Alex Jones is facing a hefty price tag for his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — $49.3 million in damages, and counting, for claiming the nation’s deadliest school shooting was a hoax — a punishing salvo in a fledgling war on harmful misinformation.
But what does this week’s verdict, the first of three Sandy Hook-related cases against Jones to be decided, mean for the larger misinformation ecosystem, a social media-fueled world of election denial, COVID-19 skepticism and other dubious claims that the Infowars conspiracy theorist helped build?
“I think a lot of people are thinking of this as sort of a blow against fake news, and it’s important to realize that libel law deals with a very particular kind of fake news,” said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment professor at the UCLA School of Law.
U.S. courts have long held that defamatory statements — falsehoods damaging the reputation of a person or a business — aren’t protected as free speech, but lies about other subjects, like science, history or the government, are. For example, saying COVID-19 isn’t real is not defamatory, 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, is being forced to pay up while Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and vaccine skeptics are free to post their theories without much fear of a multimillion-dollar court judgment.
“Alex Jones was attacking individuals,” said Stephen D. Solomon, a law professor and founding editor of New York University’s First Amendment Watch. “And that’s important. A lot of disinformation does not attack individuals.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, the parents of one of 20 first graders killed at the Connecticut school in 2012, said they hoped a big-money verdict against Jones would serve as a deterrent to him and others who peddle misinformation for profit.
“I am asking you to take the bullhorn away from Alex Jones and all of the others who believe they can profit off of fear and misinformation,” Wesley Ball said in his closing argument Friday. “The gold rush of fear and misinformation must end, and it must end today.”
Jones, who has since acknowledged that the shooting was real, has claimed his statements about Sandy Hook were protected by the First Amendment. He even showed up to court with “Save the 1st” scrawled on a piece of tape over his mouth.
But despite the public theatrics, Jones never got to make that argument in court. After Jones failed to comply with orders to hand over critical evidence, a judge entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs and skipped right to the punishment phase.
AP file photo
In this July 12, 2022 file photo, a video showing Alex Jones is shown as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington
Jones’ lawyer Andino Reynal told the jury during closing arguments that a large judgment would have a chilling effect on people seeking to hold governments accountable.
“You’ve 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 has to change,” Reynal told jurors.
Free speech experts say any chilling effect should be limited to people who wantonly disseminate false information, not journalists or other citizens making good-faith efforts to get at the truth of a matter.
“You have to look at this particular case and ask yourself, what exactly are you chilling?” Solomon said.
“The kind of speech that defames parents who have lost their children in a massacre is maybe the kind of speech you do want to deter. You do want to chill that speech,” Solomon said. “That’s the message that potentially the jury wanted to send here, that this is unacceptable in a civilized society.”
As for Jones, Reynal said he isn’t going away any time soon. He’ll remain on the air while they appeal the verdict, one of the largest and highest-profile decisions in a defamation case in recent years.
Among others: a gadfly ordered in February to pay $50 million to a South Carolina mayor after accusing her in emails of committing a crime and being 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 provider ordered in 2017 to pay $274 million to three businessmen after he posted billboards accusing them of drug dealing and extortion.
“These kinds of damages and verdicts do have a chilling effect,” Volokh said. “They’re intended to have a chilling effect on lies that damage people’s reputations.”
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AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File
CLAIM: At the Huntington Place ballot counting site in Detroit after the Aug. 2 election, at least 50% of ballots lacked evidence of signature verification, and large bags and coolers under tables caused a security issue.
THE FACTS: All the ballots counted at the facility had gone through the signature review process and the bags and coolers contained food and belongings for election workers who were not able to leave while ballots were counted.
A Detroit convention center that doubled as a ballot counting site became the hub of election falsehoods in November 2020, and following Michigan’s Aug. 2 primary election this week, similar online claims returned in force. Social media posts and articles on conservative blogs misrepresented what poll watchers, or volunteers allowed to observe the counting process, supposedly witnessed at the Huntington Place ballot counting site, formerly known as the TCF Center. The posts reported that Republican poll watchers observing the counting process “questioned why at least 50% of the ballots were lacking certification that they had been checked for signature verification." The posts also implied that “duffel bags, coolers, and a variety of large bags” visible underneath tables at the facility could be a security risk since they were next to trays holding absentee ballots.
These claims are misleading, according to Daniel Baxter, election administrator for the city of Detroit, and Chris Thomas, a former state elections chief who currently assists with managing Detroit’s absentee counting board. The posts claimed that if absentee ballots had been signature verified, they would have been marked as such in a box printed on the envelopes. They claimed that poll watchers noticed that several of the boxes on the envelopes were unmarked. However, the reason some of the boxes on the envelopes were unmarked was because a machine that assists in the signature verification process marked the ballots slightly lower than the boxes, Thomas and Baxter both explained. In Detroit, clerks verify most voter signatures on absentee ballots using a mail processing system called Relia-Vote, Baxter said. A machine dates absentee ballot envelopes and photographs the signatures on them so clerks can view the images on a screen, comparing them digitally to signatures in the Qualified Voter File. If a clerk rejects the signature on a ballot envelope, that ballot does not advance to be counted, Baxter said. If the clerk approves it as a match, the Relia-Vote system marks the envelope with the ballot stub number and the name of the clerk who approved it, and sends it on for tabulation. The Relia-Vote system marks the ballots in the bottom section of the envelopes, Thomas said. That’s why many of the ballot envelopes viewed at the Huntington Place ballot counting site did not have markings where poll watchers expected. “In all instances, when ballots were processed by the clerks or the inspectors at the central counting board, all signatures were reviewed,” Baxter said. The posts also hinted that large bags and coolers located underneath tables during ballot counting were a security issue. Baxter and Thomas rejected that claim, explaining that everyone working in the room was constantly watched during the counting process. Baxter and Thomas said many workers at the site brought coolers with food to eat because security protocols required them to remain on the premises for their entire shift, which lasted several hours. Thomas said the many poll watchers and reporters in the facility during the counting process would notice if someone tried to sneak a ballot into or out of the facility. Baxter pointed out that audits of the absentee ballot counting process would also identify such issues.
— Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report
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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
CLAIM: A congressional bill to ban certain semi-automatic weapons would “turn 150 million Americans into felons overnight.”
THE FACTS: The bill would only affect future firearm transactions, so people who already lawfully own such weapons when the bill passes would be allowed to keep them, legal experts confirmed. An effort by House Democrats to ban certain semi-automatic weapons is being misrepresented online.
“They want to turn 150 million Americans into felons overnight,” read an Instagram post with a picture of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that amassed thousands of likes. The post referred to H.R. 1808, also known as the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022, which passed in the House on July 29. The bill is expected to stall in the Senate, where Republicans have dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. The bill would make it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer or possess a long list of semi-automatic weapons and magazines. Among the semi-automatic weapons banned would be some 200-plus types of semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s, and pistols. The restrictions would not apply to many other models, which the bill lists by name.
However, the bill would not turn existing owners of semi-automatic weapons and magazines into criminals. Instead, people who already legally own such weapons when the bill passes will still be allowed to possess the firearm, and those guns will still be legal to sell or otherwise transfer.
A summary of the bill prepared by the Congressional Research Service lays out this exemption, saying, “The bill permits continued possession, sale, or transfer of a grandfathered SAW, which must be securely stored. A licensed gun dealer must conduct a background check prior to the sale or transfer of a grandfathered SAW between private parties.” Dru Stevenson, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston whose research focuses on firearm law confirmed that “the bill grandfathers in current owners.” “It does not turn 150 million Americans into felons overnight,” Stevenson said in an email to the AP. Adam Winkler, a gun policy expert and professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, confirmed the same. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., also testified that the bill includes an exemption that allows for the possession of existing semi-automatic guns.
The claim that 150 million people would be affected by the bill is also suspect, since current estimates suggest that there aren’t even that many firearms owners in the United States. A 2021 National Firearms Survey, for example, found that about 81 million Americans are gun owners.
— Ali Swenson contributed this report with additional reporting from Karena Phan in Los Angeles.
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AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
CLAIM: Monkeypox can only be spread among gay men.
THE FACTS: While the overwhelming majority of cases in the current outbreak in the U.S. and Europe have so far been among men who have sex with men, experts and officials say the virus can be transmitted to anyone.
As monkeypox has spread, social media posts have pushed an erroneous narrative that the virus can only be transmitted among gay men. “The ‘I have immunity to monkeypox’ starter kit,” declared a meme widely shared on Facebook, which included four depictions of heterosexual couples and families. Similar posts were shared on Twitter and TikTok.
But it’s false to suggest the virus can only affect gay or bisexual men, or that anal sex is the only way it is transmitted. “Sexual orientation does not confer immunity to monkeypox,” Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist, told the AP in an email. “Furthermore, one can become infected without sexual activity.” Dr. Sharon Walmsley, a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute who co-authored a recent study looking at hundreds of monkeypox infections across 16 countries, similarly said: “There is no evidence that heterosexual people have immunity and some have acquired infection.”
Walmsley noted in an email that researchers believe monkeypox is spread through close contact, including sexual activity, but it is not confirmed if the virus is being spread via bodily fluids such as semen during sexual intercourse. As the AP has reported, scientists believe the primary route of transmission during the current outbreak has been skin-to-skin contact during sexual encounters with someone who has symptoms. The virus also may spread through saliva and respiratory droplets during prolonged, face-to-face contact, such as during kissing and cuddling. Additionally, transmission could occur through touching fabrics or objects, such as bedding or towels, used by a person with monkeypox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. has reported some monkeypox cases in some women and at least two in children. Officials suspect the cases in the children were due to household transmission. Monkeypox symptoms can include fever, chills, body aches and bumps on parts of the body. The lesions caused by the virus that can be extremely painful.
— Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in New York contributed this report.
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AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File
CLAIM: U.S. Border Patrol agents are giving Social Security numbers to immigrants who cross the border into the U.S. without authorization.
THE FACTS: Border Patrol does not give Social Security numbers to immigrants who cross the border, nor does it have the authority to, a spokesperson for the agency told the AP.
Lara Logan, a former Fox Nation host, recently claimed that U.S. Border Patrol agents are distributing Social Security numbers to immigrants at the border. In a video that has circulated widely on social media, Logan tells the audience at an event in Tempe, Arizona, that: “Now, when people come across the border illegally — and I have this confirmed from Border Patrol agents who are actually physically doing this — they get given a Social Security number.” The video clip also spread on conservative blogs and websites.
But no such thing is happening, Rhonda Lawson, a spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the AP in an email. “U.S. Border Patrol does not possess the capability or authority to issue Social Security numbers, and therefore does not issue Social Security numbers to non-citizens who crossed the border,” she wrote. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University who teaches immigration law, agreed that Border Patrol agents would not hand out Social Security numbers. “Even if they were to do it, it would be illegal for them to do it and they could be prosecuted for doing it," he said. Logan did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment. The Social Security Administration also did not respond.
Other experts echoed that Logan’s claim is baseless and not reflective of the process migrants would need to go through to get a Social Security number. “The scenario she proposes is not plausible,” Evelyn Cruz, a clinical law professor at Arizona State University, wrote in an email to the AP. “Someone entering illegally does not have a right to a Social Security number. Period.” Generally, noncitizens are only eligible for Social Security numbers if they are authorized to work by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Denise Gilman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, told the AP. For instance, asylum seekers can obtain a Social Security number after being granted work authorization in order to pay taxes. But it takes “months" for asylum seekers to qualify for a Social Security number, Cruz wrote. They would never be able to obtain one at the border. Most immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. are not even able to apply for asylum and are expelled under Title 42, a pandemic-related restriction, according to Gilman. Lawson noted that Border Patrol does typically give migrants at the border an A-number, which is used to track cases in the immigration system. An A-number cannot be used like a Social Security number. Of Logan’s claim that immigrants are getting Social Security numbers at the border, Gilman said that she had “never ever heard of this happening.” “I’m quite familiar with the kinds of forms that they get and the proceedings that they undergo and getting a Social Security card is absolutely not one of the things that happen in connection with border processing," she said.
— Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.
