Sandy Hook families get $1b in defamation victory

American broadcaster Alex Jones has been ordered to pay almost $1b in damages to families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

Photo: New York Daily News.

By: Sam Feierabend.

Jones broadcasts on his own Infowars talk show, where he landed himself in hot water for pushing a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook school shooting was ‘a hoax’ and that money donated to victims’ families was being used for their financial gain.

The shooting occurred in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut, where 26 people, including 20 children, where killed. It was in 2018 that Jones made his controversial comments saying that the shooting perpetrated by opponents of the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms.

As a result of this, Jones was sued for defamation by multiple families of the victims on the grounds that their public reputation had been harmed by his claims. They had been receiving multiple threats of abuse from fellow theorists.

In April this year, Jones declared bankruptcy following a court order to pay an initial $126,000 but a second court ruling last week said that due to the continued abuse the families, the defamation claim still stood. Jones now has to pay a total of $965m to the victims’ families.

At a human level, the claims Jones made are a startling reminder of how twisted some conspiracy theorists are. Those who lost children in the shooting not only have had to deal with the grief of loss, but have had to stand up to a barrage of abuse on top of that.

No conspiracy theorist has ever faced a punishment as large as this before, so this could see a landmark moment in how far theorists will go to peddle their ideology. Jones will almost certainly struggle to cope financially which he knows – he has appealed the decision and, with one last throw of the dice, claims this is further proof that the State want to stop him telling the truth.

The wider problem is the fact that Jones would not have broadcast his views so publicly if there was not a market for content like his. A poll in 2020 from the Journal of Social and Political Psychology has suggested that almost 20% of Americans believe that mass shootings are staged.

Covid-19 lockdowns exacerbated the amount of conspiracies in the mainstream. People locked away are vulnerable and more susceptible to extremism, especially when consuming more news through social media. They may have a legitimate question about something but get drawn to theorists who have ‘hard evidence’ to back up their claims. Theories often are backed up by a singular, out of context quote by an expert, that seem to offer clarity in uncertainty. This is not just limited to the U.S., as many people in the UK are battling with anti-vaccinators who campaign for an end to Covid-19 vaccinations. It is unclear whether a ruling against people like Jones will deter them from peddling hate speech.

While freedom of speech is a crucial part to a functioning democracy, Jones was told in court, ‘while speech is free, it is lies you have to pay for.’