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Alex Jones just lost a lawsuit for defamation for claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax and the reward was $965bil (after a previous $50mil verdict so its over a billion) for defamation and emotional damages. Jones is a kook, and his claim was both false, and outrageous; but I'm not 100 percent sure he even should have lost. Esp for the emotional damage part. I don't think people should be entitled to damages because they feel hurt by what you say. As far as the defamation part if he claimed particular people created the hoax then I can understand a loss of a defamation lawsuit, but if its just a general comment along the lines of "I think it's a hoax" I don't think he should face any legal penalty for it. And a billion dollars for spouting off some nonsense seems ridiculous to me.
I suspect that he will appeal (I understand he tried to appeal the previous case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who refused to accept the case), and that the case won't be overturned on appeal, but perhaps the damages will be reduced.
There was also some talk about harassment and death threats against people suing Jones. If it can be proven that Jones was behind it I suppose that could be ground for a lawsuit (and perhaps even criminal charges depending on the details), but that would be a separate issue than defamation or emotional distress over the original comment.
I haven't been following this, because it's a horrible mess and if the parents of the dead kids cornered Jones in a dark alley and kicked the crap out of him I wouldn't find it hard to be sympathetic even though really we shouldn't be kicking the crap out of people, but by osmosis what I'm getting is that it went beyond 'hurt feelings'.
People who believed Jones were harassing the parents, claiming they were all actors; I think one guy tried to dig up the grave of one of the dead children to prove it was empty, and so on. Sure, saying your child is not dead because they never existed and you are a liar and/or a professional actor hired to pretend to be a bereaved parent may not cause physical damage, but this is one of the few categories that I do think emotional damage counts as a real injury.
I'm with you on the lack of sympathy. I have been fighting with people I know who follow Alex Jones for years because of the silly things they come to believe because of things he says.
Nearly $1B smacks of this being a political decision, to me personally. I want someone to develop a principle or rule that could be evenly applied that fits this judgement against Jones and sets up guidelines for the future, because right now it seems more like Bad Man Get Punished, Yay!
A good take I heard was that Infowars promoted its self as a news/genuine information outlet and used that outlet to spread false information. Maybe if you represent yourself as a news outlet, you should be held to different standards. I don't follow other news outlets because I can't take the punishment, but if the NYTimes, CNN, FOX, MSNBC news divisions started engaging in spreading false information parading as facts, they would then be liable under this principle. Would they be liable in a lawsuit by Kyle Rittenhouse in this case?
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