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This week Alex Jones got hit with $4 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages for defaming 2 of the victim's families in the Sandy Hook massacre.

As the prosecution said, speech is free but lying is not.

I have heard it said in this forum that people are getting stupider. I think people are being exposed to stupider and stupider opinions, thanks to the internet. Alex Jones' personal wealth is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. He had a HUGE motivation to sell snake oil. His wealth is predicated on the selling of lies as truth.

We have traditionally given people tremendous leeway in free speech, but monetized 'free speech' on the internet is producing damage on a global scale. The printing press was the beginning of the democratization of information, but the information being distributed was tightly controlled because you had to have access to a printing press and distribution. Whether it's a single printing press, a mighty daily newspaper or a Television station, the sheer economics of scale to create and disseminate information made the distribution of fringe ideas more difficult.

The internet has changed all that. A snake oil salesman now has a wagon in every city in the world. Good ideas need the cerebellum. Bad ideas prey on the limbic system. A snake oil salesman listens to the prevailing angst, paints a picture of a coming dystopia and sells you, if not a cure, then an escape.

So when I say "it's a drop in the bucket", it is not only a drop in the bucket to Alex Jones, but to all of the snake oil salesmen online.

As long as lies fire up the new Republicans, there will be people like Jones and Trump willing to tell those lies.

It may be a drop in the bucket, but I bet it hurts. I hope so, anyway. Jones is douchey in the same way Trump is. They both deserve to suffer deeply.

$49.3 million is the total so far and that is just to the parents of one child. From what I understand he is going to have to go to trial over defamation of other parents as well.

But even if it were only $49.3 million, that's roughly 33-25% of his total net worth, which isn't a drop in the bucket to him.

This hurts him financially in so many ways. Why would his listeners keep giving him money now? He's been telling them for years that he needs money because he's struggling, but now the whole world knows that he's not only hoarding hundreds of millions but he's reckless with it. Alex Jones has made it clear he has no intentions to changing his strategy, so the likelihood of him losing more money to future lawsuits is pretty high. So why would people donate money they know will likely end up going to people he defames?

In Texas, punitive or exemplary damages are limited to the greater of $200,000.00 or 2X the economic damages plus $750,000.00.

Here is the statute: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs ... /CP.41.htm (go to Sec. 41.008)

So, the award will be reduced but he still faces other lawsuits from other parents as Veritas said.

I realize that 45 million is a serious chunk of change, and that a few more lawsuits could potentially bankrupt him. What I'm saying is that Alex Jones is just one voice among the myriad Snake Oil Salesmen of paranoia. The punitive damages look large until you realize how long it will be until Alex Jones is in the poorhouse.

It's like that old joke:

Q: What do you call a ship full of lawyers sinking to the ocean floor?

A: A start.

MeDotOrg wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:08 am

I realize that 45 million is a serious chunk of change, and that a few more lawsuits could potentially bankrupt him. What I'm saying is that Alex Jones is just one voice among the myriad Snake Oil Salesmen of paranoia.

True, but it certainly does not preclude an appropriate degree of rejoicing that a conspiracy theorist hero as prominent as Jones has been forced to admit in open court that he was peddling lies to his audience, and that he is very likely going to have to lose a major slice of his capital by the time the other parents are through with him.

Way to go…