https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/16/opinion/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html
"Alex Jones achieved the epitome of despicability and now has been ordered to
pay for it. His lies — that parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in 2012 had been actors taking part in a government plot to manufacture
a pretext for stricter gun control — were blatant. He did not subtly deceive
through misleading framing or cherry-picked facts. He targeted parents of
murdered little children, who faced a barrage of threats; at least one family
had to flee, moving away from where their child was buried.
Now a Connecticut jury has ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages to
several families for his egregious cruelty, adding to a Texas jury award of $49
million in August to another Sandy Hook family.
Defamation lawsuits can provide some relief to victims of horrendous lies, but
they cannot fully repair the damage that has already been done."
See also:
On the Alex Jones Verdict: The Very, Very Lucrative World of Lying
https://www.theinsight.org/p/on-the-alex-jones-verdict-the-very
"My latest piece for the
New York Times returns to a key question: how should
we grapple with the current historic transformation of the public sphere? I
focus on the Alex Jones trial and verdict, but my question is about the future:
what can we do, what should we do, to prevent future cases?
I suggest that we take a closer look at money as an incentive, and also focus
on friction as an answer.
Jones’ net worth was estimated during the trial to be anywhere between $135 to
$270 million, and much of this comes from peddling dubious supplements,
survivalist gear, flouride-free toothpaste, what-have-you. The trial revealed
that his company makes many tens of millions of dollars each year from selling
such merchandise, and that the Sandy Hook families reached out to him in
anguish many times only to be rebuffed, according to the families, because the
topic was so lucrative for his sales.
This type of money is a huge part of the incentive structure that shapes so
much of our societal woes, and is often overlooked to the key role it plays."
Via
The RISKS Digest Volume 33 Issue 49:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33/49#subj7
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
