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Comment by CodeSgt | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure if I see how this changes the fundamental nature of the lawsuit. "Spreading disinformation", whether you profit from it or not, is really just "Speaking your incorrect opinion out loud" in a more negative light.

The basis of the lawsuit was "This man said things that made me upset". And yeah, they were rightfully upset, but it's something that I think any court in a country that values freedom would throw out in a heart beat.

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Is your position basically that I should be able to post "CodeSgt is a sex offender and murderer" signs around your neighbourhood, and to your employer and social circle, and this is completely fine because it only has the effect of making you "upset"?

The basis of the lawsuit was defamation which is different than spreading disinformation.

A lot of the legal documents can be found here [1] but I already know you aren't going to both yourself with the specifics of the case.

The short version is, if somebody sues you, you need to go through the legal motions otherwise you lose by default and then their side is considered factual when determining damages regardless of if it actually was. My personal opinion is that he knew he'd lose under Texas's defamation law and so decided the optics looked better not to fight.

[1]: https://infowarslawsuit.com/

I'm not sure why you feel the need to make negative assumptions about what I will/won't do. Doesn't seen like a character judgement is relevant to the discussion. I even said "maybe I'm missing something".

For some reason, I had thought that there were certain lawsuits that wouldn't even be entertained by the court, regardless of whether the defendant chose to actually defend themselves. If that is the case, I think this should have been one of those. If that's not the case, I still don't see how a fine of $1b, or even $100k, could ever be considered reasonable in this situation.

On the defamation part, someone else responded similar so I'll copy and paste my response here:

> I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong, but aren't those cases only held up and prosecuted when the victim(s) suffered real financial damages? E.g. lost their job, company went under, etc. I have yet to see what tangible damages Alex Jones caused the parents of the Sandy Hook incident. Emotional damages to be sure, but I don't believe fining someone because they hurt another's feelings is a good precedent to set.

It would be nice if people didn't barf their uninformed opinions all over HN with the excuse of, basically, "idk what I'm talking, come at me bro(with citations pls)".

Then expect people to drip-feed them basic legal education.

I guess doing some basic research on libel, defamation, punitive damages, and IDK.., the case at hand?, isn't contentious enough. Hard to get into an argument with Wikipedia.

Yeah sure, anyone who isn't an expert at the topic at hand should be barred from participating in any discussion about it.

No you've missed the point.

Parent was not claiming you need to be an expert on something to talk about it. parent is claiming you should do at least a bare minimum of research (i.e. read the lawsuit) before making claims about what the lawsuit contains.

You also initially made the claim "[Alex Jones] was just fined approximately $1 billion USD for no more than speaking" which is also (as far as the courts are now concerned) demonstrably false. He was fined $1 billion for encouraging and paying for the harassment of multiple individuals in addition to speaking and other offenses assumed to be true as he did not defend himself through the courts. I mean what information lead you to make this point? This is the problem that the Parent is talking about, any sort of cursory reading of the case would show you why Alex Jones is in trouble.

Are you arguing against the entire legal concept of libel/defamation?

When I was in law school, in the before times, libel and defamation were treated as a holdover from British common law. We learned how they had been winnowed down in the long “arc of justice,” starting with the Zenger trial in 1735. This trend of weakening libel and defamation laws, and any constraints on speech, was treated as uniformly positive.

Weakening... but not down to nothing. It's a lot harder to be found guilty of libel in the US than in the UK, and that's a good thing. You still can be, though, and that is also a good thing.

("Guilty" may be the wrong word, because it's not a criminal offense, but I'm not sure what the right one is here.)

> ("Guilty" may be the wrong word, because it's not a criminal offense, but I'm not sure what the right one is here.)

Defamation is a crime in many jurisdictions, including the US (not federally, but in over 20 states). Prosecutions and convictions are rare-but not non-existent. At least in the US, punishments are light (Wikipedia cites a study saying that the average custodial sentence for criminal libel in the US is just under six months). In free countries, prosecutions are generally reserved for particularly egregious cases (e.g. suppose A does some trivial thing to offend B, so as payback B plasters posters all over town accusing A of sex crimes, with the allegation being completely invented). Given this, the vast majority of defamation cases are civil not criminal.

Do folks going through law school grasp how proliferation of libelous and defamatory statements happens now, without friction and at the speed of light? And the outsized impact it can have as compared to times ago? I would posit that libel and defamation should be even weightier issues than when British common law was around. We live in a time of companies dropping employees like stones seconds after they've gone viral in a poor light and loonies across the globe being galvanized into partaking in many shades of atrocities at the prodding of people who are learned in the ways of persuasive and effective oratory. The import of community (religious or merely cultural) was stronger back then, if someone was saying something shitty in earlier times they'd get a stern talking to by peers and community leaders. Things have changed, the power of those institutions has waned, tort law should thus come back stronger than ever to fill in the new gaps.

I'm encouraged in seeing the turnout of Alex Jones ordeal and am anxiously waiting to see how Dominion vs Fox News unfolds. I am hoping that the aftermath of all this is that journalists/people-pretending-to-be-journalists/anyone-with-a-sizable-platform will be more careful about their reporting and statements. Of course this is all a murky area because many times it's hard to decide what is true and even harder to decide who gets to do the deciding but for getting the obvious things wrong and when signs of bad faith are clearly there the hammer should get dropped more often, I think such an environment would reduce chaos and extremism that we are seeing more and more of.

If a famous person spreads lies about my murdered kids for profit which results in years of harassment and death threats it's not simply "spreading disinformation".

That's quite literally all that it is. Maybe you dont like it, I dont like it either, but Alex Jones's part in this was just speaking. The individuals doing the harassment and making death threats should of course be punished. But holding someone accountable for the actions of hundreds of people they've never met is absurd. Did Alex Jones encourage the harassment? Did he tell his followers to go send death threats? If he did, I've certainly not seen it. And if he did, it would be a slightly different story. But speaking your incorrect opinion should not make you liable for the actions of a few deranged individuals who choose to act on that information in a negative way.

> [1] Defendants’ latest malicious statements were part of a continuous pattern of five years of intentional and reckless harassment accomplished through dozens of disturbing video broadcasts, a relentless stream of recklessly false articles published on InfoWars.com, harassing social media content, as well as the encouragement, aid, and financial support to third-parties in furthering this 23 harassment.

The lawsuit literally claims they (Alex Jones) encouraged the harassment.

[1]: https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-...

The lawsuit can claims whatever it likes. I didn't say that the lawsuit never claimed it. I said that I haven't actually seen evidence of Alex Jones actively encouraging the harrasment. If you have that, please share.

Alex Jones could have argued that he didn't do that. He could have presented evidence. Instead, he tried to game the courts, refusing discovery and refusing to follow standard court procedures. That kind of game results in the courts assuming that the other side is factually correct, without them having to prove it. It's like your football team losing because they never bothered to take the field.

Why did Jones take this approach? I see four possibilities, and they're all bad.

1. He didn't think the rules applied to him.

2. He thought the court system was corrupt enough that he couldn't get a fair trial.

3. He knew he was likely to lose on the facts anyway.

4. He thought that the publicity of "not cooperating with the system" (or whatever) would be more valuable than the cost of losing the case.

Whatever the reason, he did this to himself. He threw away his chance to refute the claims against him, and the result is that the claims against him are regarded as true.

Don't treat the courts as a show. They're not. There are real consequences for the kind of game Jones played.

> He thought that the publicity of "not cooperating with the system" (or whatever) would be more valuable than the cost of losing the case.

Sounds like he won. I can entertain a thought that given he's not going to pay it anyway, he actually wanted the fine to be as high as possible.

> Whatever the reason, he did this to himself

I don't think folks are pitying Alex Jones here. If he exploited judicial system to gain more publicity, this undermines the system. If judge/jury got emotional and gave him a "fuck you" fine, we shouldn't celebrate it, even if the guy is a total asshole.

> Don't treat the courts as a show. They're not. There are real consequences

It's not a show, and yet he got one. I'm not so sure about "real" consequences. Most folks seem to think that there isn't a difference between $500M and $1B fine.

> That's quite literally all that it is

Using a media empire to sustain a campaign of harassment against innocent people is not the same thing as e.g. broadcasting lies about the safety of vaccines.

> speaking your incorrect opinion should not make you liable for the actions

It should when the target of your "incorrect opinion" is a private citizen being attacked because of your misinformation. Your flippant dismissal as "a few deranged individuals" does not match up with reality.

Libel and defamation are forms of disinformation and have long been held to have civil repercussions. This case against Alex Jones is an extension of that IMHO.

I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong, but aren't those cases only held up and prosecuted when the victim(s) suffered real financial damages? E.g. lost their job, company went under, etc.

I have yet to see what tangible damages Alex Jones caused the parents of the Sandy Hook incident. Emotional damages to be sure, but I don't believe fining someone because they hurt another's feelings is a good precedent to set.

Several of the parents had to move multiple times. Probably accepting less-favourable prices for their old home in the process, not to mention potential loss of career advancement opportunities when you're having to move house constantly.

Other parents were compelled to hire full time security[2], which can't be cheap.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/parents-of-jewish-sandy-hook-v...

[2] https://www.mediaite.com/news/alex-jones-false-claims-forced...

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