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Seems like the article is really gleeful. Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits.
by rightbyte 2y ago
Seems like the article is really gleeful. Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits.
- afavour 2y ago> Seems like the article is really gleeful. Good! It should be. Alex Jones is a ghoul making money from dead school shooting victims. Anything that embarrasses him is entitled to as much glee as it wants.
- rightbyte 2y agoYes and he profits from fooling mentally ill people. Selling homeopatic pills and whatever. But I think the right to be wrong is way more important than getting at Alexander Jones. The precedent is bad.
- nixdev 2y ago[flagged]
- anotherhue 2y agoWhich part do you think is made up? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-infowars-supplements-to-a-lab-heres https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-a...
- nixdev 2y ago[flagged]
- anotherhue 2y agoLook, I'm a nix fan and a former SRE which seems to be a similar background to you. I obviously don't have details but I think it's clear you're not in a good headspace, if you can, would you consider taking a short break and going for a walk or something? HN will still be here.
- nixdev 2y ago[dead]
- afavour 2y ago> The precedent is bad. I think the opposite precent would be worse. Regulating your tone around anyone with even a mediocum of power for fear of repercussion is part of the reason we're in the situation we face today.
- metamet 2y agoWhat precedent do you think this sets exactly?
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y agoThere is a right to be wrong. But when you profit off the suffering and harm you've caused by being wrong knowingly and continuing to cause harm, then its a very good precedent.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoThe right to be wrong is important. The right to deliberately lie in ways that harm people is not a "right" that we want to uphold.
- larrywright 2y agoAnd profit off of the lies.
- AdamN 2y agoThe precedent would otherwise be that it is ok ignoring and debasing the US Justice system.
- miltonlost 2y agoCalling Sandy Hook a hoax and harrassing grieving parents is not "the right to be wrong".
- nixdev 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y agoHe inspired the harassment. It was obvious to everyone, Jones included, that his actions were resulting in grieving parents being harassed and he did not change his actions. At some point people should be held responsible for the actions they know they are inspiring in others.
- nixdev 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y ago> Funny how quick "he harassed them" turns into "he inspired the harassment" Yes, it's called a "clarification". OP misspoke, I clarified. If there are any other language features we can expand upon in this thread now is as good a time as any, I suppose. > for which there is no legal precedent anywhere, ever. May I introduce you to the concept of "incitement"? Not on the law books in Texas so Jones wasn't tried for it but let's not pretend it doesn't exist as a concept "anywhere, ever".
- nixdev 2y ago"Someone harassed someone" and "someone else drew inspiration to harass someone from remarks" are wildly different things. "hurr durr someone misspoke", lol no -- those are wildly different thing and someone just got called out for posting total horse shit. > May I introduce you to the concept of "incitement"? Show me a single video clip where a sane and sober person could construe one of Alex's remarks to be "incitement". Pro tip: you CAN'T. We already know you fucking can't.
- c-linkage 2y agoThe Paradox of Tolerance: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance> A good reply I found online: The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance not as a moral standard but as a social contract. If someone does not abide the terms of mutual tolerance, then they are not covered by the contract. By definition intolerant people do not follow the rules so they are no longer covered and should not be tolerated.
- renewiltord 2y agoIndeed. And one of the wonders of this is that anyone can determine that you have not abided by the terms. Even Stalin’s Russia was tolerant. It merely deemed many people to not abide by the terms of mutual tolerance.
- tightbookkeeper 2y agoI have yet to hear what meaning tolerance has in this interpretation. Surely chairman mao agrees with free speech that doesn’t harm his society and social programs
- int_19h 2y agoThat's awfully close to "terrorists shouldn't have rights", and problematic for the same reason.
- genrilz 2y agoI think it's actually closer to "terrorists should go to prison". Terrorists and other criminals have broken a social contract, and a level of punishment that some approximation of society deems to be acceptable is extracted from the terrorists. This doesn't mean that terrorists don't/shouldn't have some rights. Similarly, thinking about tolerance as a social contract doesn't require stripping anyone who violates this contract of all of their rights.
- int_19h 2y agoFWIW I don't actually have a problem with Jones specifically getting in trouble over defamation after getting his day in court. What I have a problem with is the broad notion that it's generally okay to "not tolerate the intolerant" to the point of forcibly suppressing them. The paradox of tolerance is not really a paradox when we're talking about intolerant speech.
- UncleMeat 2y ago"Being wrong" and "repeatedly defaming people" are quite different.
- rurp 2y agoI can't imagine a more valid use for defamation laws than to prevent someone from knowingly and repeatedly causing death threats and other harassment to be directed at parents whose children have been murdered. After being sued, Jones completely failed to defend himself in any meaningful way and lost the suit by default. I honestly have no idea which part of this chain of events you object to. People should be free to send mobs after parents grieving an unimaginable tragedy? Morons who get sued should win by default?
- tomp 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y agoNo, I don’t. Those situations aren’t remotely comparable. I suspect you already know this but are using the Sandy Hook victims as a jumping off point to discuss something unrelated. Please don’t do that.
- tomp 2y agoThen make a full argument, not just implying that "making money from dead school shooting victims" is somehow immoral. Every newspaper does just that! Very low quality comment, not worthy of HN (but of course useful for woke virtue signalling about "how bad is Alex Jones").
- result2vino 2y agoNobody owes you a debate.
- mdp2021 2y agoExplain what would make the two comparable.
- Kye 2y agoNot likely. Satire is protected under the First Amendment.
- smidgeon 2y agoAre you as confident about the 22nd?
- lenerdenator 2y ago> Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits. Unlikely. It's worth remembering that Jones was never actually tried for defamation. He instead received a default judgment. In the US, both sides of a civil case have the right to a fair and speedy trial. If there's delays, you had better have a good reason for them and they need to fit the rules of procedure. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, more-or-less refused to participate in the trial. The Knowledge Fight podcast has some episodes dealing with the discovery and deposition process for the suits, with actual deposition audio. I'm not a lawyer but it was absolutely brutal to listen to how ill-prepared Jones, his employees, and his representatives were. They were submitting Wikipedia articles about false flags as evidence, had a comprehensive background check on one of the parents that was in FSS records that no one could seem to explain the presence of, and generally didn't comply with other discovery requests. The end result of this is that his life's work has been reduced to a satire and he is likely financially hobbled for the rest of his life. For The Onion to have the same fate, they would have to basically disregard every single common-sense rule regarding what you should do when you're sued.
- rightbyte 2y agoFair enough. I didn't know it was a walkover in the end. And it is not really surprising there was no sane defence. I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem. And it has escalated lately. I fear that they will be used as excuses for getting at others.
- fireflash38 2y ago> I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem I believe the problem is how incredibly easy it is to both disseminate and consume utter bullshit. You're no longer that weird loner in town. You go online and can find hundreds and thousands of people who agree with you. Why would you go find people that challenge your views, when you can get those dopamine highs from people who love everything you say? Get pushback from people in your life? Cut them out. They don't get you, and they're just hating. The worst part? It's self-sustaining. Humans are really bad about going against a group. So much of our social behavior is around what others do, and the more we find out about others believing XYZ, we'll start to believe it ourselves. Unless they're from a different group, in which case it is anathema. Combine those 2 things and you get these people who basically live in separate worlds. And social media/internet enables that.
- adventured 2y agoYou have to step extremely far over the line to be brought down by such a lawsuit, particularly if you have money to spend on legal defense (as Jones did previously, or the Onion does today). Jones went over that line one time too many, in a country where a lot of people strongly dislike him. It's like being Martin Shkreli, the system* is going to keep targeting you and eventually get you (entirely warranted) on one of your legal infractions. The more you're a jerk and stick your head up prominently, the more you're going to draw counter attacks to your behavior by the varied masses. * the system referring to the vast combination of peoples: politicians, legal, monied interests, lobbyists, news media, corporations, journalists, agitators, whatever, et al
- micromacrofoot 2y agoit absolutely can not, satire is protected under the first amendment and there are piles of precedence
- yabones 2y agoGreat point! When The Onion starts making threats against survivors and relatives of school shootings, they should also face defamation lawsuits.
- ta8645 2y agoHonest question: what threats did Jones make against them? I understood that he claimed it was a hoax/conspiracy, not that he had made any threats. Not even sure how he could make threats against people he didn't believe were real.
- reaperducer 2y ago[flagged]
- ta8645 2y agoWith all that typing, you could have answered the actual question. As far as I know, there were no threats made by Alex Jones. If I'm wrong, I'd like to know.
- tim333 2y agoThe threats were made by Jones followers rather than Jones personally.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- raverbashing 2y agoThe Onion was not telling the parents of dead children they were crisis actors and were lying Don't want to be sued by defamation don't make BS about people in a fragile position. It's that simple
- mrguyorama 2y agoIn the US, the truth is a strong and approved defense against defamation. If you are for some reason terrified of defamation lawsuits in the one nation with the highest bar required to prove defamation, you can avoid any possible loss by simply not lying.
- bastardoperator 2y agoCan't tell if this is satire or not, that's the real irony here.
- result2vino 2y agoI’m glad that you didn’t waste effort saying “I am not a lawyer” here, because it’s very very apparent that you aren’t.
- garyrob 2y agoEr... the Onion is satire. Satire is not defamation because no one with any sense thinks it's true. InfoWars was not satire. Rather, it constantly lied.