Alex Jones loses in court, again

6 October 2021

Categories: Skepticism , Tags: Conspiracy, Alex Jones

Alex Jones, host of the conspiracy spreading TV channel InfoWars, has an illustrious history of pushing nonsense ideas about the US - from the ridiculous to the downright dangerous.

And somewhere in the midst of all this nonsense, Alex Jones decided to start pushing the ridiculous theory that the Sandy Hook massacre of school children in the US was a false flag operation, secretly organised by the government as a way to push for tighter gun controls.

It’s been great in this case that some of the grieving parents have decided not to let Jones get away with spreading his hurtful conspiracy theory, and there have been numerous lawsuits brought against him. The courts are not having a bar of Jones’ lawyers’ efforts to avoid paying out the money from cases he’s already lost in court - and on Thursday (opens new window) a Texas judge gave a "default judgement" against Jones, citing his repeated inability to follow the court’s orders to hand over documents.

Jones is no stranger to being in court, and has tried to use a variety of arguments to wheedle his way out of facing the consequences of his reckless actions. For some of his Sandy Hook lawsuits he’s tried to argue that his falsehoods are protected under free speech. When his ex-wife fought for custody of their children during divorce proceedings, she cited his erratic behaviour on InfoWars as evidence that he is unstable and should not be trusted to look after their kids. Jones’ lawyers’ response was to claim that Alex Jones is nothing more than a "performance artist", and that he doesn’t really mean the things that he says on InfoWars.

It’s great to see Jones finally having to face the music. I have no doubt that he will keep fighting to avoid justice, but I am hopeful that once all his avenues for appeal are exhausted, his rash words will have cost him dearly, and the people he has wronged will take enough of his money that his misinformation spreading media group will cease to exist.