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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

#321

Post by phpisthebest »

ethbr0 wrote: post #215
phpisthebest wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to that is not suppression of the idea(s), in fact attempts to suppress anyone talking about the election only serve as fuel to expand the number of people that believe it, as "what are they trying to hide" becomes of the main part of the story. Greater, and Actual Transparency combined with a trust worthily network of news outlets would go along way to shut down these types of discussions Sadly we have…

> More Facts, less Spin What the United States needs to target is the economics of news. Actual news. Not infotainment. Don't attempt to regulate good/bad news: economically incentivize good reporting and disincentivize bad reporting. The market will follow. If 24/7 news channels weren't profitable... there wouldn't be any 24/7 news channels.

Well as we have seen in this Alex Jones case, and other recent defamation cases it seems both the public and the legal system are turning from "defamation is almost impossible to win" to something else

the Economics of news is going to be very different is media can not hide by "anonymous sources" and "it is just opinion" while spreading lies about individuals or events.

I think the next cases may find more well known news outlets in the defendants chair of defamation action

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

#322

Post by scarab92 »

seventytwo wrote: post #207
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Actually, no, the jury verdict on punitive damages is $45.2 million, but that is certain to be reduced before Jones is ordered to pay (there seems to be some dispute over whether a portion of the compensatory damages award is economic or not, and depending on the answer on that, the cap under Texas statutory punitive damages caps would seem to be somewhere between $750k and $1m; even if the plaintiffs succeed in thei…

What’s important about this, is that Jones is being sued in other jurisdictions that don’t have maximum punitive limits. So it sets an important precedent for Jones (and others), that doing this kind of thing can cost you up to $50 million. Even though Jones won’t actually have to pay that amount, an important example has been made of him.

Juries awarding excessive punitive damages was enough of a problem that many states capped it.

Seems more likely to me that, in the long run, this will also occur in the remaining states.

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

#323

Post by piva00 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #319
pstuart wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to tone down the number of people that believe in conspiracy... More Facts, less Spin... Really? More facts will change their minds? Who will they trust with those facts? This is bordering on cult-like behavior and it shows no signs of improving -- I'm not optimistic about this at all.

Trust is built over decades, and torn down in minutes. News outlets (on both sides) have been caught in multiple partisans lies, disinformation, and spin/suppression of inconvenient facts for "their side" for many years now, this has eroded the trust in media and makes presentation of facts harder. Neither side wants to acknowledge anything that would be seen as supporting the position of the "others" So in the conte…

Cult-like behaviour seems quite the norm across the USA though. Cheering for politics as if it was a sport, everything needs to be an spectacle, lack of pragmatism and an obtuse clinging to absolutist, dogmatic thinking (as you can see from any discussion around freedom of speech).

It's rather bizarre that instead of seeing this cult-like behaviour (in the news, in politics, etc.) as an emergent property from the general American culture most will blame the news and the politicians for creating it. It's the inverse, they are just feeding what the populace actually is and behaves like.

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

#324

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #312
rayiner wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

We conducted an undisputed (and still somewhat close) presidential election in 1944, in the middle of World War 2, just prior to the Battle of the Bulge and with half a million servicepeople in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines. But somehow we're meant to dignify the objections of gullible voters who don't understand how a drop-off box works. Spare us.

FDR was a popular President who had already won 3 elections by landslide margins, and won a fourth term by 400+ electoral votes. And of course wars have a uniquely unifying effect on populations.

You could make a similarly flippant remark about people not knowing how electronic voting machines work. At the end of the day, the Taiwanese, French, etc., don’t count votes the way they do for funsies.

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

#326

Post by unixbane »

kentm wrote: post #267
unixbane wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> and only complete idiots think his misinformation has power. You do realize that the Jones Sandy Hook thing caused the parents in question to be stalked, harassed, and even shot at because Jones platformed this nonsense? And before you say "Well then why won't those people arrested?" the ones that could be identified were, like Wolfgang Halbig: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wolgang-halbig-charged-sandy-...

No post body was provided.

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

#327

Post by LBJsPNS »

omnicognate wrote: post #147
IronWolve wrote: post #30

The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on t…

The two people in that "Barnes Law" video engage in an extremely dishonest form of argument. According to them, the fact that somebody cannot name the specific evidence Jones' lawyers were ordered to produce in discovery somehow negates any views they might hold on the case, including that the default (not summary) judgement was fair. It's a cheap rhetorical trick for use when one has no better argument: come up with…

One word: fanboys

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

#328

Post by ncallaway »

kolanos wrote: post #315
ncallaway wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jones was afforded due process. Due process requires you to participate in the _process_, which he refused to do repeatedly, for years. He can appeal, but the authority for a trial court to issue a default judgement is not new precedent but rather well established. It’s quite _rare_, but it’s happened before.

> He can appeal, but the authority for a trial court to issue a default judgement is not new precedent but rather well established. It’s quite _rare_, but it’s happened before. It should be noted that default judgments rarely stick when appealed.

It should? I went looking for appellate statistics for default judgements in Texas and couldn’t find anything.

Do you have a source for the rate of successful appeals against default judgements in Texas (or even more broadly)

I’m just not able to find anything on the topic one way or another.

Edit to add: Also, are you referring to a Motion to Set Aside made to the original judge, or an appeal made to an appellate court? My understanding is most judges will grant a timely motion to set aside if the default judgement was granted for not showing up because you were unaware of the court proceeding or had extenuating circumstances.

This default judgement was granted for misbehavior and refusing to engage with the process over years, so I’d want to look at statistics on successful appeals of a default judgement, and not statistics on successful motions to set aside.

Though, again, after a bit of searching I could find neither.

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

#329

Post by TheHypnotist »

thebradbain wrote: post #85
mlyle wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, to appeal a judgment, you need to post a bond. Otherwise, the other side can move to enforce the judgment. This seems to be the case in Texas, though it seems the amount of the bond is capped at 50% of his net worth.

Per the NYT [1], "his and Free Speech Systems’ combined net worth likely fell between $135 million and $270 million." So depending on what that split is, and how the court considers Free Speech Systems's worth in relation to him, that cap wouldn't necessarily apply. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/us/alex-jones-finances.ht...

That's a pretty successful grift. A lot of gullible people out of money.

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

#330

Post by bandyaboot »

roenxi wrote: post #316
bandyaboot wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seems like maybe you’ve decided to read more into my original comment than what’s actually there. The entirety of what I’m saying right now is “Both the Mueller and Senate Intel committee reports contain pretty extensive evidence and detailing of a significant interference campaign by the Russians on the 2016 election”. I was responding in regards to “blaming Russians” which was far from a baseless conspiracy theor…

And yet you've now made it through 3 posts without doing anything as gauche as mentioning what that evidence is, providing a sample of it or articulating what the Russians have done that you don't like apart from being foreign. As alluded to previously, the biggest complaint most have seems to be that they were allegedly [^] bringing honesty into a political context. They have no power to influence US elections, as s…

I’ve made it through now 4 posts having chosen not to engage with you on topic because you made it clear from the outset that you’re not capable of having a good faith exchange on this.

You pre-dismissed anything I might have cited. You say things like I’m bluffing on a weak hand, I’ve got nothing, and I’m supposed to say to myself “Yes, this person is worth expending effort on, let’s have a totally real open minded debate.” Get over yourself.

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