> Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits.
Unlikely.
It's worth remembering that Jones was never actually tried for defamation. He instead received a default judgment. In the US, both sides of a civil case have the right to a fair and speedy trial. If there's delays, you had better have a good reason for them and they need to fit the rules of procedure.
Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, more-or-less refused to participate in the trial. The Knowledge Fight podcast has some episodes dealing with the discovery and deposition process for the suits, with actual deposition audio. I'm not a lawyer but it was absolutely brutal to listen to how ill-prepared Jones, his employees, and his representatives were. They were submitting Wikipedia articles about false flags as evidence, had a comprehensive background check on one of the parents that was in FSS records that no one could seem to explain the presence of, and generally didn't comply with other discovery requests.
The end result of this is that his life's work has been reduced to a satire and he is likely financially hobbled for the rest of his life.
For The Onion to have the same fate, they would have to basically disregard every single common-sense rule regarding what you should do when you're sued.
Jones' lawyers at one point forwarded a full phone dump of Jones' phone by accident to opposing council. They of course notified Jones' lawyers immediately to ask if this was a mistake that they should delete/disregard, as was their right.
Jones' lawyers promptly ignored this, or didn't understand what was going on, resulting it becoming fair game after X days had passed.
This goody bag of text messages and pictures contradicted several points of Jones' defence regarding who he was communicating with and a bunch of incriminating evidence that wasn't produced during discovery.
That was my understanding of that episode, I may have misunderstood parts of it.
Oh, and they revealed this when Jones was on the stand, and it is available to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC9RiRUF21A
Legal Eagle (among many others I suspect - that's just the channel I tend to follow for pop legal) did a breakdown of that clip explaining what was going on for the layperson: https://youtu.be/x-QcbOphxYs
I wonder if attorneys have any liability at all. Granted, lawyers do not provide any guarantees, and I usually tend to be more forgiving of genuine fuckups, but this seems a bit too much. The very least you expect from a hired lawyer is not to single-handedly destroy all your defense.
IANAL, but I'd also imagine there's a difference between clear satire and something being presented as the truth. Additionally, The Onion generally goes after public figures while Infowars, in this case, was targeting private individuals. Not sure how either of these have bearing in the legal sense, but could be important factors.
Of course, in a politicized legal context, these points may not matter since legal action could simply be an endurance trial.
>>I'd also imagine there's a difference between clear satire and something being presented as the truth.
There is, and the 1st amendment's coverage of Parody/Satire is very well documented. The Onion has always made it clear that it's fake news, Infowars fought tooth and nail to say they're allowed to say their "truth" even if it's harmful lies. When you can prove that someone believes the damaging bullshit they're saying (not always easy!) they get their dick kicked in.
To your other point, "a well-financed bad actor could ruin any business with enough SLAPP lawsuits" falls away because anti-SLAPP laws exist and award damages if you push too hard.
Do perfectly good people get ruined through litigation? Sure. Is it the epidemic that grifters trying to sway public opinion in their favor make it out to be? Highly unlikely.
A lot of jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP lawsuits, but not all. I think Logan Paul is trying to sue YouTuber Coffeezilla in a district that doesn't have anti-SLAPP protections with the express intent of bankrupting him.
Fair enough. I didn't know it was a walkover in the end. And it is not really surprising there was no sane defence.
I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem. And it has escalated lately. I fear that they will be used as excuses for getting at others.
> I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem
I believe the problem is how incredibly easy it is to both disseminate and consume utter bullshit. You're no longer that weird loner in town. You go online and can find hundreds and thousands of people who agree with you. Why would you go find people that challenge your views, when you can get those dopamine highs from people who love everything you say?
Get pushback from people in your life? Cut them out. They don't get you, and they're just hating.
The worst part? It's self-sustaining. Humans are really bad about going against a group. So much of our social behavior is around what others do, and the more we find out about others believing XYZ, we'll start to believe it ourselves. Unless they're from a different group, in which case it is anathema.
Combine those 2 things and you get these people who basically live in separate worlds. And social media/internet enables that.
I think there is a three fold problem of the mental health crisis, decreased social trust (broken communities etc) and algorithmic feeds.
I don't know if Alex Jones is mentally ill or pretends to be. His targeting seems suspiciously self-aware and lame compared to how it usually sounds when people wander down that path.
But I guess most of his viewership is. But they existed on the internets in the beginning too. Plenty of them. Maybe the recommendation engines bring more people into the "self-sustaining" circle, than would be otherwise?
I think what has changed is mainly that there are more 'leaders'. I might have had the wrong conception of what it was like earlier, but apart from Alex Jones and the lizard guy (David Ike?) it didn't seem to be that many.
Something has changed. There are so many lunatic "influencers" nowadays that keep getting pushed to the top. Earlier you had to get out of your way to stumble upon them.
> Why would you go find people that challenge your views
Obviously in some kind of minority, but I love having my views challenged. It’s how I grow. I want people to argue with me, though ideally, respectfully.
Unlikely.
It's worth remembering that Jones was never actually tried for defamation. He instead received a default judgment. In the US, both sides of a civil case have the right to a fair and speedy trial. If there's delays, you had better have a good reason for them and they need to fit the rules of procedure.
Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, more-or-less refused to participate in the trial. The Knowledge Fight podcast has some episodes dealing with the discovery and deposition process for the suits, with actual deposition audio. I'm not a lawyer but it was absolutely brutal to listen to how ill-prepared Jones, his employees, and his representatives were. They were submitting Wikipedia articles about false flags as evidence, had a comprehensive background check on one of the parents that was in FSS records that no one could seem to explain the presence of, and generally didn't comply with other discovery requests.
The end result of this is that his life's work has been reduced to a satire and he is likely financially hobbled for the rest of his life.
For The Onion to have the same fate, they would have to basically disregard every single common-sense rule regarding what you should do when you're sued.