Alex Jones must pay $4,1 million in damages for spreading his conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Ο Alexander Emerick Jones is an American far-right radio producer and the most popular and influential conspiracy theorist. It owns the news websites InfoWars, “NewsWars” and “PrisonPlanet”.
Jones has alleged that the United States government has either withheld information or distorted the facts regarding various shocking events in the country, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School killings.
On December 14, 2012, an armed man invaded the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut USA, killed 20 students and 6 faculty members and then killed himself. The incident generated international interest and reignited the debate in the US about the legal status of gun ownership.
Alex Jones claimed that it never really happened attack, that it was staged by the American Government with actors and with the aim of banning gun ownership. The parents of the dead children sued for defamation, emotional distress and intimidation after Alex Jones has 2.4m subscribers worldwide and there were fears fans would take revenge against them.
Today Alex Jones is now banned from all major social media, the Youtube put it down channel that he had and the radio stations he worked for have stopped working with him.
The conspiracy theories he propagated, in addition to the Sandy Hook school, had a wide range for all major events around the globe, such as the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, the 11/1969 attacks, and the XNUMX moon landing.
He has claimed that several governments and multinationals intend to create a "New Order" through technology and the ability it gives them to create artificial economic crises.
During his trial at Sandy Hook in the absence of evidence and fear of punishment, he was forced to admit that the events at Sandy Hook were 100% true, apologizing for "hurting those people's feelings." The court's penalty was $4,1 million in damages.
Jones claimed during the trial that any fine over $2 million would "destroy" him financially, but the courts data showed that Jones' website “Infowars” was making $50 million a year, even after his theories were debunked.
In addition, Jones tried to hide his money during the trial. His company "Free Speech Systems" (FSS) filed for bankruptcy with $54 million in debt and another company that appears to be controlled by Jones has been accused of "systematically collecting large sums of money" from FSS to limit its losses.
Doing a cost-benefit calculation for the conspiracy theories and for Jones we can say that so far, the costs amount to today's verdict of $4,1 million, with some much smaller previous fines, as well as $15 million in legal fees, is less than the benefits estimated at tens of millions of dollars each year.
But how apt noted legal writer Ken White, the decision won't necessarily reduce the size of his audience for Jones' (or any Jones') often untrue claims or his ability to make money from them, even if he's abandoned that particular theory.
“People who enjoyed the verisimilitude of Sandy Hook didn't enjoy it because it was really convincing or coherent. They enjoyed the emotional state it conveyed because it matched theirs,” White wrote. "The technicalities of the trial are probably insufficient to change public opinion."
