Law and Truth
Not enough has been said about the impact of the affair of Alex Jones, the Infowars propagandist, and the punishments inflicted on him by the court. And it is an absolutely important thing, because it seems that in general there is a kind of general awakening of the judicial system, regarding the issue of truth.
Alex Jones is an American propagandist who has a website called INfoWars. Behind that site, which essentially spreads hoaxes, is a series of corporate Chinese boxes, hiding the proceeds from the sale of things like "equine hormones for sexual potency" (1) and other things that should blow up monitors, if only some European regulation hadn't banned exploding monitors. The usual dull bureaucrats.
In any case, one day a massacre occurs in the US, which reinforces the idea that having 360 million legal firearms, plus an unknown number of illegal ones, is not a good idea. Alex Jones arrives, and "proves" that there has never been any shooting, that no one is dead, that everyone is paid by the Communist government to deprive Americans of the right to bear arms.
Since the families of the dead exist, and they write on social media, Alex Jones "invites" his followers (ie Trump's voters) to put pressure on the dead, their families and an FBI agent who had given an interview (the which obviously said that the shooting had taken place).
Thousands of idiots unleashed them by vilifying them online, but also by going in front of their houses, trying to set fire to, throwing objects, mobbing their employers, trying to desecrate children's graves to prove they were empty.
Thus, the families have turned to justice.
Alex Jones then tried to turn the trial into a show, in spite of his lawyers, thinking that even if the court fined him, the proceeds from the show would be enough to offset the fine.
And if we only think about the court fine, he is right. As a result of the jury's verdict, in fact, he was given a 50 million fine, which he can easily pay, also because he asked for help from the pile of idiots who follow him, who have begun to "donate".
The problem is that after the court verdict on his illegal conduct comes the one on family compensation. And here the court knocked down the ax on Jones: $ 950 million fine.
And the funny thing is, it's just the offsets. Regarding this, it is very difficult to be challenged, since Alex Jones has held an attitude of obstruction against the court throughout the process, which practically excludes any appeal from being accepted.
It means that there is still another verdict, concerning the sanctioning compensation . The sanctioning compensation in the US is a kind of "pedagogical fine", with which it is taught that such behavior is execrable and is also discouraged.
The problem with sanctioning compensation is that it is usually EVEN BIGGER than compensatory compensation. Means another billion dollar hit is in the air. And with Jones' attitude in court and on trial (he heavily insulted the judge by comparing his appearance to Shrek, for one thing: zero out of ten lawyers suggest this defensive strategy), the appeal is unlikely to be accepted.
Now, in itself you will think "it suits him well". The problem is, in the US, lawyers earn a share of the compensation figures . They are therefore very motivated to get huge amounts, and then to dig into the forest of Chinese corporate boxes, created by the guilty to defend themselves, and take them apart.
And so, because of the previous one, a race "to the truth" is beginning: for example, a $ 250 million (sic!) Lawsuit has just started against Kayne West, for saying that George Floyd is dead overdosed and not killed by a policeman.
https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/2022/10/19/news/kanye_west_george_floyd_morto_per_overdose-12178749/
This thing opened up a kind of pandora's box.
The problem is that in the American system, if a court decides that falsifying on the internet is a crime that can produce compensation even for billionaires, now the life of those who sell nonsense on the internet is a little more risky.
What was lacking compared to the ruling on Alex Jones was the clear recognition of the fact that the lie on the internet is not only punishable in a compensatory sense (i.e. that the injured can claim millions of dollars in damages), but that it is also subject to sanctioning compensation. .
It is no coincidence that Amazon is venturing into a series of lawsuits for damages against those who release false reviews on its market. His action had already started months ago, but the problem was that for the lawyers the relationship between "I wrote buuuu on the internet" and "whoever received the buuuuu" has received damage, in the case of ordinary people (such as families of the dead of the massacre at school) had never been quantified so much, and not even subject to sanctioning compensation.
And it is the political and social value of sanctioning compensation that should be best noted. Sanctioning compensation in the US is practically the act by which the judge stands as the representative of the community, and tells you "you really fucked the fuck up with your bullshit". It is a process that transforms social disapproval, or the particular aversion of society to an illegal data, into a fine made by the power of the law.
In the famous case, the case of Erin Broncovitch, the poisoning of "simple" people would not have led to such high compensation, because their lives were valued poorly. Since poisoning the water of an entire community and making it carcinogenic was an act of particular social disgust, by inflicting a sanctioning compensation the court wanted to say "we all agree that you are a piece of shit and deserve a loud slap that you teach you to stay in your place ”. (also consider that there was a popular jury involved).
It is therefore a message that comes from society, in a certain sense, and therefore has social and political value.
Another interesting point is that Alex Jones was held responsible for something the sycophants of his website did. By this I mean that Alex Jones didn't go in person in an SUV to shoot at the windows of the husband of a dead teacher. His sycophants did it.
The trouble is that before now the responsibility of the sycophants and that of their "de facto leader" was separated. It is as if in the crime of Traini who shoots blacks, someone had held Salvini responsible.
But not "morally responsible", "moral mandator" or other formulas that do not allow punishment (in Europe and in Italy). American law takes the principle of causality into great consideration, and if it seems reasonable that without Alex Jones no one would have fired on the widower's windows, this carries a sanction against Alex Jones because "it is the cause".
This principle absolutely does not exist in Italy or on the European continent, and I'm not even sure it exists in the UK. But in the US, lawyers are literally obsessed with the cause-and-effect chain.
If we applied such a thing in Europe, say, every homophobic statement could blame, on a civil level, the consequent beating of any homosexual around the country.
And the statements of some leaguers would enroll them in the list of those responsible for actions such as that of Traini.
This ruling, then, as the next one to decide whether to inflict sanctioning damages (and I'm sure a single judge named “Shrek” by Alex Jones will be lenient. LOL), is a big blow to the American disinformation industry.
With bloodthirsty lawyers earning money with compensation, today a cazzaro must be very careful: if he says bullshit about things that do not impact real people ("the world is under the control of the reptilians"), they are in no danger.
But if they involve real people ("my neighbor is under the control of the reptilians") then the neighbor can ask for substantial damages, plus any possible sanctioning compensation.
This is heavy, especially in electoral campaigns: if you think of Pizzagate, in which politicians like Hillary Clinton were accused of horrendous crimes, or Potesta, the register of elections (I don't think it will have an impact on the mid-term, but on upcoming policies there will be a laugh) and the use of "propagandists" like Alex Jones changes completely.
Let me be clear, Alex Jones was aware of this risk: when an armed guy shot madly in the premises of the "Pizzagate", the Ping Pong in New York, he had already had an inkling of the danger:
and he had apologized. But then no one dragged him to court, because in the US there were no precedents that tied those who spread hatred to the acts of those who then shoot people.
The last ruling changed everything, setting a huge precedent.
I am not saying that this will be of effect, or that the era of certain propaganda will end.
I'm just saying, however, something is changing.
(1) Normally testosterone users use the bovine version, for intramuscular. Eating powders with an equine hormone will hardly make you enlarge.