this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
1316 points (98.5% liked)

News

23649 readers
2395 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to escape paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation damages stemming from his repeated lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After rewatching the video the fines arent just for the defamation and libel. Its because he basically never fully complied with the courts in multiple ways so eventually the judge just said 'F it' and gave a default judgement which is basically saying 'you give up your right to fight this case'.

[–] PatFussy@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My question is the same, are we supposed to be okay with that? Can a judge just make shit up as a punishment

[–] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Its not made up lol. Its the system thats in place. Alex Jones and his legal team had to play ball, thats how the legal system functions. He not only didnt do what he needed to, he actively lied and ignored the process so the judge used their existing powers to punish him. Its not just made up in this instance, these are existing powers within the legal system when the subject of a trial decides they just 'dont wanna'.

Legally you can say almost anything you want. But you still have to work with the legal system. Whats even more ridiculous is that legally speaking these defamation cases were almost certainly going to found in favor of Jones but he bungled his defense so bad hes being punished.

to quote that video I posted "He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory"

[–] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unironically, wholeheartedly, YES, we should be okay with this. I don't think you realize the full extent of how badly Alex Jones fucked up. He made specific statements about specific people, that were false, and that he KNEW were false. These statements ruined the lives of multiple grieving families, forcing them to hire personal security at great personal cost, and to uproot their entire lives and move to entirely different states out of fear of their personal safety. That's the baseline defamation, and it's as close as you can get to the textbook legal definition of defamation. Then Alex Jones ignored the lawsuits, refused to turn over evidence he was legally required to provide for discovery, and then proceeded to lie to the court that the evidence didn't exist. His actions were so bad, the judge warned Alex "if you don't start doing what we say, we're going to enter a default judgement, and that means we're assuming everything the plaintiff says is true and that they would assume the worst about Alex's actions. He continued to ignore the court, so they got a default judgement. That's the second part of why it's so high.

Then while holding a trial to determine how much Alex owed after getting the default judgement, his lawyers fucked up and leaked evidence they had previously lied about not existing directly to the plaintiff's lawyers, AND ignored the plaintiff when they said "hey did you send this to us on accident, because if you don't respond we're going to use it as evidence." So now the court has direct, incontrovertible evidence that Alex Jones not only defied the court, but gave a bald-faced lie while doing so. He directly attacked the entire legitimacy of the entire judicial system. And that's the biggest reason why the judgement is so high: if the court DIDN'T award damages high enough to ruin his life, it would have sent a message to every billionaire and megacorp in giant flashing red letters saying "That massive team of lawyers you've been paying millions for to make sure you don't lose a lawsuit? You don't need them, you can just ignore the court outright, and even if you get caught red-handed lying it won't make a difference."

So yeah, if you mistake the Defamation 101 chapter in the textbook for a how-to guide, don't take part in the legal process at ALL, repeatedly lie to the court, give the plaintiff clear and convincing evidence that you lied, and ignore the plaintiff when they do their due diligence and ask you if they can use the evidence you accidentally gave them, your life SHOULD be ruined.

[–] PatFussy@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I have a problem with conflating ruining someone's life with taking money from them to give to someone else. If you want to ruin his life, send him to jail for life and move on (if you can). I dont really care how aggregiously moronic Alex and his team was. I dont like the idea of tying someone's capital to their capability to live. That is all.

I understand that some families had to get protection and move or whatever the fuck, i just dont believe it all amounts to a sum that large. Give the families what he owes them, send him to jail, thats it. Theres no fucking way 20 families combined spent 1 billion dollars unless their sur names are Rockefeller.

[–] Isycius@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

If he wanted to argue that, he probably should have argued that in court. Especially considering that he always had the chance to do so. But that would be admitting guilt, isn't it? He continued to fight the legal system after he was shown to be squarely in the wrong. Indeed, this is the case where legal system is actually working as intended - Judge shouldn't actively protect either side, they judge, not represent.

And yes, 'Being bankrupt' is a valid argument. But only if it is true. Just like any other arguments, if evidence to the contrary is found, that is just another crime to be punished for lying in the court. Now you can see how he ended up with that much fine.