9 ms·

Some of them have been (for example: https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-harrassment-0225-20170224-story.html https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-

Some of them have been (for example: https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-harrassment-0225-20170224-story.html https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-harrassment-0225-...) but the main problem is that it is, as most of us posting here know, difficult to track down the individuals directly performing the harassment. Alex Jones is directly inciting people to go harass the plaintiffs so he bears liability for his actions.

wara23arish 4y ago
did he really say go harass these people or did he just say they’re crisis actors and its hoax? Im genuinely asking because i don’t understand how this works. I was under the impression that saying “Trump is a murderous liar” is fine, if I say “Go kill trump”etc then thats incitement. Does that make sense?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > was under the impression that saying “Trump is a murderous liar” is fine, if I say “Go kill trump”etc then that's incitement If Alex Jones said "go kill these families," he'd likely be facing criminal charges. Instead, he made up specific claims which he kept repeating even after being shown evidence a reasonable person would accept as refutation of said claims. To your analogy: if you said "Trump is a murderous liar who buggered my pet rabbit last Tuesday in New York," then were shown evidence Trump was in London and up to no buggery, and yet you kept saying it, yes, Trump might have a claim against you.
- lovich 4y ago
  He probably could have made such an argument or a similar one on his defense but he received a default judgement because he continuously refused to show up to court dates for his case and perjured himself repeatedly. If this was a soccer game he basically walked to the edge of the field and sat there the whole game and then complained that the refs were in a conspiracy against him because the opposing team was able to score unopposed.
  - warbeforepeace 4y ago
    He received a default judgment because he failed to provide discovery items including financial documents to show the company value, videos that included sandy hook, text and emails that included sandy hook, how much it made of sandy hook and failed to provide a competent corporate representative that could answer questions on a list of items that was provided in advance.
    - lovich 4y ago
      Is that not failing to defend himself? And you skipped over the perjury. And for one I missed, he continued his attacks on the parents on Infowars during his show
    - dukeofdoom 4y ago
      If failing to provide evidence to the prosecution is how you lose a trial. Than forever more all the prosecution has to to do prove your guilt is to ask for something you don't have. They were asking for things like his Youtube Analytics after Youtube deleted his channel. This was one of those things he was defaulted for. It's quite possible he did not have them backed up, and no evidence that he even viewed them. His monetary success was only relevant to his fine should he be found guilty. Yet this was used to find guilt.
- ferrumfist 4y ago
  > “Trump is a murderous liar” You could argue that using drones to kill people is murdering, you can point to times when he lied. It also just strikes me as different when saying things about someone who is in public office and saying things about private citizens who aren't in the spotlight at all.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > did he just say they’re crisis actors and its hoax? This is what he did, and it's defamation. If I say "go kill Trump" that might be incitement (although it might not be if it's not credible.) If I say "Trump is a murderous liar," that's really just a personal characterization that can't be disproven - you can find things in his past that can be interpreted as murder, and things that can be interpreted as lies, whether that makes him a "murderous liar" is just banter. If I say that Trump molested a child, and I clearly intend for the charge to be taken seriously, that's defamation unless I can show the kid.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  Incitement is not defamation. He was not sued for "incitement", he was sued for defamation. To prove defamation, you need to prove that someone lied about you, and that those lies caused material harms. You saying "Trump is a murderous liar" is largely fine because: - A reasonable reader, familiar with the context of the place you are writing, would understand that you aren't making a factual claim that Trump murdered a person but rather you are expression a rhetorical political opinion. - Trump is a public figure, which means you must meet the "actual malice" standard of reckless disregard for the truth. - Trump must have been materially harmed by your statements for it to be worth suing you. If you, on the other hand, falsely and deliberately recklessly said: "Trump murdered person X", repeated that claim for years, and convinced hundreds thousands of people that it was true to the point where Trump had to move houses several times due to ongoing death threats, then you would probably be liable for defamation. The _context_ matters. The _breadth of your reach_ matters. The _actual harms caused_ matter.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    Doesn't "you" imply that "you" were actually named. If a politician says the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading the disease. Then it's proved that the vaccine did not stop transmission. Do they owe billions to these people.
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      > Doesn't "you" imply that "you" were actually named. No, defamation doesn't require you to specifically be named. It's enough for them to be identified with enough specificity that they are harmed. > If a politician says the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading the disease There are two claims in the phrase "the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading disease". The first claim, that they are terrible people, is not a statement of fact, but is rather an opinion. There is no factual, objective, way to determine whether someone is "a terrible person". So that part would not create the potential for liability. The second claim "the unvaccinated are spreading disease" _could_ potentially be defamatory, but truth would be an absolute defense. The truth also doesn't have to be _perfect_ so long as it's "correct in the main". First, note that the claim "the unvaccinated are spreading disease" is still true even if the vaccinated are also spreading disease. So, your defamation claim would need to first convince the jury that the implication of the statement is "the unvaccinated are spreading disease *more than the vaccinated*". I think that implication is there, but it's a little more tenuous of a claim. Second, I don't think there would be any liability, since the vaccine has some efficacy. To defend against the defamation claim, it would be sufficient to show that the vaccine has any significant efficacy. You wouldn't need to demonstrate that the vaccine has perfect efficacy. The vaccine does have efficacy against COVID-19, so I think a defamation claim would fail here. Finally, you'll need to go to the harms. It's going to be very difficult to demonstrate significant harm to any individual unvaccinated person, when the group includes 100M people. The harm is going to be _very_ diffused, and I think it would be difficult to demonstrate any economic harm. So, on balance, I think a politician would still be very safe making the statement you suggested, even in light of the fact that a person doesn't need to be specifically named to press a defamation claim.
pdonis 4y ago
> Alex Jones is directly inciting people to go harass the plaintiffs Where is this accusation made by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit? The only accusation I see is that Jones and his associates made defamatory false statements about the plaintiffs. As far as I can tell, that was the basis for the ruling, not any claims of incitement.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Defamation is inherently inciteful. If I publicly accuse you of a horrible crime, and I have a sufficiently broad audience, you are going to have to deal with assholes coming up to you and saying 'you're the evil person who committed a horrible crime!'. At best you get harrassed, at worse your safety is at risk from would-be vigilantes, revenge-seekers, and people who need a punching bag for sadistic or strategic reasons of their own. Of course, you can argue that there's no direct causal relationship because Jones or whoever can say 'I'm not saying to do something, but....'. But so what? If an outcome is statistically predictable there doesn't have to be a direct nexxus, a proximate one is sufficient.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Defamation is inherently inciteful. That might be your personal opinion, but it's not the law. If nutjob A makes a defamatory statement about you, but doesn't tell anyone to do anything, and then nutjob B harasses you after hearing what nutjob A said, nutjob B is the one who is legally responsible for the harassment. Nutjob A is responsible for the defamation, but not for what other nutjobs might decide to do. Now if nutjob A explicitly said things along the lines of "you should go after this person", instead of just making defamatory false factual claims about them, that would be different. But I have not seen any claims by the plaintiffs that Jones said anything like that. They're just saying he made defamatory false statements. > If an outcome is statistically predictable there doesn't have to be a direct nexxus, a proximate one is sufficient. This legal theory is a recipe for disaster. There's a reason why the law requires direct evidence for things like this.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
innocentoldguy 4y ago
I'm curious, Democrats like Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Maxine Waters have incited people to go harass others, break the law, and commit violence, and their followers have followed through multiple times. Do you support each of them being ordered by a court to pay the conservatives they harassed nearly a billion dollars, or is it only justified if it's someone you disagree with politically?

wara23arish 4y ago

did he really say go harass these people or did he just say they’re crisis actors and its hoax? Im genuinely asking because i don’t understand how this works. I was under the impression that saying “Trump is a murderous liar” is fine, if I say “Go kill trump”etc then thats incitement. Does that make sense?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> was under the impression that saying “Trump is a murderous liar” is fine, if I say “Go kill trump”etc then that's incitement If Alex Jones said "go kill these families," he'd likely be facing criminal charges. Instead, he made up specific claims which he kept repeating even after being shown evidence a reasonable person would accept as refutation of said claims. To your analogy: if you said "Trump is a murderous liar who buggered my pet rabbit last Tuesday in New York," then were shown evidence Trump was in London and up to no buggery, and yet you kept saying it, yes, Trump might have a claim against you.
lovich 4y ago
He probably could have made such an argument or a similar one on his defense but he received a default judgement because he continuously refused to show up to court dates for his case and perjured himself repeatedly. If this was a soccer game he basically walked to the edge of the field and sat there the whole game and then complained that the refs were in a conspiracy against him because the opposing team was able to score unopposed.
- warbeforepeace 4y ago
  He received a default judgment because he failed to provide discovery items including financial documents to show the company value, videos that included sandy hook, text and emails that included sandy hook, how much it made of sandy hook and failed to provide a competent corporate representative that could answer questions on a list of items that was provided in advance.
  - lovich 4y ago
    Is that not failing to defend himself? And you skipped over the perjury. And for one I missed, he continued his attacks on the parents on Infowars during his show
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    If failing to provide evidence to the prosecution is how you lose a trial. Than forever more all the prosecution has to to do prove your guilt is to ask for something you don't have. They were asking for things like his Youtube Analytics after Youtube deleted his channel. This was one of those things he was defaulted for. It's quite possible he did not have them backed up, and no evidence that he even viewed them. His monetary success was only relevant to his fine should he be found guilty. Yet this was used to find guilt.
ferrumfist 4y ago
> “Trump is a murderous liar” You could argue that using drones to kill people is murdering, you can point to times when he lied. It also just strikes me as different when saying things about someone who is in public office and saying things about private citizens who aren't in the spotlight at all.
pessimizer 4y ago
> did he just say they’re crisis actors and its hoax? This is what he did, and it's defamation. If I say "go kill Trump" that might be incitement (although it might not be if it's not credible.) If I say "Trump is a murderous liar," that's really just a personal characterization that can't be disproven - you can find things in his past that can be interpreted as murder, and things that can be interpreted as lies, whether that makes him a "murderous liar" is just banter. If I say that Trump molested a child, and I clearly intend for the charge to be taken seriously, that's defamation unless I can show the kid.
ncallaway 4y ago
Incitement is not defamation. He was not sued for "incitement", he was sued for defamation. To prove defamation, you need to prove that someone lied about you, and that those lies caused material harms. You saying "Trump is a murderous liar" is largely fine because: - A reasonable reader, familiar with the context of the place you are writing, would understand that you aren't making a factual claim that Trump murdered a person but rather you are expression a rhetorical political opinion. - Trump is a public figure, which means you must meet the "actual malice" standard of reckless disregard for the truth. - Trump must have been materially harmed by your statements for it to be worth suing you. If you, on the other hand, falsely and deliberately recklessly said: "Trump murdered person X", repeated that claim for years, and convinced hundreds thousands of people that it was true to the point where Trump had to move houses several times due to ongoing death threats, then you would probably be liable for defamation. The _context_ matters. The _breadth of your reach_ matters. The _actual harms caused_ matter.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  Doesn't "you" imply that "you" were actually named. If a politician says the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading the disease. Then it's proved that the vaccine did not stop transmission. Do they owe billions to these people.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    > Doesn't "you" imply that "you" were actually named. No, defamation doesn't require you to specifically be named. It's enough for them to be identified with enough specificity that they are harmed. > If a politician says the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading the disease There are two claims in the phrase "the unvaccinated are terrible people for spreading disease". The first claim, that they are terrible people, is not a statement of fact, but is rather an opinion. There is no factual, objective, way to determine whether someone is "a terrible person". So that part would not create the potential for liability. The second claim "the unvaccinated are spreading disease" _could_ potentially be defamatory, but truth would be an absolute defense. The truth also doesn't have to be _perfect_ so long as it's "correct in the main". First, note that the claim "the unvaccinated are spreading disease" is still true even if the vaccinated are also spreading disease. So, your defamation claim would need to first convince the jury that the implication of the statement is "the unvaccinated are spreading disease *more than the vaccinated*". I think that implication is there, but it's a little more tenuous of a claim. Second, I don't think there would be any liability, since the vaccine has some efficacy. To defend against the defamation claim, it would be sufficient to show that the vaccine has any significant efficacy. You wouldn't need to demonstrate that the vaccine has perfect efficacy. The vaccine does have efficacy against COVID-19, so I think a defamation claim would fail here. Finally, you'll need to go to the harms. It's going to be very difficult to demonstrate significant harm to any individual unvaccinated person, when the group includes 100M people. The harm is going to be _very_ diffused, and I think it would be difficult to demonstrate any economic harm. So, on balance, I think a politician would still be very safe making the statement you suggested, even in light of the fact that a person doesn't need to be specifically named to press a defamation claim.

pdonis 4y ago

> Alex Jones is directly inciting people to go harass the plaintiffs Where is this accusation made by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit? The only accusation I see is that Jones and his associates made defamatory false statements about the plaintiffs. As far as I can tell, that was the basis for the ruling, not any claims of incitement.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Defamation is inherently inciteful. If I publicly accuse you of a horrible crime, and I have a sufficiently broad audience, you are going to have to deal with assholes coming up to you and saying 'you're the evil person who committed a horrible crime!'. At best you get harrassed, at worse your safety is at risk from would-be vigilantes, revenge-seekers, and people who need a punching bag for sadistic or strategic reasons of their own. Of course, you can argue that there's no direct causal relationship because Jones or whoever can say 'I'm not saying to do something, but....'. But so what? If an outcome is statistically predictable there doesn't have to be a direct nexxus, a proximate one is sufficient.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Defamation is inherently inciteful. That might be your personal opinion, but it's not the law. If nutjob A makes a defamatory statement about you, but doesn't tell anyone to do anything, and then nutjob B harasses you after hearing what nutjob A said, nutjob B is the one who is legally responsible for the harassment. Nutjob A is responsible for the defamation, but not for what other nutjobs might decide to do. Now if nutjob A explicitly said things along the lines of "you should go after this person", instead of just making defamatory false factual claims about them, that would be different. But I have not seen any claims by the plaintiffs that Jones said anything like that. They're just saying he made defamatory false statements. > If an outcome is statistically predictable there doesn't have to be a direct nexxus, a proximate one is sufficient. This legal theory is a recipe for disaster. There's a reason why the law requires direct evidence for things like this.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago

innocentoldguy 4y ago

I'm curious, Democrats like Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Maxine Waters have incited people to go harass others, break the law, and commit violence, and their followers have followed through multiple times. Do you support each of them being ordered by a court to pay the conservatives they harassed nearly a billion dollars, or is it only justified if it's someone you disagree with politically?