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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   24144 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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It seems like the push finally came to shove for Alex Jones, as he will have to liquidate pretty much almost everything he has to pay the $1.5 billion dollar settlement after the Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit went the plaintiffs way. Via AssociatedPress:

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is seeking court permission to convert his personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation, which would lead to a sell-off of a large portion of his assets to help pay some of the $1.5 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, both filed for bankruptcy reorganization after the Sandy Hook families won lawsuits against him for his repeatedly calling the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, a hoax on his Infowars programs...

...Liquidation could mean that Jones would have to sell most of what he owns, including his company and its assets, but could keep his home and other personal belongings that are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. Proceeds would go to his creditors, including the Sandy Hook families.

If Free Speech Systems’ case is withdrawn, the company would return to the same position it was in after the $1.5 billion was awarded in the lawsuits and it would send efforts to collect the damages back to the state courts in Texas and Connecticut where the verdicts were reached.

Jones already has moved to sell some of his personal assets to pay creditors, including his Texas ranch worth around $2.8 million.

But a liquidation of Jones’ and his company’s assets would raise only a fraction of what he owes the Sandy Hook families.

According to the most recent financial statements filed in the bankruptcy court, Jones personally has about $9 million in assets, including his $2.6 million Austin-area home in Texas and other real estate. He listed his living expenses at about $69,000 for April alone, including about $16,500 for expenses on his home, including maintenance, housekeeping and insurance.

Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, had nearly $4 million in cash on-hand at the end of April. The business made nearly $3.2 million in April, including from selling the dietary supplements, clothing and other items that Jones promotes on his show, while listing $1.9 million in expenses.

Considering $9 million is more than 100 times less than what he owes, I don't see any other way for this to end in his completely left in the dust, with no business media, no career in journalism (at least as a self-owned publication, though I doubt anyone wants to hire him, and I don't think him having a Rumble channel with no structure to back him is going to bring him that much money). His only hope involves a Hail Mary crowfunding moneybomb from his supporters and people annoyed by the veredict a la Trump, but even if he raises as much as Trump, he's still owing hundreds of millions left, and I doubt he could even reach that point; not only we're talking about somebody not as popular, but the specifics of the case do touch sensitive spots (nobody likes someone stating falsehoods about dead children)

Comment from ZeroHedge:

The $1.5 billion settlement for claiming an event didn’t happen the way it is popularly believed to have happened was always absurd and had nothing at all do to with justice delivered to the families who lost their kids in Sandy Hook and everything to do with silencing a voice long a thorn in the side of the establishment, which the lawyer essentially concedes in the above quote about the ruling not just being about money — lawfare waged via a weaponized legal system I wrote about in detail when the ruling came down from on high last year.

Please miss me with comments about how Alex Jones is an unhinged pseudo-evangelical lunatic with a drinking problem or whatever. The vast majority of Alex Jones haters, in fact, have never listened to a single hour of his broadcast. Their negative impression of him comes entirely secondhand from ten-second clips and the non-stop, orchestrated bleating of hostile corporate media — a consensus-forming propaganda campaign of, arguably, unprecedented scale targeted at a single individual in the 21st century.

But anyway, I’m not here to do apologia for Alex Jones or to sell him to anyone; I am aware of his flaws, as I am aware of my own. We all live in glass houses...

...The Alex Jones censorship sage is not about Alex Jones.

When Jones was universally banned overnight from all major social media platforms in 2018 in what was clearly an orchestrated move among the Big Tech giants, that was an allusion to things to come.

It was only two years later, if that, that the mass censorship regime came for all dissident media, including me when I got the banhammer from multiple platforms in 2020 for “COVID misinformation” and other alleged crimes of wrongthink.

It’s InfoWars today and the rest of us tomorrow.

Two things that come to my mind:

First, from what I understand, the final payment number came from Alex Jones not being willing to disclose his net worth, which allowed to the plaintiffs to imagine an infinite net worth if they wanted to. But once the books are finally displayed, does that make sense? And even if he hadn't, why isn't the level of damage caused to the plaintiffs part of equation to lower the number? Isn't this institutionalized debt slavery as punishment for what is at the end of the day an civil case? Don't get me wrong, as a libertarian I certainly don't oppose debt slavery for a sort of tort system where crimes are punished with payments; but it has to be equivalent to the crime and the criminal's means; $1.5 billion would be too much of a punishment for Adam Lanza, the actual sicko who murdered the children in Sandy Hook, let alone for the guy who espoused things that weren't true about the shooting. Is he even going to able to ever pay for it entirely?

Secondly, isn't this simply a completely disproportionate answer to Jones sins? Yes, he went on for too long with this charade and should had never started it in the first place, not to mention that his claims didn't went against the NWO or the globalist elites that he despises, but against parents of dead children, claiming that the most emotionally painful thing that had ever befallen them was something they were lying about on TV. However, is he responsible at all for the fact that his followers went too far and harassed those people? Are CNN or MSNBC liable for defamation since they broadcasted Jones making those same claims? Do we know that if the people that harassed the victims parents actually got their information directly from Jones himself?

It seems to me that defamation law is a two edged sword...a society that doesn't have it allows misinformation to be used to harm people, but a society that doesn't have it on a tight leash allows to weaponize claims of misinformation with far worse repercussions.

However, is he responsible at all for the fact that his followers went too far and harassed those people?

I have only kind of paid attention to this case so I will not claim deep legal knowledge here, but I suspect this case is, like so many others, one in which the deep legal details matter, and are mostly ignored by partisans in favor of "He's being punished by the Elites for offending the NWO" or "He's an evil monster who mocked dead children."

A number like $1.5 billion is basically saying "We're taking everything you have (except your home)." Is that a fair judgment? Eh. I don't feel sorry for him, and not just because he's a crank.

My understanding is that the huge judgment was not so much because he claimed Sandy Hook was a hoax and told parents their children didn't really die (vile and obnoxious and possibly cause for a defamation suit, but not $1.5 billion), but because of all those followers of his who harassed and threatened the parents for years. So as to whether he is responsible at all: having some crazy followers who do things without your knowledge or instigation is one thing, but if you keep beating the "crisis actor" drums for years, until you know darn well what your followers are doing to those parents, then at some point yeah, I think you become responsible for continuing to egg them on. That and his legal fuckery with the court makes me think he FAAFO.

I don’t buy that as a theory simply because it makes it too easy to shut up dissent. Under this theory, my repeating of a statement that I believe is true makes me liable for any actions taken by people who listen to what I’m saying even if I never tell anyone to harass or harm others, and even if I’m not giving out personal information. And thus it’s now easy to shut down dissent by suggesting that a speaker has total control over all of those who listen to his show.

No, under this theory, if I repeatedly use my public platform to say "@MaiqTheTrue is murdering children in his basement," and I continue making this claim for years, even knowing that some of my followers are now harassing you (and the Sandy Hook parents weren't just having mean things said about them on the Internet, they were being followed and harassed and physically threatened in meat-space), you can hold me responsible. There is a difference between having total control over your followers and knowing what your followers are doing and not only saying nothing to discourage them, but continuing to do what you know is encouraging them.

Sort of. If you’re telling people I’m killing kids in my basement, then, sure, it’s possibly inflammatory. But it’s also something that, charitably you believe to be true. And as far as I’m concerned, this is something that should be protected unless the person is trying to provoke the response. To do otherwise can easily be abused into silencing those who hold dissident views. And even if the fans of a given dissident are mostly behaving themselves, there are always agents provocateur who would gladly make trouble for those fans, especially if the prize was that the dissident was forced into bankruptcy and silenced forever.

Now the question of whether Jones either knew or intended harassment is rather open. He would certainly know based on metrics who is listening, but I don’t think that he’s reading every comment on his articles or videos. Most people here have blogs, how much do you know about your subscribers? If your subscribers would decide to come after me, how would you even find out? Creators tend to live in a bubble, the audience isn’t really known to them unless they do a lot of public speaking. Thus I don’t think it’s clear that Jones necessarily was aware of his fans’ behavior. As far as I’m aware from dipping into old podcasts of his show, he doesn’t encourage anyone to do anything beyond buying supplements and gold coins. He doesn’t say things advocating harm or writing letters or anything like that. He just reports what (assuming charity here) he believes to be true.

Legally, I don't know how much of Jones's defense did or could rely on him claiming not to know people were being harassed. But as to your first point, I think it requires a lot of charity to assume Alex Jones sincerely believed everything he was saying (IIRC, he at one point actually made some sort of "I'm Just Asking Questions" disclaimer), and me sincerely believing you are murdering children in your basement wouldn't absolve me of responsibility if I'm causing people to show up at your house trying to free the children.

I find the argument that is setting some precedent that will "silence dissent" unconvincing; most people objecting seem to just hate the people who hate Alex Jones, and therefore him losing means the wrong people won. I suspect if an unhinged follower of Rachel Maddow really did attack Trump and he sued her and won, the same people defending Alex Jones would say she deserves it.

Legally, I don't know how much of Jones's defense did or could rely on him claiming not to know people were being harassed.

Once again, there was no trial on the merits.

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