That pitiful excuse for a human being who benefits from the suffering imposed on the bereaved families of slain children has been ordered by a jury to pay $965 million to some of those families. Twenty six children and six adults were massacred in the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school.
The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.
…The Connecticut trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’s show.
Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the slain Sandy Hook principal, Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house. Mark Barden told how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his seven-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.
…The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars. Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.
Jones’s motivation to do this thing can be put down to the desire to make money. But what makes Jones’s followers do these despicable things to the families? Even if you think the whole thing is a hoax, what motivates you to go to such elaborate lengths to make your point? Don’t these people have lives?
Since you ask… Jones spends all his time on his show whipping up people’s fear: he assures his listeners that everyone is trying to take away all they have, the everyone is plotting to kill them and so on and so forth. Once he has them terrified of completely imaginary things, he offers “help” in the form of selling them something. He often urges people to “take action” and “we have to stop them NOW” so his followers will do things like stalk and harass the Sandy Hook parents. In their own minds, no doubt, they are true patriots trying to save America.
For those interested there is a podcast called Knowledge Fight: https://knowledgefight.com/ where they break down Jones’ tactics and fact check his many ludicrous claims. It’s a fascinating look into a very strange world.