Sandy Hook Families Seek $2.75T from Alex Jones

[prepend]

> They reached the sum by multiplying the state law’s $5,000 per-violation fine by the 550 million social media exposures Jones’s audience received on his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts in the three years following a school shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.

Is this defamation calculation valid? Is the calculation based on the number of people who listen or read? If so, they would need to see how many actually viewed as not every follower sees every post by people they follow.

Maybe one of the nice upsides is that these social media firms are forced to reveal the source to how they display posts.

[karmakurtisaani]

I think the amount they receive can only go down in court, so you want to start with the highest number you can justify in any way. This is just a way to get the initial number up.

[chrismcb]

I would assume the per violation has nothing to do with his many people witnessed it.

[tinglymintyfrsh]

One can seek $X dollars, but collecting is another story. He'll probably declare bankruptcy at some point, if he hasn't already.

[lettergram]

He already declared bankruptcy, they said during the trial — their goal is that he never can work again

[lettergram]

It's been crazy to watch how fast these flags are coming lol

IMO the more crazy the amount the more likely this gets overturned. It's probably counter-productive to the plantiffs stated objective to ask for trillions lol. Regardless, Jones or the businesses don't have to pay until all the appeals are done. So increasing the odds of appeal helps no one.

Fun Fact, 2.75T is approximately the GDP of France.

[modzu]

theres no problem too big or too small that enough lawyers cant fix

[dekhn]

If so, that's quite stupid. That's more money that the richest person in the world has, and it's incommensurate with the impact of Jones's behavior. It serves nobody- not even the families whose children were killed.

[lettergram]

I mean… if anyone watched the trial this whole thing is a joke. He may have done something bad, but the trial was Soviet level.

I followed the trial and this is the way the “trial” went:

1. Plaintiffs / Judge claimed he had evidence (marketing material on sandy hook - claimed he never had marketing material)

2. Jones said he didn’t

3. discovery didn’t prove the evidence ever existed

4. Judge then said “guilty by default, because he must have destroyed the evidence”

5. Jury trial commences for damages - judge tells Jones he can’t claim not to have evidence, can’t claim innocence, and a whole list of other stuff

6. Jury trial talks about a bunch of unrelated stuff that other people said.

7. A few times you see a clip where Jones mention “sandy hook is a psyop” or “this parent laughing before fake crying is a crisis actor” (paraphrasing obviously). But never mentions people by name, nor outside what is presented on the news (CNN for instance)

If anyone knows about defamation. (1) defaulting never happens (2) you have to name the person and have to claim an explicit in the defamation that you know to be false, with the purpose of causing damage.

It was real interesting to watch, but I imagine it’ll be overturned

[sollewitt]

Right: nobody, not even billionaires, can afford to do this ever again. Seems like a win condition to me.

[polotics]

I respectfully disagree. As a father I am amazed Alex Jones is still walking free, still walking, not still.