Alex Jones faces a heavy price for lying about Sandy Hook Elementary School’s massacre. $49.3,000,000 in damages and counting for making claims that the country’s most deadly school shooting was a hoax. This is a harsh salvo in an ongoing war against harmful misinformation.
But what does this week’s verdict, the first of three Sandy Hook-related cases against Jones to be decided, mean for the larger misinformation ecosystem, a social media-fueled world of election denial, COVID-19 skepticism and other dubious claims that the Infowars conspiracy theorist helped build?
” I think that many people see this as a way to fight fake news. But, it is important to remember that libel laws deal with one particular type of fake news,” Eugene Volokh said, an instructor in First Amendment at UCLA School of Law.
The U.S. courts held for years that defamatory statements, which are falsehoods that damage a person’s reputation or business, don’t qualify as free speech. However, lies about subjects like history and science are protected. For example, saying COVID-19 isn’t real is not defamatory, but spreading lies about a doctor treating coronavirus patients is.
This distinction is what Jones is now being held responsible for his attack on Sandy Hook parents and the claim that the 2012 shooting had been staged with actors in order to increase gun controls. However, Holocaust deniers and flat-earthers, as well as vaccine skeptics, are allowed to freely post their theories and not be subject to a multimillion dollar court judgement.
“Alex Jones attacked individuals,” Stephen D. Solomon said, a New York University law professor and founder editor of New York University’s First Amendment Watch. “And that’s important. Many disinformation doesn’t attack people .”
Lawyers on behalf of the plaintiffs. The parents of one 20 grader who was killed in the Connecticut school where he was studying 2012, stated that they wanted to see a large-scale verdict against Jones, which would be a deterrent for others who spread misinformation for their profit.
” I am asking you take away the bullhorn from Alex Jones, and all the other people who think they can make a profit out of fear and misinformation,” Wesley Ball stated in his concluding argument on Friday. It must stop .”
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Jones has admitted that Sandy Hook was actually shot. He has also claimed that his statements regarding Sandy Hook are protected under the First Amendment. Even though he was carrying “Save the 1st”, he showed up at court wearing a tape covering his mouth.
However, Jones was unable to present that argument before the court despite all the publicity. Jones refused to turn over the critical evidence and a judge issued a default judgement for Jones. He skipped to the punishment phase.
Andino,
Jones’ lawyer, told the jury in closing arguments that large sentences would chill those who seek to hold governments responsible.
” You’ve already sent an email. Reynal explained to jurors that he sent a message to talk show hosts for the first time, and to all talk shows hosts. He said their standards of care had to improve.
Free speech experts believe that any chilling effect must be restricted to those who wish to disseminate inaccurate information and not journalists or citizens trying to find the truth.
” You have to take a look at the particular case and think about what you are doing. Solomon stated.
” The kind of speech that insults parents who lost their children to a mass shooting is probably the speech you want to discourage. Solomon stated that you want to silence this speech. Solomon said, “That was the message the jury could have sent here. It is not acceptable in a civilized country .”
Reynal stated that Jones is not leaving anytime soon. While they appeal this verdict, which is one of the most significant and high-profile defamation cases in recent history, he’ll continue to be on air.
Among others: a gadfly ordered in February to pay $50 million to a South Carolina mayor after accusing her in emails of committing a crime and being unfit for office; a former tenant ordered in 2016 to pay $38.3 million for posting a website accusing a real estate investor of running a Ponzi scheme; and a New Hampshire mortgage provider ordered in 2017 to pay $274 million to three businessmen after he posted billboards accusing them of drug dealing and extortion.
” These types of verdicts and damages do have chilling effects,” Volokh stated. They are intended to chill out lies that harm people’s reputations .”
