Will a $965 Million Defamation Verdict Stop Future Disinformation?

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Following the announcement that a Connecticut jury found Alex Jones, host of InfoWars, guilty of defamation for his statements claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged event, and the victims' families were actors, writers across the spectrum have penned perspectives on what the decision means for first amendment rights, policing of disinformation, and Jones’s future.

Key Quotes: Matt Lewis (Center Bias) deemed Jones’ “time is up,” and that the verdict could dissuade potential future figures hoping to emulate Jones’s disinformation machine, drawing a line between interpersonal protected free speech and broadcasting false messages to a large audience. Mark Weaver (Lean Right Bias), a first amendment litigator, wrote that “it's been quite a year for stretching the First Amendment,” citing other high-profile defamation cases and stating that “the American tradition has always had limits to free speech.” Michael Arceneaux (Left Bias) wrote that Jones “needs to die in destitution — and before that day comes, see absolute financial misery. That does not mean he should go without basic necessities that all humans deserve individually, but the days of him flying to court on a private jet should be over.”

For Context: The jury determined Jones must pay $965 million to the defamed plaintiffs. The trial detailed harassment endured by families of those killed in the massacre from believers of Jones’s conspiracy theory that the tragedy was staged to build public support for restrictions on gun rights.

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Try to imagine having a young child die in a horrific mass shooting. Now, imagine spending a decade being attacked and mocked by a mob of nutjobs who claim your child never even existed. These people show up at your home, demanding to see your now-murdered child. Some even go so far as to make rape threats and desecrate your baby’s grave.

All of these things happened in real life. And responsibility for all of those horrors that came after the massacre can be attributed to the repeated actions of one man: Alex Jones.

In this country, there are only so many ways to deal with a man like Alex Jones.

On Wednesday, a jury in Connecticut tried its best to force the Infowars host and owner to face consequences for the hurt that his lies have caused others, ordering Jones to pay $965 million to relatives of victims of a 2012 mass shooting and an FBI agent he accused of all being actors.

In an interview with “PBS NewsHour,” trial lawyer Jesse Gessin described the nearly $1 billion judgment as “probably one of the largest defamation verdicts in U.S. history.”

James Madison never met Alex Jones. This side of heaven, we'll never know whether the author of the First Amendment would've listened to Jones' outlandish radio show. But Jones now knows that James Madison's hand-crafted First Amendment umbrella protects most—though not all—speech. On Wednesday, a jury awarded the parents of the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting $1 billion in damages; Jones had called the shooting a hoax and the parents crisis actors. The verdict followed a smaller but just as significant Texas jury verdict against Jones' lies about Sandy Hook.