Jones stated that the Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors. he knew that to be false. it was an egregious case of defamation. knowingly spreading lies that damage someone's reputation is called slander, and it's not protected by the first amendment. neither is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or committing perjury, or falsifying your income taxes.
> knowingly spreading lies that damage someone's reputation is called slander, and it's not protected by the first amendment
Only in spoken word is it slander. Written it'd be libel, whereas defamation covers both. The lies have to be about regarding factual matters, not just odious opinions.
> neither is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater,
That's a bad example from an overturned case that created an overly broad standard, which is why you shouldn't use that as an example of something not protected:
So in other words, only people with a reputation for integrity should have to abide by the law, and as long as someone is a known pathological liar, they should be allowed to defame and send armies of trolls to harass anyone they feel like, whenever and as often as they like?
It is very clear that he doesn’t believe his own nonsense (did you follow the trial?). He’s not “crazy” in the sense that he does not comprehend reality, but rather in the sense that he is a psychopath who doesn’t have empathy for other humans and doesn’t have any respect for society and its basic norms and rules, including civil/criminal law.
The dude figured out a way to personally profit off the murder of a bunch of 6-year-olds by calling them all actors and then mercilessly targeting their families for harassment. It was beyond malicious: one of the most heinously sadistic patterns of behavior in American history. Your defense of it is grotesque.
With any luck, criminal charges will eventually catch up with him and he’ll spend many years in prison.
> It is very clear that he doesn’t believe his own nonsense (did you follow the trial?). He’s not “crazy” in the sense that he does not comprehend reality, but rather in the sense that he is a psychopath who doesn’t have empathy for other humans and doesn’t have any respect for society and its basic norms and rules, including civil/criminal law.
What specifics in the trial made it clear that he comprehends reality but acted "psychopathic" on purpose?
> That seems tenuous. I don't think anyone can prove what Alex Jones believed.
“Prove” in this context means “convince a jury that it is more likely true than not”; legal proof is not logical/mathematical proof, and, among legal standards of proof, the main civil standard (“preponderance of the evidence”) is lower than the standard required for criminal conviction (“beyond a reasonable doubt”).
Beliefs and other mental states are routinely proven in court under both the criminal and civil standards. The arguments that this is impossible rely on concepts of “proof” that are not applicable to the legal environment.
Juries are not mind readers. At best you can get to roughly what a rational person would have thought given said data, Alex Jones is not rational. It is literally unknowable.
This is actually a legit distinction and a jury could base their decision on this. However, the matter is entirely up to the jury and in this case they decided they did know what he thought and there's not much that can be done about it.
It could well be reduced on appeal and it's unlikely they can pay that much, however.
In the context of needed a specific outcome in finite time, a legal process can never be certain of anything. We depend on process like juries to come to a good enough conclusion.
The phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt” describes the standard of proof for criminal conviction as a safeguard b/c of the special potential consequences (like execution, imprisonment, disenfranchisement, and lasting legal disabilities) associated with such conviction.
It has no bearing on a civil defamation suit, where the general burden is merely “preponderance of the evidence” (i.e., given what evidence each side has presented, what the jury finds more likely to be true.)
A) after the amount of mind boggling conspiracies by the CIA NSA etc that were proven to be true, are we really going to make conspiracy theories illegal? (In this case I don’t think it’s true, but conspiracies do exist)
B) how can you be held accountable for the actions of a mob? If I go crazy over your hacker news comment, should you be liable for inciting me?
You're making up a narrative for why suppressing free speech is acceptable in this instance, not discharging the notion that free speech was, in fact, suppressed.
The fact that a conspiracy talk radio guy can get hit with a billion dollar fine for some off-hand nutso claim (that he subsequently recanted!) is a very unpromising barometer for the health of free speech in our country.
> suppressing free speech is acceptable in this instance
Libel, slander, and defamation are not free speech. You do not have the right to repeatedly, knowingly, lie about someone else, especially when said lies ruin peoples' lives.
> billion dollar fine for some off-hand nutso claim
It wasn't a claim, he asserted it as fact, and it wasn't just once, he did this up until he got sued, and even made up conspiracies about the trials as they were happening.
> (that he subsequently recanted!)
If Jones truly did believe he was correct about Sandy Hook being fake, the moment he found out he was wrong, he should have delivered a formal apology and begged his audience to stop harassing the families of the victims. He should have publicly rebuked people like Wolfgang Halbig and any callers who talked about the "Sandy Hook hoax" and chastised the harassers.
But he never did that. Instead it's "I already said I was sorry, I might have been wrong but I'm right like 95+% of the time, why are people so angry at me? It's all part of a plot by the globalists to shut us down, buy my iodine."
> a very unpromising barometer for the health of free speech in our country
So "free speech" is when someone with a significant media presence is able to knowingly spread lies about you that lead to over a decade of stalking and harassment with no recourse?
If you're an American, you might want to consult a lawyer on that. Our civil liberties have been heavily curtailed over the years, but this verdict isn't threatening anyone's rights.
I would take a different tack on this: the speech was legally unhindered, that is, free.
The consequences of the speech are, however, borne by the speaker.
I'm not sure this covers all cases of consequential burdening, but it does seem to cover many of them. A future prohibition on speech, gag order, banning from online or broadcast services, etc., might be a harder case to make, though these could still be seen as sanctions on behaviour rather than content.
I'm not defending Jones at all here, his penalties are exceedingly well deserved and have been far too delayed.
> I would take a different tack on this: the speech was legally unhindered, that is, free. The consequences of the speech are, however, borne by the speaker.
If you do redefine freedom of speech thus, then what place in the world doesn't have it? Even in North Korea you can speak freely for a short while before you have to bear the consequences.
Prior restraint and criminal punishment would seem to be two fairly obvious standards. Neither apply in this case.
Freedom of speech is never an absolute, it had a long history of far lower significance in the United States prior to the 1950s, and has a long an complex history.
I'm not a legal scholar, I'm still researching the background and history myself. Two resources of possible interest and use to yourself and others:
Jacob Mchangama's Clear and Present Danger podcast, 40 episodes plus several special installments on the history of free expression. The creator tends rather more libertarian than I, though he's not an absolutist. That said, there's reasonably little bias I'd noted in the overall presentation, which is nuanced.
On texts ... there's a whole heck of a lot. I've not read the Very Short Introduction title yet, but have added it to my own reading mountain/asteroid:
Alex was free to say it and the people he defamed were free to sue him for saying it. Alex was free to hire competent legal counsel for the trial(s), and he hired a bunch of wacky, like-minded nincompoops instead.
There were so many points in this saga where Alex could have made decisions that would have made the outcome less severe and he doubled down almost every time instead. Even as the last trial was wrapping up, he was going on air and defaming the judge in the case while calling one of the plaintiffs "slow" and a victim of manipulation[1].
There is such a thing as consequences for your actions.
> There is such a thing as consequences for your actions.
A system which produces effects extrinsically equivalent to direct proscriptions on free speech is not better than a system which explicitly proscribes some speech, and is arguably worse, because it tricks credulous people into thinking it's not as bad.
Do you believe there is any kind of speech that is appropriate to have consequences for, or is there literally no line that could be crossed in your world view?
The state did not. The fine was decided by a jury.
I have a very strong suspicion that if I started exercising my 'freedoms' in a harassing manner against you personally then suddenly your views would be very different.
His speech isn't being suppressed. The government didn't arrest him. He's being sued for damages he caused to the families of the victims he lied about. That's as American as it gets.
>His speech isn't being suppressed. The government didn't arrest him. He's being sued for damages he caused to the families of the victims he lied about. That's as American as it gets.
I'd add that he is still free to continue lying forever. No one is stopping him from doing so.
>That ... may remain to be seen. Though it does seem to presently be the case.
What legal mechanism might someone use to stop Alex Jones from saying whatever the hell he wants?
I mean, sure, a bullet to the brain or a successful car bomb would shut him up, but that's murder.
IIUC (IANAL), Alex Jones can, while in the United States (with certain very limited exceptions), say whatever he feels like saying.
If he defames someone (in the case we're discussing here, the families of children killed in Newtown, CT in 2012), they are also free (as they did) to sue him for such defamation.
What, exactly, do you see changing with respect to the current status quo? What legal basis would you base such changes on?
In preparing this reply, I noted this comment[0] of yours which reads, in part:
I'm not sure this covers all cases of consequential burdening, but
it does seem to cover many of them. A future prohibition on speech,
gag order, banning from online or broadcast services, etc., might
be a harder case to make, though these could still be seen as
sanctions on behaviour rather than content.
I am unclear as to how any of that could happen under US civil law. There certainly are examples of such orders in criminal cases, but very different rules/laws/regimes apply between the two.
Unless Jones is criminally charged, I don't see how any of that could happen in a civil legal proceeding in the US.
Are you taking the idea that "speech has consequences" to its logical extreme and hypothesizing that private actors may curtail Jones' access to media?
I'd say that doesn't stop him from pontificating about anything on a bar stool (unless the bar owners don't like it and throw him out) or on his own private property.
Or are you hypothesizing that laws will change and his defamation activity will be criminalized?
If I misunderstand your point (always a possibility), my apologies. I'd just like to understand the mechanism(s) you're alluding to that could result in someone "stopping him from doing so[1]".
N.B.: I'll say it again: IANAL. Also, I find Jones' behavior reprehensible and hope he ends up destitute and living in a cardboard box under a highway overpass.
One example might be legal injunctions, which could prohibit specific actions directly. These may be temporary or permanent, and are generally applied through civil law.
In cases of professional or corporate misconduct, individuals may be stripped of professional certification (e.g., law, medical, or engineering licences), or barred from participating in specific roles within an organisation. An example, also from a civil (rather than criminal) case is this temporary bar against participating in hedge-fund activities:
A third possibility might be to have a mandate that a representative of the plaintiff's be granted a board seat, editorial oversight, or some similar role in any future media role held by Alex Jones. I'm not aware of any specific similar instance, though lawsuits seeking, e.g., board representation, have been filed. See:
In cases of cybercrime there are many instances of punishments (typically criminal law in this case) of defendants being barred from Internet access. That seems to have somewhat fallen from favour though I believe it's still practiced. A 2003 discussion:
Late edit: Another example of extant prior restraint would be prepublication review, a process which applies to members of the intelligence and justice communities. I just heard a mention of it during a Fresh Air interview of Geoffrey Berman. It's described (for the NSA/CSS) here:
Jones made money from lying, but remains free of government interference. Nobody’s killing him or even putting him in jail. That’s the very definition of free speech.
But free speech doesn’t mean speech without consequences. He’s being sued by the victims of what he said. It’s not the government doing this, it’s the people he hurt, and that’s the definition of “justice”.
Defamation is a thing you can be sued for. The plaintiffs successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation. Him making money didn't have much to do with that.
In this phase about damages, the economics can be considered as a factor. It can also imply his motivations. The testimony given in this hearing showed direct connections between defaming Sandy Hook victims and money made by Alex Jones. He knew it was a money making story from the first day.
A true believer might spend their time and money on useful evidence instead of crappy photoshops and flashy nonsense. Alex Jones wasn't doing that. He was pushing the flashy nonsense, calling it evidence, and watching the money roll in.
He never really tried to prove his theories because that isn't a required part of the grift.
Essentially, he did an illegal thing (defamation) and made money by doing that illegal thing. Economic fines and damages are pretty common to dissuade people from doing illegal things to make money.
What Jones said wasn’t criminal. He’s allowed to say what he wants. But what he said did cause harm to people. So those people are using the same legal system that allows Jones to say whatever he likes, to make him fix the damage he caused by saying it.
The fact that he made money from it simply helps the judge - who is not part of the government executive - understand the motivation for what he did. The reason someone did something might be a mitigating factor in some cases, but this time it’s probably aggravating.
He made hundreds of millions of dollars spreading his lies. He shouldn't profit from that, and should be forced to give all the revenue to the families he effected with his lies.
You shouldn't be able to profit off of others misery like that, get caught out, and then go whoopsy and pay a small percentage of all the money you made off of it. That just encourages you and others to do it again.
But maybe he does not think they're lies. He thinks he is spreading the truth. Doesn't that make a difference, from lying on purpose for profit?
The same for the people giving him money. They don't care what he says, they never believed Sandy Hook was real for starters. They give him money because they want to see it "uncovered" and investigated from the only "journalist" that takes it
To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
You're right - it is OK as long as he's not profiting nor has a bullhorn the size of his. Otherwise, Wolfgang Halbig would be in the same kind of shit. He isn't.
If there ever was such a country, would people want to live there? And if they wouldn’t, doesn’t that just mean it would change?
I can’t see how some form of free speech absolutism would even function.
As for the size of the damages: in the US, weirdly, rich people pay more damages because I assume it’s also a way of making them stop committing the crime and not simply compensation for damage done.
It's a bit more complicated than that, but fundamentally, defamation involves a "false statement of fact". Weasel wording that would be understood by a "reasonable person" to imply facts can be defamatory even if the verbiage says "opinion", so it may require more careful language to stay on the safe side, but I can't think of any opinion that couldn't fundamentally be expressed at all.
Everyone is cool with fundamental erosions of our liberties as long as some fat jackass get what he deserves. They will never realize people like Trump and Jones are used specifically FOR that purpose.
*People downvoting have never heard of Wolfgang Halbig nor do they really care. That doesn't jive with their need to virtue signal.
