4 ms·

Stealing from an earlier comment of mine [1] in case you want to read the comments. Alex Jones declared in court that his show reaches about a hundred million

Stealing from an earlier comment of mine [1] in case you want to read the comments. Alex Jones declared in court that his show reaches about a hundred million people. If that's true then he's paying $10 for every person who heard him defaming the families of dead children. This would be the same principle as those fines in Nordic countries sometimes that depend on how rich someone is. If you can influence one hundred million people and use that power in a criminally irresponsible way, you get a proportionate fine. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33182728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33182728

impossiblefork 2y ago
Yeah, we don't have that in Sweden except for criminal acts, and then the fines are a certain number of days of your income as a substitute for imprisonment. In civil cases our judgements are usually not enormous. I don't feel that your reasoning above makes the judgement more reasonable. Maybe he does reach that many people, but he obviously makes nowhere near that amount of money and it's out of line with other defamation judgements.
- probably_wrong 2y ago
  > it's out of line with other defamation judgements. This point made me curious so I quickly looked around. Fox News paid a $787.5 million settlement [1] for making false claims about Dominion. Given that this happened as the trial was about to start, it's reasonable to assume that Fox News expected to lose even more if the issue went to trial. And that's for a party that arguably would have followed court orders, something Alex Jones refused to do. Next in line is Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered to pay $150 million for defaming two election workers [2]. If Alex Jones defamed 12 families then it comes out roughly the same. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/18/media/fox-dominion-settlement/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/18/media/fox-dominion-settle... [2] https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/rudy-giuliani-defamation-trial-verdict/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/rudy-giuliani-def...
  - impossiblefork 2y ago
    Those are also extreme though.
  - AustinDev 2y ago
    All these cited claims seem political and extreme to me. I can't find a non-political example where the judgement this extreme. Depp v Herd defamation was around $10m.
    - mvc 2y ago
      There was a single victim in Depp vs Herd.
    - standardUser 2y ago
      The acts of defamation were extreme, clear cut, repetitive and devoid of remorse. I for one like knowing that if someone ruins my reputation with cruel lies in such a malicious and relentless way that they may face extreme consequences.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > Yeah, we don't have that in Sweden except for criminal acts Sweden isn't the only Nordic country. Just look up speeding tickets in Finland and Norway.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

impossiblefork 2y ago

Yeah, we don't have that in Sweden except for criminal acts, and then the fines are a certain number of days of your income as a substitute for imprisonment. In civil cases our judgements are usually not enormous. I don't feel that your reasoning above makes the judgement more reasonable. Maybe he does reach that many people, but he obviously makes nowhere near that amount of money and it's out of line with other defamation judgements.

probably_wrong 2y ago
> it's out of line with other defamation judgements. This point made me curious so I quickly looked around. Fox News paid a $787.5 million settlement [1] for making false claims about Dominion. Given that this happened as the trial was about to start, it's reasonable to assume that Fox News expected to lose even more if the issue went to trial. And that's for a party that arguably would have followed court orders, something Alex Jones refused to do. Next in line is Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered to pay $150 million for defaming two election workers [2]. If Alex Jones defamed 12 families then it comes out roughly the same. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/18/media/fox-dominion-settlement/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/18/media/fox-dominion-settle... [2] https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/rudy-giuliani-defamation-trial-verdict/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/rudy-giuliani-def...
- impossiblefork 2y ago
  Those are also extreme though.
- AustinDev 2y ago
  All these cited claims seem political and extreme to me. I can't find a non-political example where the judgement this extreme. Depp v Herd defamation was around $10m.
  - mvc 2y ago
    There was a single victim in Depp vs Herd.
  - standardUser 2y ago
    The acts of defamation were extreme, clear cut, repetitive and devoid of remorse. I for one like knowing that if someone ruins my reputation with cruel lies in such a malicious and relentless way that they may face extreme consequences.
crazygringo 2y ago
> Yeah, we don't have that in Sweden except for criminal acts Sweden isn't the only Nordic country. Just look up speeding tickets in Finland and Norway.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]