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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31617 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Can we have a thread about Alex Jones? Apparently the "victims" of his actions are pushing for something like a trillion dollar award.

I get it, he spoke some really shitty things about some people that just lost their children in a horrendous event. I can't imagine what they're going through. But I can't get past this mental block of "Yeah he said some shitty things, but he never directed his followers to do harassment, and the parents essentially just got cyber bullied, like just walk away from the screen, seriously. There were like two incidents of real life harassment, which have been prosecuted, and also were inflicted upon the parents who chose to engage with the public media."

Am I missing something here? Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?

In defense of wrecking Jones:

First, reports are that he was basically ignoring the court system. I think it is entirely justifiable that "ignoring the court system" gets turned into "the court system reminds you, and society in general, that the court system is not to be ignored".

Second, people are looking at the fine and saying that it seems excessive in absolute numbers. But I think there's a lot of value in fines that are relative to someone's net worth. And I think "promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is reasonably responded to with "a fine of at least 100% of your net worth". Which is about what this is.

If we fine people absolute numbers, we're giving rich people effective permission to do whatever they want while ruining poor people's lives for small transgressions; if the goal is to make them stop, then relative numbers are what you've gotta do.

Crime has a finite cost and so there is actually a point at which it is worth tolerating crime if we get a high enough monetary benefit. We do limit how much we spend preventing crime. So, maybe the goal shouldn't be to make rich people stop committing crimes but to have them properly compensate us.

What's the economic cost of torturing 100 disabled, net-cost people? If it's second-order effects of normalizing such practices, good luck reasoning about a concrete number...

Fining people relative to their net worth also means the rich are held to a higher moral (or at least legal) standard. For a marginal case, what lawyer will bother making a decent case against a poor transgressor, if there's no payout. It's like a contemporary incarnation of noblesse oblige.

This argument would suggest that nobody bothers imprisoning poor people, and empirically, that does not seem to be what happens.

Remember that prosecutors don't get to actually keep the money they win in fines.

Also, remember that rich people have much better legal defense.

First, reports are that he was basically ignoring the court system. I think it is entirely justifiable that "ignoring the court system" gets turned into "the court system reminds you, and society in general, that the court system is not to be ignored".

I wish somebody qualified could do a deep dive on whether Alex Jones really did willfully ignore the court system in a way that justifies a default judgement. AFAIK, his counter-claim is that the court demanded that he produce footage of some of his shows where he allegedly made the defamatory statements, which were rather old by this time and were deleted by Youtube and various other platforms and he supposedly didn't have backups for, and went right to punitive rulings and default judgements when he tried to claim this.

Alex Jones has a pretty big operation, and you'd think they'd keep backups of everything. But who knows, shit happens, I guess it's plausible that they screwed up at some level and really did lose them. I'm not sure what's supposed to happen if the court demands you to produce something that you really did genuinely lose. I would think there should be some way for it to be handled better than that. But who knows, maybe his lawyers are dopes and screwed something up, or maybe the court is hostile and jumped right to the harshest possible ruling. I wish there was some way to actually find out besides just assuming based on who's closer to my side in the Culture War.

Second, people are looking at the fine and saying that it seems excessive in absolute numbers. But I think there's a lot of value in fines that are relative to someone's net worth. And I think "promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is reasonably responded to with "a fine of at least 100% of your net worth". Which is about what this is.

I get the point, but somehow I doubt Jones has over a trillion dollars, or even billions, from hawking snake oil supplements and InfoWars swag.

I think a big component of all of this is that Jones may have just had really shit lawyers on his side. They sent confidential texts to the plaintiff's counsel, for God's sake.

Let's compare Jones to some other people who could be wrecked.

George W Bush is responsible for the invasion of Iraq on false pretences (I have plenty of quotes from high-ranking US officials to back this up if needed), resulting in thousands of US deaths, many more Iraqi deaths, vast economic costs of pointless war, destabilization of the Middle East, elevated oil prices, indebtedness, greater anti-Western terrorism... You can add ISIS and a general loss of respect for the principle of 'not invading countries' to the tally too - a principle that has become rather topical this year. We're not even at the level of the US gaining from other countries losses, it was a pure negative sum event except for a small group of vested interests.

"You sent me to Iraq in 2003, my friends are dead! You killed people, you lied!": https://youtube.com/watch?v=uhpdwbTWYXM

Whereas for Jones: "You lied about my children's deaths, I'm really unhappy with you."

Where is Bush's billion/trillion dollar fine? That would actually be proportionate to the scale of the harm involved. If there's no punishment for Bush, there should be no fine for Jones.

As someone who wouldn't mind seeing Bush Jr. get wrecked, there sadly isn't a good equvalence between him (a former US President) and Jones (who is ultimately a mere private citizen). If Bush Jr. is ever to see justice, it will probably not be at the hands of the exact same legal system that you or I or Alex Jones would have to face.

There have been reports that the court system didn’t follow normal standards on a lot of discovery with him which then justifies him ignoring the court system. If the court is going to cheat you anyway then you lose nothing by ignoring them.

What reports? Even so, ignoring the court and getting a default judgment puts him in a pretty precarious position. If he had lost the case on the merits he could make any discovery regularities part of his appeal. Now that's going to be much more difficult because the only avenue of appeal he has is whether judgment in default is inappropriate. While courts have vacated default judgments, the arguments usually revolve around whether the action in question is appropriate for the relief granted or when the default happened because the plaintiff didn't take appropiate due diligence to ensure notice. For example, in Ohio there are a good number of properties where the oil and gas rights have been severed from the surface. Some landowners whose property was subject to such severances attempted to get these rights back by filing quiet title actions against the owners of the orphaned OG interests and getting default judgments in their favor. The appeals court ruled that (if I remember correctly) the quiet title actions were inappropriate because the plaintiffs had no colorable claim to the oil and gas and that furthermore, they didn't make a diligent attempt to locate the current owners and provided notice by advertisement. The whole thing was obviously a "gotcha" to get rights they weren't entitled to, and the appeals court saw it for what it was. The Jones case is a fairly straightforward case of defamation and there's no real argument that Jones only didn't comply because his attorneys were unaware of what they were supposed to do.

No, actually, it really, really does not. You note the court's ruling and move on, then appeal any adverse result. If the trial court was actually ignoring well-worn discovery standards, the appeal should have a swift and fairly comprehensive conclusion.

which then justifies him ignoring the court system

In this circumstance, I'd recommend an appeal rather than a boycott.

The appeals courts just dismissed his case. The fix was in at all levels. I'm sure the judges thought this was for the good reason of sparing the Sandy Hook families the trauma of a trial involving Jones.

What do you mean the appeals court dismissed his case? Even if the court were going for some kind of speed record there's no way they could have rendered judgment already. And lower appeals courts can't "dismiss" appeals; you're entitled to one appeal as of right that must be heard on the merits. That being said, since the trial court ruling was a default judgment his avenues of appeal are limited.

Theoretically you're entitled to have your case heard on the merits in trial court; that was denied Jones. I believe the Connecticut Supreme Court turned down his motion to vacate the default before the final judgement was rendered. He's really got no avenue of appeal; the appeals courts can't consider the merits of the case because he wasn't allowed to make it so there's nothing to examine on appeal.

It wasn't denied Jones; he forfeited that right by refusing to participate in the case against him. That's what happens—you can't get out of a lawsuit by simply ignoring it. He had 2 years to comply with discovery requests and refused to do so despite repeated orders from the court. What was the judge supposed to do here? How many bites at the apple does the guy deserve? You can make the argument that the discovery requests were inappropriate, and though I haven't heard any specifics about that, it's beside the point. Even assuming the requests were inappropriate, it's not up to the parties to decide which orders they are going to comply with. If that were the case, you'd just be giving parties carte blanch to ignore any adverse rulings without consequence.

As for the exact procedural issues you bring up: Asking the court to vacate a judgment is not the same as appeal. For the court to vacate the default judgment, Jones would have to convince them that the entering of such judgment was inappropriate. The court obviously disagreed, and proceeded to a trial on damages. If Jones were to appeal the case, he'd be making the same arguments to the appeals court that he was to the trial court—that default judgment was inappropriate. Asking the trial court to vacate the judgment was a step for preserving the issue for appeal since appellate courts are loathe to consider matters that weren't before the trial court. As a practical matter, though, it's pretty meaningless, since the losing party will ask the trial judge to vacate the judgment in every case, and the trial judge will almost always say no.

Where are these reports and what, specifically, are they alleging?

a fine of at least 100% of your net worth

When did Alex Jones become the first trillionaire? I'm pretty sure he's not even a billionaire. Including him in the class of "rich people" even is questionable. Even before this judgment it wouldn't surprise me if he had debt up to his elbows that he continuously avoids through sovereign citizen-esque shenanigans (though I don't know how much public transparency there is about his finances to be fair).

I mean I know you're saying "at least", but isn't that still kind of misleading when it ends up being more like "at least 100% of your net worth, but actually more like 6000000%"?

Even then I don't see how anyone who cares about freedom of discourse at all, like a moderator of this previously de facto deplatformed community (though that's debatable given this place's moderation history), can endorse a fine anywhere close to 100% of someone's net worth for hurting people's feelings. (Everyone on this site will be begging on the streets in a day if that becomes a universal standard.)

"Promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is a weakman against this site's rules too (or it least it would be if it were neutrally moderated; wishing I could put on a red hat right now to give you a cutesy warning over it). It's not like he just picked the random parents of a selection of wholly obscure child murder victims that week and decided to make them his target. He had a heterodox opinion about a highly-politicized event, child murder or not, that many of the parents most criticized chose to actively and enthusiastically participate in the politicization of, and you have absolutely no proof that he did it "all for the sake of selling merchandise". (I've not seen much evidence he encouraged any direct harassment of anyone either.) That is allowed in free societies without going broke. Obviously a free society is not what we have anymore.

After all, children died on 9/11, have died in Ukraine, have died in Syria, etc. Why not fine those with heterodox opinions about those matters billions too? If we allow the parents of muh murdered children to set the standards of discourse, then say goodbye to discourse beyond "thoughts and prayers! <3" entirely.

When did Alex Jones become the first trillionaire? I'm pretty sure he's not even a billionaire.

Whoops, I thought the fine was for a billion :V

Estimates of Alex Jones's worth are all over the place, but the reputable (pre-fine) estimates seem to hang out somewhere between 100m-250m, which, yes, is a big range.

Even then I don't see how anyone who cares about freedom of discourse at all, like a moderator of this previously de facto deplatformed community (though that's debatable given this place's moderation history), can endorse a fine anywhere close to 100% of someone's net worth for hurting people's feelings. (Everyone on this site will be begging on the streets in a day if that becomes a universal standard.)

Because I think that attacking people directly, and importantly, people who never sought to put themselves in the limelight, is a much bigger issue than just "hurting people's feelings".

You make people angry with political claims, fine, whatever; you run a harassment campaign on specific people who just want to be left alone, that's not OK.

You flaunt the judge's requests for years in the process? That's very not OK.

After all, children died on 9/11, have died in Ukraine, have died in Syria, etc. Why not fine those with heterodox opinions about those matters billions too? If we allow the parents of muh murdered children to set the standards of discourse, then say goodbye to discourse beyond "thoughts and prayers! <3" entirely.

I've tried to really hammer this home, but most conspiracy theorists absolutely do not create a narrative which paints grieving families as conspirators. Look at 9/11 truthers as your meter stick; they said that it was an inside job or bush did 9/11. That Jet Fuel didn't melt steel beams. Most did not say 'you're fake, your loved ones never existed.' It's not just 'heterodox opinions bad' it's 'slanderous allegations against specific private citizens bad.'

In my experience, crisis actor theories regarding events with small(ish) numbers of victims are common (particularly in regards to mass shootings) and not just with Alex Jones. With stuff like 9/11 there's just so many victims that these theories become so increasingly implausible (not that they aren't already) that they're not used. I don't think it's a moral barrier.

It's not just 'heterodox opinions bad' it's 'slanderous allegations against specific private citizens bad.'

As, for example, the treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse proves, the second only tends to apply nowadays in the context of the first.

This argument would be a lot stronger if he had actually been ordered to pay that amount. Nothing -- not the verdict, and not the musings of reporters about how much punitive damages might be ordered -- means anything until judgment is actually entered.

My understanding is that while the trillions are only a request at this point, a judgment of nearly a billion has been fully finalized and ordered by a judge already. To me, there's not much of a difference in this case between "essentially impossible, would require him to be like 10x richer than the richest billionaire ever recorded" and "well, maybe if he somehow manages to start the next Amazon or TikTok or something despite being one of the most ostracized men in existence". It's the difference between execution via guillotine and execution via lingchi. Life is still not an option for you in either case.

The point you could make in its favor is that it's not a real punishment, at least not to the degree ordered, because there's no way they're getting that amount of money from him, but that all comes with its own problems.

Your understanding is incorrect. The trial court will not enter judgment until it rules on Jones's motion for new trial and motion to reduce damages. See Ct Code Ch 900, Sec. 52-225.

Judgment on verdict; assessment of damages when judgment rendered other than on verdict. The court shall render judgment on all verdicts of the jury, according to their finding, with costs, unless the verdict is set aside; and in all cases where judgment is rendered otherwise than on a verdict, in favor of the plaintiff, the court shall assess the damages which he shall recover.

And Sec. 52-228b.

Setting aside of verdict in action claiming money damages. No verdict in any civil action involving a claim for money damages may be set aside except on written motion by a party to the action, stating the reasons relied upon in its support, filed and heard after notice to the adverse party according to the rules of the court. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are excessive unless the prevailing party has been given an opportunity to have the amount of the judgment decreased by so much thereof as the court deems excessive. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are inadequate until the parties have first been given an opportunity to accept an addition to the verdict of such amount as the court deems reasonable.

Fair then. My mistake. Though I still think in this case that a billion dollar judgment having any degree of finality, such as the degree of being ordered by a judge at all, is insane.

Well, again, there is no judgment, and there is no degree of finality. The entire point of the CT statute I quoted is to prevent excessive jury verdicts from going into effect, so isn't the system designed to obtain exactly the outcome for which you are advocating?

That's not what I'm reading from the statute, and in any case I'm not seeing it in action yet. And even if the final result turns out to be more reasonable, there's still the old problem of "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." Nothing in this case indicates a system or society that is "designed to obtain exactly the outcome for which [I am] advocating", which is a general tolerance for a wide range of opinions.

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Jones is punished this harshly because he's rather unsympathetic at the best of times, and indisputably in the wrong morally, legally, intellectually on this particular issue. Ergo, pretty much nobody with half a reputation to lose will bother staking that reputation on defending Jones for free, out of principle, and Jones can be bankrupted a thousand or a million times over.

Thus it is possible to neatly make an example out of him, a precedent of a right-wing loudmouth ruined beyond belief and made radioactive; and this will send a signal to all future wannabe cultural icons who disagee with the mainstream culture, and more importantly to their cooperators. In effect this imposes a permanent pentalty on the social credit score of an entire stratum of people.

This is arguably a continuation of the Richard Spencer Charlottesville case, Nick Fuentes no-flight-list incident and probably some other disproportionate sentences I have missed. Certainly @SecureSignals can describe it better than me.

I don’t see indisputable evidence he’s morally or intellectually wrong here. He went to far for sure but he’s fundamentally correct about the issues of your school shootings as a political opportunity to take away gun rights. In this area I believe he’s morally and intellectually in the right.

He’s should pay out a little bit on this because he went too far but morally he’s on my side and not the side I find troubling of politicizing school shootings.

I don’t see indisputable evidence he’s morally or intellectually wrong here.

You think the Sandy Hook parents are crisis actors engaged in a literal conspiracy theory to falsely persuade the nation that their children were murdered en masse while attending elementary school? Or you think that this claim is reasonably disputable, either morally or intellectually?

Please let's not confuse Alex Jones's behavior with the comparatively bland claim that school shootings are a political opportunity to take away gun rights. The court proceedings did not concern that claim.

I see you want to call him morally wrong by removing the majority of his argument because you know school shootings are used for politics and law he’s fundamentally correct on that point.

I don't care about the rest of his argument, I care about the part that was the subject of this dispute, since this dispute is what we are discussing. Was that not the part that you think is at least disputable in its moral or intellectual wrongness? Or do you believe the courts should overlook this clear case of defamation because he separately made some other arguments that were reasonable?

You are speaking in absolutes. I think he did defame but I disagree he’s completely intellectually and morally wrong in this case. The parents entered the fray when they decided to politicize anti gun messaging.

Do you think he was not completely incorrect intellectually when he claimed that the massacre never occurred and the parents are just actors whose children weren't murdered while attending elementary school? Or that he was not completely incorrect morally when he claimed that?

In absolute sense - No.

I don't think it's a good thing to try and argue this from a culture war perspective; parents of school shooting victims are perhaps simply always destined to go campaigning against guns. As someone who is pro-gun, I don't need Alex Jones on my side, I can simply try and argue from other angles why I think the Brady Campaign and so on are wrong without trying to undermine the tragedy they suffered. If anything, we are served better by people like Open Source Defense, Karl Kasarda, and so on than we are by Alex Jones. "Arguments as soldiers" is one thing, but Alex Jones's problem was taking that a bit too literally.

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The courts should at least look at his defenses for this case of defamation. They did not; they used procedural shenanigans to obtain a default. And if they did indeed look at his defenses, they should consider them in the same light as other high-profile defamation cases, such as Kyle Rittenhouse's and the Covington Kids. These cases are usually dismissed early on; they never lead to near-billion-dollar verdicts.

I agree that Rittenhouse and the "smirkgate" kid were defamed and deserve compensation, but even so the journalists who defamed them were much closer in relative terms to having a reasonable and good-faith opinion than the deranged shit about "crisis actors" that Alex Jones said. It's apples and oranges.

I would disagree, considering that "journalists" claimed Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and murdered 3 black protestors in cold blood. After the trial. And other journalists made equally wrong, if less (but not non-) defamatory, claims about the Covington kids. Covington Catholic school was shut down due to threats of violence. But as with Jones, those defamation claims were never tried; unlike Jones, it is because most were dismissed in the early stages (though admittedly some settled instead), rather than the alleged defamers being ruled against by default.

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I agree that Rittenhouse and the "smirkgate" kid were defamed and deserve compensation, but even so the journalists who defamed them were much closer in relative terms to having a reasonable and good-faith opinion than the deranged shit about "crisis actors" that Alex Jones said. It's apples and oranges.

This is a matter of opinion and for the record I disagree. And that's why we're supposed to have a neutral system.

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Am I missing something here? Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?

To be made an example? Maybe Biden will have to pass another stimulus to cover Jones' judgement.

I realize this is the response this post was likely designed to elicit but:

Our system, including institutions both public and private, formal and informal, hard and soft, is configured such that the misbehavior of favored groups is tolerated, while the misbehavior of disfavored groups is punished to maximum extent the decision-makers feel they can get away with.

What more is there to say? At this point the people on the winning side should continue doing what they're doing even if they disagree with it; if they ever stop or fail to keep the boot on their own foot, the future is not pretty for them.

Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?

Thinking about it again, this question belies a misunderstanding of just how seething mad we'd expect Jones's victims to be. He's basically engaged in an old school feud with these people, who did absolutely nothing to provoke him besides have their lives ruined.

We live in a society where we resolve things with court cases and laws and such. For most of human history, this group of victims would probably have just murdered Jones for being a pest. We live in a unique period where we don't allow you do that just because you're justifiably angry.

A judgment like this tries to protect society from that chaos. It acknowledges that what Jones had done is beyond the pale, but mollifies the homicidal rage of the wronged.

Free speech is meant to protect citizens from a tyrannical government, isn't it? If he'd stuck to defaming the government like a normal person, I suspect he wouldn't be in nearly so much trouble.

There seems to be a misunderstanding on the actual situation.

My understanding was that Alex Jones covered the conspiracy theory but did not actually originate it.

Schizos would have harassed the parents of these supposedly dead kids whether Alex Jones existed or not.

Maybe that one guy shouldn't have made that very odd laugh on camera right before talking about his kid(s?) getting shot.

Maybe AJ did insist too much on it, but even then, this is just suppression of political opponents.

Kind of what happened with Kanye West 'You can't say George Floyd died from fentanyl' while what they meant was 'You can't say that jews control the media and banks, or else we will disparage you and unbank you!'

None of these people care about the dead kids' parents, but they do care about the other stuff he was talking about, probably Epstein and co.

He didn't 'cover' it, he aired it. While a few Schizos might have harassed them anyway, his audience of Schizos surely follow him more than originating ideas individually; otherwise why watch him?

Maybe that one guy shouldn't have made that very odd laugh on camera right before talking about his kid(s?) getting shot.

So one non-professional-broadcaster's bad emote on camera makes them more culpable than years of lies from a professional broadcaster? No.

Kind of what happened with Kanye West 'You can't say George Floyd died from fentanyl' while what they meant was 'You can't say that jews control the media and banks, or else we will disparage you and unbank you!'

I have no idea what you're on about here, but as far as I know Kanye West isn't being charged with any crimes, so I don't understand the comparison.

None of these people care about the dead kids' parents

Who are 'these people'? The parents are the plantiffs.

but they do care about the other stuff he was talking about, probably Epstein and co.

MSM covered Epstein though.

MSM covered Epstein though.

Barely his accomplices (Ghislaine Maxwell and others) and hardly ever the clients of his blackmailing business.

People like Kanye West or Alex Jones will get everything taken away from them for speaking about one thing or another while human traffickers and their friends will hardly get anything happen to them.

When is Les Wexner getting unbanked for his friendship with Epstein?

Barely his accomplices (Ghislaine Maxwell and others)

Absolutely covered Maxwell, her trial was regularly front page news.

People like Kanye West or Alex Jones will get everything taken away from them

Nobody is taking Kanye's wealth except maybe whoever is bilking him into buying a social media site.

When is Les Wexner getting unbanked for his friendship with Epstein?

Right after Clinton, Trump, Gates, and Musk I imagine.

How many of the articles covering Maxwell bring up her dad's Mossad ties?

Nobody is taking Kanye's wealth except maybe whoever is bilking him into buying a social media site.

You must have missed the breaking of his contract by Adidas and other companies breaking business ties with him?

It's not his money until he earns it. An endorsement deal is not a suicide pact. Adidas isn't required to keep a pariah as it's brand ambassador.

We live in a society that I believed had long left behind the settling of feuds and paying of weregilt. Insulting the honor of your neighboring clan might have been an issue for the courts a thousand years ago, but today?

If he'd stuck to defaming the government like a normal person, I suspect he wouldn't be in nearly so much trouble.

Why not? By the ancient standards you appeal to, lese majeste is if anything a far greater crime than to defame an individual subject of common birth. Certainly, it seems far more likely to create 'chaos'.

A judgment like this tries to protect society from that chaos. It acknowledges that what Jones had done is beyond the pale, but mollifies the homicidal rage of the wronged.

Sounds like extortion. Give us obscene amounts of money or we may go on a homicidal rage.

We live in a society where we resolve things with court cases and laws and such.

within reason. Is a billion or more dollars reasonable, especially we're talking an individual who doesn't even have anywhere close to that much money? Probably not.

A judgment like this tries to protect society from that chaos.

Isn't that the point of laws and police. Rule of law can be upheld without acceding to unreasonable demands.

Sounds like extortion. Give us obscene amounts of money or we may go on a homicidal rage.

Wait till you find out about taxes.

Isn't that the point of laws and police. Rule of law can be upheld without acceding to unreasonable demands.

'We want Jones's head on a spike' is an unreasonable demand. 'We want Jones to pay us a large sum of money' is reasonable.

Is a billion or more dollars reasonable, especially we're talking an individual who doesn't even have anywhere close to that much money?

Now if it's a matter of degrees, I once more refer you to 'don't piss off the court.' Had jones conducted himself like a law abiding citizen is expected to, he probably wouldn't be dealing with such a large judgment.

In a world in which government didn't exist, Jones wouldn't have anyone to rant about. But assuming he still finds a reason to offend the families, he wouldn't probably wait like a sitting duck. He could recruit his followers to defend him.

In short: Ingroup>outgroup?

The problem here is the 'direction' of the society you are talking about when justifying things that happen within it. To illustrate: There are thousands of things that happen every day that, in the past or under difference circumstances, would have instigated a potentially fatal altercation between those involved. So lets ask the question in the OP again, why is Alex Jones specifically getting sued for an amount seemingly plucked out of an Austin Powers movie, yet the other thousand instances that happen every day get ignored or even celebrated? I can certainly think of worse instances of abuse and harm than what Alex Jones did. Can't you?

To put things in a different context, if public figures start talking about the inherent evil of a people, and then others start attacking those people in the street at random, do we punish the public figures or the people who committed the crime? It seems bizarre to blame Jones as if he was the one phoning these peoples homes, right?

Free speech is meant to protect citizens from a tyrannical government, isn't it?

No it's not. Free speech as a concept is meant to sanctify and elevate the individuals right to expression within a society above that of the right of others to silence.

In short: Ingroup>outgroup?

Alex Jones could have been Alex Jones and made up a different lie that didn't implicate random strangers as adversaries in some grand conspiracy. For example, he could have said that Adam Lanza was CIA.

the other thousand instances that happen every day get ignored or even celebrated

Many many cases go to court every day, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. Jones clowned in court, and if you do that, all bets are off.

I can certainly think of worse instances of abuse and harm than what Alex Jones did. Can't you?

I have difficulty imagining a more ghoulish use of a radio show than to slander the mourning parents of slain children.

Consider the way 9/11 truthers operated. Very few denied that people actually died. I suspect that someone saying 'Cops are liars, none of them died in 9/11, they're just trying to take away our right to brandish box cutters on airlines' they'd be in shit just as deep.

To put things in a different context, if public figures start talking about the inherent evil of a people, and then others start attacking those people in the street at random, do we punish the public figures or the people who committed the crime?

In my ideal world we'd discourage that type of thing, yes. I think that there's a difference between slandering, say 'all white people', 'all black people', 'cops' or 'politicians' and, say, a very specific small group of people ('sandy hook families') and a necessary increase in liability to go with it. If someone says 'Officer Jones is a killer' and someone shoots Officer Jones, it's probably different than if Activist Bob says 'All cops are killers' and someone shoots officer jones. Now, if Activist Bob is the most recognizable cop hater in the whole country, which brings me to:

It seems bizarre to blame Jones as if he was the one phoning these peoples homes, right?

We live in the age of untouchable useful idiots who can be used for plausible deniability. In days past, people were more direct, and law enforcement got good at nailing organized crime. So now we have this: distributed crime with no explicit orders and all relationships are parasocial.

Alex Jones could have been Alex Jones and made up a different lie that didn't implicate random strangers as adversaries in some grand conspiracy. For example, he could have said that Adam Lanza was CIA.

Which would still be irrelevant to the question as to why he got slapped with a trillion and not others.

Many many cases go to court every day, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. Jones clowned in court, and if you do that, all bets are off.

Really? There are that many trillion dollar bills flying around the justice system?

I have difficulty imagining a more ghoulish use of a radio show than to slander the mourning parents of slain children.

I didn't specify radio shows. I said any instance of abuse or harm. Can you not think of any worse ones, more deserving of a trillion dollars in damages, than what Alex Jones did?

I suspect that someone saying 'Cops are liars, none of them died in 9/11, they're just trying to take away our right to brandish box cutters on airlines' they'd be in shit just as deep.

Why would you suspect that? Has that ever happened? I mean, when was the last time anyone got into shit a trillion dollar deep?

In my ideal world we'd discourage that type of thing, yes.

But we would not discourage group slandering, even though it leads to the exact same result? I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make. What if someone started killing members of the CIA because Alex Jones said Adam Lanza was a member of the CIA? Would that not, by your standard, be the fault of Alex Jones?

We live in the age of untouchable useful idiots who can be used for plausible deniability. In days past, people were more direct, and law enforcement got good at nailing organized crime. So now we have this: distributed crime with no explicit orders and all relationships are parasocial.

I don't understand the relevance of this. Nor do I understand the conflation of Alex Jones and InfoWars with organized crime.

Which would still be irrelevant to the question as to why he got slapped with a trillion and not others.

Same reason Amber Heard got slapped with the judgment she did, despite the entire media apparatus and even many lawyers (for purely legal reasons, unlike the media) stating she would win: he behaved badly enough to be sued, put up a poor defense, was found guilty of egregious behavior and punished.

Are we going to argue that Amber Heard was an enemy of...there's really no name for it that doesn't sound conspiratorial... The cancellation machine wielded by the Left tribe?

Kevin Spacey, one of the original villains of MeToo, just won his court case against the accuser that torched his entire career. Are we going to argue that he's a favorite of the Left-tribe cancellation machine?

People will sue you for anything, to try to destroy you, but that doesn't mean that some people actually haven't put themselves into a position to face destruction as decided by a reasonable or at least median juror or judge.

EDIT: To use an example: Gawker was rightly destroyed due to their (hypocritical) behavior when they got Hulk Hogan's sex tape. Like many unwary internet people, they fucked around with real world consequences and found out. However in that case, unlike these ones, we know for sure that Hogan had a benefactor who had his own beef with Gawker. But I don't think anyone here thinks that that means that Gawker was destined to lose because Thiel skewed the trial. No. They made an enemy so he pursued them into the legal system. He won because Gawker was seen (rightly) as behaving egregiously.

Those would all be relevant arguments if we were talking about purely win/lose consequence. But we're not. We are talking about trillions vs slaps on the wrist.

There is also a dimension on the chilling effect on speech (in the sense of free speech ideal not law!) that saying the wrong thing can be punished this harsly. I'm starting to look at these things as a societal collapse of the "western hegemony" that 40 years ago was on the same page with the fiction of Salman Rushdie is undeserving of a fatwa, and now can't agree that he deserved the attack on him because he upset some peoples feelings. The Alex Jones stuff is almost the same thing, he goes on an insane tirade that is mostly fiction and is harshly punished for that fiction and I suspect that 40 years ago the majority would have gone "it is obvious that he is insane and the things he talks about is fiction so they are undeserving of the award".

he never directed his followers to do harassment

What's your threshold for 'directing followers to do harassment' though? If people are motivated by lies, is the liar responsible? Are people just supposed to hear stuff like 'x is a government psyop trying to take your freedom' and just be like 'ok?'

What threshold do you suggest that leaves Alex Jones culpable but doesn't simultaneously make the DNC responsible for the BLM riots and their associated crime?

Replace "the DNC" with "significant figures of importance within the Democrats" if you prefer.

The threshold is defamation.

So the threshold is a sympathetic judge? Because there's an awful lot of defamation on the level of Alex Jones going around, and a whole lot of it isn't being punished with bankruptcy. What about every journalist and outlet who, even post-trial, smeared (falsely) Kyle Rittenhouse as a murderer or other sort of problem?

Because there's an awful lot of defamation on the level of Alex Jones going around

Where?

What about every journalist and outlet who, even post-trial, smeared (falsely) Kyle Rittenhouse as a murderer or other sort of problem?

Kyle Rittenhouse can and should sue them. I don't know if he'll prevail, but it's worth a shot. But whether what Rittenhouse did constitutes murder is a lot closer to a reasonable opinion than that the bereaved parents of murdered Sandy Hook elementary school children are actually crisis actors.

Where?

Oh, gosh, where to begin. Let's see, Democrats saying terrible, evil things about people...

What about Hillary Clinton repeatedly calling Donald Trump a variation of "Putin's Puppet", or otherwise accusing him of capital offenses and besmirching his character? It's hard to imagine a more damning smear in the political sphere -- being a Benedict Arnold is a way to go down in history for the worse!

"But Trump is a politician, so making shit up about him isn't a big deal!"

Okay, fine. What about Mary Lewanski, who carried water for the Waukesha murderer, and said the citizens there deserved it because it was karma? She resigned from her post, admittedly, but where's the billion dollar award for the people of Waukesha? I'd link this, but she'd scrubbed her accounts -- if you Google you can find plenty of screenshots, though, don't take my word for it. The traumatized citizens of Waukesha aren't

"Okay, but she's just a member of the DNC, not a major politician, and besides, she didn't even use anyone's specific name!"

Fine, fine.

How about Rep. Haukeem Jeffries peddling various falsehoods and inflammatory bits of misinformation, such as lying about what happened in Kenosha with Kyle Rittenhouse, or the shooting of Jacob Blake, rapist, child abductor, and felon extraordinare

(you can find more quotes from him if you want, that's just one piece).

Zero respect for the rule of law, zero knowledge of the situation, throwing political weight around and advocating for the lifetime incarceration of an innocent boy who was attacked. How irresponsible, too, given the media circus surrounding Rittenhouse, he's seriously endangering him with that sort of remark -- who knows what kind of mad vigilante might be inspired to "correct" the justice system's moral failures.

You want to say Alex Jones is a piece of shit who bullies innocent people for his cause, makes up lies about their trauma, and in general deserves a harsh punishment? Fine. Get those three people above to pay out and we can talk.

if you Google you can find plenty of screenshots, though, don't take my word for it. The traumatized citizens of Waukesha aren't

Could I get your search terms? I can’t find anything.

What about Hillary Clinton repeatedly calling Donald Trump a variation of "Putin's Puppet", or otherwise accusing him of capital offenses and besmirching his character? It's hard to imagine a more damning smear in the political sphere -- being a Benedict Arnold is a way to go down in history for the worse!

Impugning a politician's loyalties or motivations is objectively less crazy than claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.

What about Mary Lewanski, who carried water for the Waukesha murderer, and said the citizens there deserved it because it was karma?

Disagreements about moral dessert is objectively less crazy than claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.

How about Rep. Haukeem Jeffries peddling various falsehoods and inflammatory bits of misinformation, such as lying about what happened in Kenosha with Kyle Rittenhouse, or the shooting of Jacob Blake, rapist, child abductor, and felon extraordinare

You can disagree with the framing (as I do) but it does not contradict physical reality nearly to the extent of claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.

You want to say Alex Jones is a piece of shit who bullies innocent people for his cause, makes up lies about their trauma, and in general deserves a harsh punishment?

And specifically that he does so with ludicrous bad-faith falsehoods, such as claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.

I feel like you've tried throughout this exchange to avoid grappling with the actual craziness of Alex Jones' claims.

Claiming a false flag school massacre is exactly as ludicrous as claiming Kyle Rittenhouse belongs in prison. His activities were caught on film; there is no ambiguity, which is why his trial was so decisively in his favor. It's also as ridiculous as claiming innocent children deserved to be run over.

I reject your special pleading. Alex Jones' lies and harassment are not magically worse than the left's lies and harassment.

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I agree that there are democrats who should say less, but i think you are significantly downplaying how inflammatory Jones' opinions are. If you say democratic pundits have similarly ridiculous views, please hit me with an example that is on the level of this, from someone roughly as recognizable as Jones. https://youtube.com/watch?v=KGAAhzreGWw

Also one comment up you suggest that the DNC was supportive of the BLM riots, then backtrack to the motte of "democratic pundits". Why even bother with the bailey if you are gonna reframe in the next sentence?

I think we both know that the DNC doesn't broadcast an opinion on events in a comparable way to a talk show.

There was no backtracking. I don't know why you interpreted what I said as a backtrack.

As for examples: the things said about Kyle Rittenhouse, as already mentioned, are absolutely on par with the things Jones said.

As for examples: the things said about Kyle Rittenhouse

by whomst? People arguing the merits of self defense vs. murder is way more rational of a discourse than whatever alex jones goes on about. I understand this somewhat subjective, but are you saying you see accusing people of eating babies and worshipping satan (with no evidence) as the same level of ridiculousness as wanting a guy who (legally) shot others to be charged with murder?

You got me that the DNC says more inflammatory stuff than i thought they did, but i still think jones is way crazier than any well known dem.

I think we both know that the DNC doesn't broadcast an opinion on events in a comparable way to a talk show.

You sure? Here, here, and here are the comments they made in the week after Floyd's death. Those three statements (combined) don't meet my standard for responsibility, but A) someone else can have different standards, and B) it's not a complete list.

(If you want to replicate my search, go to https://democrats.org/news/page/276/ , read the headlines and click on likely ones, then go to the more recent releases until you feel like stopping.)

I'll admit thats way more ridiculous messaging than i had seen from them elsewhere, mea culpa i should look before i speak in that regard.

No worries. It took me years to learn that you can just look up public information when things are unclear.

(One of the more recent places where "just look it up" helped me was reading about Carolyn Strom: every news source printed an almost-identical, obviously incomplete story. Sometimes, they were actually identical because they were reposting from a wire service. Going to the court records was so much more informative.)

As a calibrating scenario, remember that guy who tried to assassinate the conservative supreme court justices a few months back? That situation seems to have gone very quiet, but let's speculate that he was found to have been "inspired" by the rhetoric of a leftist group or media. Would it be reasonable to sue/prosecute Ruth Sent Us or MSNBC into oblivion?

that guy who tried to assassinate the conservative supreme court justices a few months back?

You mean the unhinged guy who got to Brett Kavanaugh's street, saw a couple beat cops, started hyperventilating and immediately turned himself in? Not a massive threat.

Ruth Sent Us should be prosecuted for the actual firebombings it has committed first.

Would it be reasonable to sue/prosecute Ruth Sent Us or MSNBC into oblivion?

Yes. If, in fact, the Supreme Court had not struck down Roe v. Wade, but MSNBC repeatedly claimed that it had for literally years. Maybe if MSNBC repeatedly showed details of the Justices personal lives (as Jones did for the children's gravesites, parents phone numbers, etc) while claiming that they were deep state crisis actors or something. If the Supreme Court Justices were nobody private citizens who suffered their children being murdered instead of public officials who to some degree have sought the spotlight. For good measure, throw in substantial amounts of evidence that MSNBC knew what they were saying was false but said it anyways to sell snake oil penis enlargement pills. And then MSNBC just refused to comply with court orders so they received a default judgment against them.

I have to say if you're using that scenario to calibrate, we took a wrong turn somewhere. There's a debate to be had around publicizing addresses and other personal information of private citizens (all publicly available information if they own property - less of a problem when it was buried in filing cabinets, more of a problem now that apps can look up addresses in seconds), but that's a separate discussion considering all the other crap Alex Jones did.

Also, Alex Jones repeatedly admitted to shooting the children in Sandy Hook himself. Checkmate, conservatives.

I have to say if you're using that scenario to calibrate, we took a wrong turn somewhere.

It was what came to mind when I cast about for other examples of "person inspired to violence by overheated rhetoric." I stand by it being useful as a calibrating tool precisely because it allows us to compare and contrast, and see the reasons people might take differing conclusions. For example, you seem to be taking the fact that Jones was lying as a major aggravating factor; I think that it's helpful to pull that out and make it explicit.

If he had gone on unhinged rants that keyed off, say, Elizabeth Warren being a fake Indian, and viewers had harassed her over it, how much blame do you think Jones should get? If he calmly and reasonably laid out the game theory of dead SC justices during an [R] presidency, and a viewer made a (weak, failed) attempted assassination, how much blame should he get?

You talk about a lot of reasons why Alex Jones is a terrible person, but none of that is relevant, fundamentally, to whether or not angry rhetoric and conspiratorial thinking qualifies as inciting other people to criminal behavior.

To be clear, the report that "the supreme court plans to overturn Roe v Wade and Brett Kavanaugh will be the most moderate justice voting for a full overturn" is proven true beyond a shadow of a doubt, while there is at the very least not enough evidence in favor of the hypothesis that no one died at sandy hook and the parents are all actors to claim that it is obviously true.

I think the true-false(or at least definitely not proven) distinction is highly relevant here, as is the distinction that Politico(which actually originated the story about the supreme court overturn) would mount a legal defense instead of trying to ignore the court.

You talk about a lot of reasons why Alex Jones is a terrible person

No, I listed some of the ways in which the hypothetical OP gave differed from the Jones trial.

whether or not angry rhetoric and conspiratorial thinking qualifies as inciting other people to criminal behavior.

If you're asking legally, I'm not particularly interested in LARPing a lawyer this afternoon and chasing tails with others doing the same.

If you're asking morally, I take a dim view of people doxxing private citizens (including Ruth Sent Us, fig leaves notwithstanding and posting their private contact info. There's enough radicalized people on both sides such that publicizing the private info of any polarizing figure virtually guarantees that some nutjobs on one side or the other will harass them.

So, legally, you're not interested in whether or not non-Jones figures who have said awful things should be held accountable (like Jones was), but you can at least agree they were morally awful.

Well, that's cool, though speaking as someone on Jones' side of the aisle, I'd rather have legal equality instead of moral.

Well I'll be looking forward to seeing the "Diversity is our strength" people getting raked over hot coals for continuing to repeat it for years despite substantial evidence of them knowing that ethnic heterogeneity increases the crime rate, then.

prosecute [...] MSNBC into oblivion?

Don't threaten me with a good time

If people are motivated by lies, is the liar responsible?

No.

Are people just supposed to hear stuff like 'x is a government psyop trying to take your freedom' and just be like 'ok?'

Yes. Or at least, it isn't on Alex Jones if they choose to do something other than that.

I literally could sue you for a trillion dollars for your failure in this post to acknowledge my greatness. Winning a trillion dollar judgement and then actually getting you to pay me this amount would be harder.

Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?

How many mafia one-liners can you fit into one paragraph? I suppose I'll settle for "it's not about the money. It's about sending a message". In this case, the message is directed to other "right-wing pundits" outside the MSM. Stay in line - or else.

If "in line" means "don't claim that people whose kids just got murdered are crisis actors and dox them" then staying "in line" shouldn't be very restrictive at all.

I think it is understandable that people who lost their children are incredibly vindictive. The perpetrator is dead (and he wasn't even punished as he shot himself — so he died his own, most likely pre-planned way), so the next target of the revenge is Alex Jones. We talk here about "decoupling", but it's easy to do "decoupling" for those who didn't suffer through the horrible loss ("Didn't these parents read Milton? They are such morons!"). Also, why did you put the word "victims" in quotes? Jones doubling down doesn't help him: "The verdict, he said, was an attempt to 'scare us away from questioning Uvalde and what really happened there, or Parkland or any other event'". This behavior doesn't invite compassion.

Position of the judges or journalists on the subject is something else entirely (as they should have higher ability to "decouple"), but I wanted to address the apparent lack of empathy in your post.

That still doesn't answer the question asked. Why is Alex Jones the one getting slapped with a trillion dollar bill? This question isn't being asked in a vacuum. The question arises from the context of other cases and events. There are families who have had their loved ones killed, and then watched the court system be as lenient as it can be on the killer. Where is their trillion dollars? Why, if its about empathy for other peoples grief and vengeance, do we not slap every deserving criminal with a trillion dollar bill?

This is one of half a dozen comments in this thread where the boring but absolutely correct answer is "One of these things meets the legal standard for defamation and the other, transparently and obviously, does not."

That answer is obviously lacking considering no other defamation cases end up with a trillion dollar tagline.

Then by all means make a comparison with something that actually does meet the legal standard for defamation!

Take any defamation case that did not result in a trillion dollar fine and compare it with this one.

Why is Alex Jones the one getting slapped with a trillion dollar bill?

Why indeed are they picking on poor Alex? Good question with several possible answers.

1/ Normie answer: This is incorruptible justice system of the most free country at work. Justice is served, mission accomplished.

2/ Conspirational answer A: TPTB are afraid of Alex Jones and want to silence him because he is speaking the truth. They chose this convoluted way, instead of, for example, sudden accident or heart attack, to frighten and intimidate all brave truth seeking dissidents.

3/ Conspirational answer B: Alex Jones was doing his work - shitcoating and derailing people who are asking questions with barrage of nonsense, first, after 9/11 from the "left", now from the "right" - excellently and is going to be promoted further. For this purpose, it is necessary burnish his dissident credentials by publicly persecuting him and turning him into martyr, ideally in such way that will not harm him in the slightest.

If we are of conspirational, tinfoil hat mindset, how to find out whether A or B is true?

We will see whether Alex Jones will be indeed silenced, whether he will be completely ruined by the judgement and end homeless on the street, or whether he will continue broadcasting louder than ever before. his miraculous soy pill business will prosper as before and his lifestyle and living standards will not diminish.

Have patience.

Islamic Republic of Iran was, for each person killed in 9/11, ordered to pay upto 12.5M USD. If this rate was applied to Sandy Hook and Jones was the killer and not a defamer, he would be on the hook for only 338M USD, and not more than 1B USD.

This behavior doesn't invite compassion.

Doubting and even suppressing massacres on an even larger scale, such as Katyn, was the official policy of the Western Allies, yet the majority position today is one of support for their general cause.

On the other hand, punishing lying "journalists", such as Streicher Julius, was also part of the Allies MO. So WW2 doesn't definitive precedent.

Islamic Republic of Iran was, for each person killed in 9/11, ordered

By a federal judge in New York.

Alex Jones lost in Connecticut.

Can we leave some room for regional variation as a thesis?

Because, tbh, this feels like the comparisons that Leftists do whenever one black person gets a lower sentence (or is harmed more) than some white person somewhere else. It's a large country with lots of laws, all sorts of reasons people could behave differently in different cases.

Islamic Republic of Iran was, for each person killed in 9/11, ordered to pay upto 12.5M USD.

Wait, why was Iran (a Shia country) ordered to pay for an attack commited by a Salafist (Sunni fundamentalism) terrorist organization?

I'm not sure why you find "lets help random terrorists/revolutionaries who oppose our regional (Saudi Arabia) and global rival (USA)" an implausible motivation for Iran's helping Al Quaeda.

Next up, why would a Democracy help Wahhabi Jihadis in Afghanistan (against the Soviet Union)? Why would a Woke nation help literal Nazis in Ukraine (against Russia)? Why would a Communist country help Nationalists in Puerto Rico or Ireland (against the USA)?

I don't think the IRA were really all that interested in America; if anything, Irish-Americans were probably already sympathetic. Now, Britain, on the other hand...

My point is that the Soviet Union (a communist, and therefore anti-nationalist) country supported the IRA. It wasn't because they agreed with Irish nationalism, it was because causing trouble for Britain was fun and in their interest. Same reason Iran might help AQ or other Sunni militant groups whose primary focus is on overthrowing MBS.

because they got sued, and they didnt show up the court, so they lost by default.

The same reason Iraq got invaded.

Well maybe they should have thought of that before they chose to join the Axis of Evil!

It's funny how hard it is to remember now how ridiculous everything was after 9/11; the broader narrative got swept under the rug, and there's only these tiny unremembered historical anecdotes left, only collected by the former webmaster of antiwar dot com who was laid off in Jan 2009.

But, why would anyone apply that rate? The damages are completely different; this wasn't a wrongful death action.

Note also that the award in the Iran case was set by a judge, and the judge in the Jones case is free to reduce the damages awarded by the jury. So, your comparison is at best premature.

I put "victims" in quotes because I do not believe them to be victims in the context of Alex Jones's actions. They are victims of a great deal of other grievances, namely the brutal murders of their children. But Alex Jones's actions do not seem to rise to the level to which I'd classify these parents as victims. And I do not believe they deserve the outrageous numbers ($) that are thrown around left and right in this context.

Leaving aside the issue of the amount of damages, surely, this was a textbook case of defamation; if these parents were not defamed, then no one can be a victim of defamation. Do you mean that most of their damages were not caused by him?

I was under the impression that the problem here was not that someone believes something to be untrue about these peoples lives, but that there were people calling their homes and, in the true meaning of the word, otherwise harassing them.

I am not sure how things work legally in the US, but it seems odd to me to run some causal chain of events in attempting to deduce what the primary cause was and then piling all them blame on that cause. If it's not illegal to believe that Sandy Hook was a hoax, then why is it illegal to say it? I mean, I can easily understand why it's illegal to phone someones house multiple times. The other things seem much more muddied to a point where I doubt the consistency of the support for this sort of prosecution.

It is not illegal in the US to say that Sandy Hook was a hoax. Heck, in the US, it is not illegal to say that the Holocaust was a hoax. Nor can saying that subject you to civil liability. But Jones did far more than that. He made false statements about specific individuals.

Depending on whether they're public figures I believe this affects the evidentiary burden.

But I don't know whether the Sandy Hook parents count (or counted at the time). The surviving kids definitely put themselves out there.

It doesn't change the evidentiary burden, but rather it changes the standard. If they are public figures -- and they probably are -- they must show that Jones acted with "actual malice" - i.e. that he either knew his statements were false, or he acted with reckless disregard of whether they were true. That standard seems easily met in this case.

That's more correct, thanks!

Only if you view Alex Jones as capable of defamation. He does not strike me as reliable or reasonable enough to cause reputational damage.

So that is an argument that he did not cause the damage. Because obviously the people who harassed the parents believed someone who made the same claims he did.

Unreasonable wackos will take unreasonable wacky actions.

If only the unreasonable believe the unreasonable claim have you suffered reputational damage?

If Alex Jones defamed the parents, and harassment by unreasonable whackos was foreseeable and transpired as a result, then yes: they have suffered clear harm that was clearly the result of clear defamation.

We could imagine an alternate universe where the conspiracy theory was the parents were at fault for sending their kids to globohomo public school with gay frog sex books in the library, where one of the failed experiments comes back and shoots up the place.

The wackos still harass the parents for sending the kids to globohomo school.

The unreasonable wackos will be themselves regardless of the specifics of the claim.

Did the court proceedings make it to the 'merits'?

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That interpretation is not really concordant with the First Amendment; it holds every speaker hostage to their nuttiest listener.

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These people suffered far more than reputational damage, right? Assuming that it was his statement that the wackos believed, then 1. He said a lie; a third party heard it; and 3) the third party acted in a way that caused the parents damage. That is the quintessence of an action for defamation.

Yes damage, but not necessarily to their reputation.

Their bakery business didn't experience a precipitous drop in trade as the result of a false accusation that was magnified by the administration of the nearby university.

They didn't experience a decline in work and sponsorships based on a false accusation that he was a wife / girlfriend beater.

Only individuals with an already tenuous grasp on reality seem to have been motivated by this 'conspiracy'. Any conspiracy would have likely done, a non-falsifiable one would preclude defamation.

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