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Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#291

Post by jjeaff »

philliphaydon wrote: post #211
speakfreely wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an important point. Many of us here live in cities, but in rural America there is a stunning amount of people who really believe that Joe Biden lost the 2020 election and that there was a massive, coordinated campaign of voter fraud. In many dominantly red states, this is not considered a fringe conspiracy theory but more or less generally accepted as fact.

Quoted post unavailable.

You don't see how wanting the system changed is any different than claiming the election was completely stolen by illegal means and then taking drastic measures to try and overturn said election? I think you have not thought very deeply about this whole situation.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#292

Post by dukeofdoom »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #264
dukeofdoom wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Jones did not have a jury trial for determining guilt, the judge gave a summary judgement to the plaintiffs because Jones allegedly did not fully comply with discovery. She accurately explained, as a matter of law, that he was guilty. That had been determined at the point of the summary judgement. What happened recently and in the news was just the jury determining the size of the punishment.

No post body was provided.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#293

Post by roenxi »

bandyaboot wrote: post #270
philliphaydon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Read the Mueller report. Read the Report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections from the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee. The difference is that one has a tremendous amount of supporting evidence. The other has none.

Here is [0] a copy of the Muller report. It is vague, as is usual for political hit jobs. There is hard evidence that someone leaked truthful statements out of the DNC, which is a major political scandal (honest accounting of what the {R|D}NC if thinking? Available to the public?! heaven forfend, that is not how journalism is done).

Which bits of evidence in it do you think are compelling, actionable and importat? Bearing in mind that the evidence is so uncompelling that right-wing advocates bring up the Muller report more than left-wing ones and you're probably going to get some resistance whatever you pick out.

The introduction and summary are mostly fluff and allusion, so I'm not bothering reading the whole thing unless you want to point to something specific.

[0] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-sea...

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#294

Post by DoctorOW »

roenxi wrote: post #289
DoctorOW wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with addressing Alex Jones and the rest "censored" is that they don't believe ANYTHING they say. Or rather, their spoken beliefs are fluid to suit the argument. You can't convince people there's not a "Big Tech" conspiracy about all these companies being controlled by whatever minority is trendy to hate now... You can't logic someone out a position they didn't logic their way into.

> The problem with addressing Alex Jones and the rest "censored" is that they don't believe ANYTHING they say. https://www.dailywire.com/news/reminder-wapo-nyt-won-pulitze... There are 2 attacks that are just not worth bringing up because we all know they are true: 1) [Politician] is lying. 2) [Media Personality] doesn't really believe what they are reporting. What you say is true, but also not interesting. Anyone wh…

Is that the link you meant to paste? I don't see the relevance?

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#295

Post by jlokier »

kypro wrote: post #163

Quoted post unavailable.

> I also think $50m is simply an insane amount of money.

To you it is, but Alex Jones is very well off:

- "Alex Jones worth up to $270m, expert says, as family seeks punitive damages" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/05/sandy-hook-f...

- "Bernard Pettingill told the court that records indicate Jones withdrew $62m for himself from his company in 2021 as his legal troubles grew." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62444302

- "his and Free Speech Systems’ combined net worth likely fell between $135 million and $270 million." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/us/alex-jones-finances.ht...

> What damages were actually done here?

Most of the amount is to punish and deter, not to compensate the parents.

- "The punitive damages are meant to act as a deterrent, and to stop Jones from repeating his offence."

- "[Punitive damages] are awarded when compensatory damages — the money given to the injured party — are deemed to be insufficient. [... They] are specifically designed to punish defendants whose conduct is considered grossly negligent or intentional. Punitive damages are also referred to as exemplary damages as they are intended to set an example to deter others from committing similar acts." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/punitive-damages.asp

$1m would be a big punishment to you, but too little to punish Alex Jones, who can apparently withdraw $62m from their own company in a year. Jones' estimated net worth was almost certainly a factor in the amount, along with an assessment of just how awful and grossly negligent his behaviour was.

> I worry about this is because if I believe someone is doing something evil does that mean I now have to stay silent in case some crazy person agrees with what I'm saying and does something crazy?

There's a big difference between you saying it to a few friends you think are stable, and building up a lucrative, commercial media empire to broadcast your for-massive-profit message to huge numbers of random people, when you know that many of them believe what you say very seriously, and saying to them over, over and again that someone who looks like a grieving parent is secretly doing somethng evil and something should be done about it.

That said, to some extent yes you should be careful about saying things that have harmful consequences you could reasonably anticipate. It is possible to be grossly negligent with speech. For example if I told you a drink was safe that I knew contained a poison so that you drank it and then died from the poison, I could not hide behind free speech for that. If you're talking with a friend that you believe will do something crazy if you say certain things, please do be careful what you suggest to them.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#296

Post by philliphaydon »

bandyaboot wrote: post #270
philliphaydon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Read the Mueller report. Read the Report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections from the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee. The difference is that one has a tremendous amount of supporting evidence. The other has none.

The major conspiracy theory was that trump colluded with Russia to win the election. As far as I’m aware the Mueller report said Russia stood to benefit from a trump presidency but Trump didn’t collude.

So Trump won legitimately. Even if people voted with the wrong information. And the losing side threw its toys out of the cot.

Then when Biden won, the losing side threw its toys out of the cot.

In both cases there’s conspiracy theories. Russian collusion and rigged elections.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#297

Post by tptacek »

FireBeyond wrote: post #114
roenxi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Jones can afford to pay any of these figures that it says interesting things about how ineffective deplatforming is and really rather undermines the "big tech is a monopoly!" argument. Most people can't make $4 million in a lifetime, let alone these figures.

He claimed that a judgment of $2M would bankrupt Infowars. But emails revealed that, at times, revenue was $800K -per day-, and the judge asked him to explain how potentially less than 3 days revenue would have that effect.

None of this is a real debate. The "bankruptcy" filings show Jones pulling more than 60MM in member distributions out of these companies.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#298

Post by bandyaboot »

roenxi wrote: post #293
bandyaboot wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the Mueller report. Read the Report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections from the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee. The difference is that one has a tremendous amount of supporting evidence. The other has none.

Here is [0] a copy of the Muller report. It is vague, as is usual for political hit jobs. There is hard evidence that someone leaked truthful statements out of the DNC, which is a major political scandal (honest accounting of what the {R|D}NC if thinking? Available to the public?! heaven forfend, that is not how journalism is done). Which bits of evidence in it do you think are compelling, actionable and importat? Be…

You’re responding to “Read the Mueller report.” With [I’m not going to read the Mueller report]. Thanks for letting me know.

I mean, honestly, you’re bothered by lack of details so because of that…you’re choosing not to read the parts where one would expect to find the details.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#299

Post by jwithington »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #292
Consultant32452 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jones did not have a jury trial for determining guilt, the judge gave a summary judgement to the plaintiffs because Jones allegedly did not fully comply with discovery. She accurately explained, as a matter of law, that he was guilty. That had been determined at the point of the summary judgement. What happened recently and in the news was just the jury determining the size of the punishment.

Quoted post unavailable.

…if someone doesn’t do what is required of them (participate in discovery), what would you have done?

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#300

Post by s9w »

pessimizer wrote: post #10

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

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