonable to hold me accountable when a member of my audience decides to attack an individual from the group I'm dehumanizing. Nor is it unreasonable for a member of that group to sue me. And ag…

I think it's entirely unreasonable. Having a horrible opinion is a million miles away from telling people to do horrible things. Prosecuting people for opinions is the literal opposite of what a liberal democracy should be doing.

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

#275
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Say the wrong words and get financially destroyed I would argue that a failed society is one that protects an individual at the cost of the group. You only see one individual held accountable for his words and actions, but you don't make any attempt to recognize the families and how their lives have been affected by Alex Jones' negligent and irresponsible words.

Where are we going with this line of thought Protecting minorities within a larger group of people is the ideal state according to thought leaders. In your world kicking out a black man of his home because property values are lowering for everyone else is acceptable. Sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the many

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jones runs a 9-figure media and supplements business that misappropriated and sold the memories of 20 children and the reputations of their parents to boost his numbers, and then refused to participate in the trial that established his culpability. He might be the least sympathetic corporate defendant in US history. Even the tobacco CEOs could reason that the science was overblown, and that the companies were protect…

The biggest numbers I've seen were 8 figures (Rolling Stones published something suggesting 160 million over 3 years, while he was still on YouTube at his peak, which is 53 million a year), and that was for total revenue which to my understanding is debated as being too high. Jones himself is probably worth less than 10 million especially considering his share of InfoWars is now worthless

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

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I lack the vocabulary and metaphorcraft necessary to even begin to break down such a false equivalence Odd given it was your comment, not the one you're replying to, that first drew the analogy.

yes, I brought up another event and compared and contrasted the two, with the intent of demonstrating how the two things are not equivalent, yet the demonstrably more impactful media falsehood campaign remains wholly unpunished, contrasted with this situation, which is being punished rather dramatically. fairity characterized these two events as directly equivalent ("most here would agree that was equally vile and pu…

You're hanging on to poor word choice, without making an honest effort to engage with the actual idea. I'd suggest removing the word "equally", and making an honest attempt at having a conversation.

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

#278
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(a) Stuff like this is supremely unhelpful and corrosive to the thread. (b) It's obviously not the case that Jones is getting a sympathetic hearing from this thread; instead, you're noticing mostly the randos posting pro-Jones stuff that lives briefly before being flagged to the bottom of the site.

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.

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

#279
post #24

This is great news, but we should temper our expectations: It's likely that Jones will appeal and keep this tied up for years before he has to pay anything. Even if he is eventually obligated to pay some amount, it is unlikely to be what the jury just decided. And even if it is what the jury just decided, Jones' company is already "bankrupt" (yet still on the air) and he will almost certainly avoid liability through…

Quoted post unavailable.

The "say words, get X punishment" complaint is one of the purest forms of bad-faith hypocrisy I've seen become popular, across my whole life. The simple reason it is hypocritical is that the complaint is predicated at once on the two mutually exclusive ideas that words are critically important (since "X" is frequently some kind of censorship, or at least a discouragement) and also that words are meaningless and have no real effects.

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

#280

Quoted post unavailable.

> the establishment wants to shut Alex down for speaking the truth. What truth did Jones speak?

The full quote is

> This will only send the signal to millions of people, that the establishment wants to shut Alex down for speaking the truth.

I don't think OP is arguing Alex Jones spoke any truths per say, he's arguing that's how it'll be interpreted by his supporters.

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