Alex Jones is facing a hefty price for his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — $49.3 million in damages and more, for claiming the nation’s deadliest school shooting was a hoax — a salvo in an ongoing war on the harmful misinformation.
But what does this week’s verdict, the first of three Sandy Hook v. Jones cases to be decided, mean for the larger ecosystem of misinformation, a social media-fueled world of election denial, skepticism about COVID-19 and other dubious claims that the Infowars conspiracy theorist helped build?
“I think a lot of people think of this as a blow against fake news, and it’s important to realize that defamation law deals with a very particular kind of fake news,” said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment professor at UCLA School of Law.
American courts have long held that defamatory statements — untruths that damage the reputation of a person or business — are not protected as free speech, but lies about other topics, such as science, history or government, are. For example, saying that COVID-19 isn’t real isn’t defamation, but spreading lies about a doctor treating coronavirus patients is.
That distinction is why Jones, who attacked the parents of Sandy Hook victims and claimed the 2012 shooting was staged with actors to increase gun control, was forced to pay, while Holocaust deniers, flat land and vaccine skeptics are free to publish their theories without much fear of a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
“Alex Jones was attacking people,” said Stephen D. Solomon, a law professor and founder of New York University’s First Amendment Watch. “And that’s important. The mass of disinformation does not attack individuals.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs, the parents of one of the 20 first-graders killed at the Connecticut school in 2012, said they hope a large-money verdict against Jones will serve as a deterrent to him and others who spread misinformation for profit.
“I’m asking you to take the megaphone away from Alex Jones and everyone else who believes they can profit from fear and misinformation,” Wesley Ball said in his closing remarks Friday. “The gold rush of fear and misinformation must end, and it must end today.
Jones, who has since admitted the shooting was real, has argued that his statements about Sandy Hook are protected by the First Amendment. He even appeared in court with “Save the 1st” scrawled on a piece of tape over his mouth.
But despite the public theatrics, Jones was never able to make that argument in court. After Jones failed to comply with orders to turn over important evidence, a judge entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs and skipped straight to the penalty phase.
Jones’ attorney, Andino Reynal, told the jury during closing arguments that a large sentence would have a chilling effect on people who want to hold governments accountable.
“You have already sent a message. A message for the first time to a talk show host, to all talk show hosts, that their standard of care needs to change,” Reynal told jurors.
Free speech experts say any deterrent should be limited to people who recklessly spread false information, not to journalists or other citizens who are trying in good faith to get to the truth about an issue.
“You have to look at this particular case and ask yourself, what exactly are you cooling?” Solomon said.
“Speech that defames parents who lost their children in a massacre may be the speech you want to stop. You want to cool that speech,” Solomon said. “That’s the message that potentially the jury wanted to send here, that this is not acceptable in a civilized society.”
As for Jones, Reynal said he’s not leaving anytime soon. It will remain on the air while they appeal the verdict, one of the most high-profile and high-profile defamation rulings in recent years.
Among others: a fly ordered in February to pay $50 million to a South Carolina mayor after accusing her in emails that she committed a crime and was unfit for office; a former tenant ordered in 2016 to pay $38.3 million for posting a website accusing a real estate investor of running a Ponzi scheme; and a New Hampshire mortgage lender ordered in 2017 to pay $274 million to three businessmen after he posted billboards accusing them of drug dealing and extortion.
“These types of damages and convictions really have a chilling effect,” Volokh said. “They are intended to have a chilling effect on lies that damage people’s reputations.”
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