News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by roenxi on Friday August 05, 2022 @08:18PM (#32363493)
If Jones can afford to pay any of these figures that it says interesting things about how ineffective deplatforming is and really rather undermines the "big tech is a monopoly!" argument. Most people can't make $4 million in a lifetime, let alone these figures.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by FireBeyond on Friday August 05, 2022 @08:25PM (#32363534)
He claimed that a judgment of $2M would bankrupt Infowars. But emails revealed that, at times, revenue was $800K -per day-, and the judge asked him to explain how potentially less than 3 days revenue would have that effect.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by andrewljohnson on Friday August 05, 2022 @09:00PM (#32363766)
InfoWars made $800K in one day, not _per_ day. Jones claims that was their best day ever.

Which makes total sense to me... businesses have huge boom days, and plaintiff lawyers will happily imply you should multiply that figure by 365 days.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by Kaze404 on Friday August 05, 2022 @09:16PM (#32363858)
If you divide it by 20 before multiplying by 365, which is a charitable read to say the least, it would still be an insane amount of money.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by kube-system on Friday August 05, 2022 @09:29PM (#32363927)
Is 20x charitable? For many highly political topics attention varies wildly between times when it is topical and when it is not. And further, some big contributors may contribute zero on most days, and contribute huge sums on one day.

Many political fundraisers bring in large fractions of their income on only during a few key days or events.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by sophacles on Friday August 05, 2022 @10:04PM (#32364123)
Jones also made a whole bunch of money via InfoWars merchandising. A lot of it was consumables like suppliments. That's a steady revenue stream.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by birdyrooster on Friday August 05, 2022 @10:00PM (#32364103)
Yeah it's definitely charitable because they are constantly selling products to their audience throughout the year.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by dukeofdoom on Friday August 05, 2022 @10:22PM (#32364212)
Keep in mind this is Revenue for a 50-75 person company. Some of his employees will be payed quite well. If they make 100k, the actual employee costs might be closer to 150k after all the government dues. So his employee costs alone could be around 10 million.

And if his pills really are sourced from the top manufacturer, then his claim of 20% profit margin of "food" might be correct too.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by Kaze404 on Friday August 05, 2022 @11:03PM (#32364420)
What's the source for the amount of employees? I couldn't find anything about that, let alone specifically 50 or 75.

I also think it's unreasonable to say that in a 50 person company that sells junk and makes YouTube videos that the median salary would be 100k. And even if it was, 50 * 150k is $7.5 million, not "around 10 million". The difference is significant considering we're talking about a $2m fine.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by dukeofdoom on Friday August 05, 2022 @11:06PM (#32364434)
Alex's sworn testimony during the trial. He was asked how many employees he had, and he gave these estimates. 75 * 150,000 = 11,250000. I quotes 10 million because it was a nice round number.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by johnmosermd on Saturday August 06, 2022 @02:11PM (#32370302)
Accounting records are going to be subpoenaed eventually if this keeps up.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by nkozyra on Friday August 05, 2022 @09:04PM (#32363782)
Even so, let's say that was a 10x day ... the question still has merit.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by tptacek on Saturday August 06, 2022 @12:52AM (#32364928)
None of this is a real debate. The "bankruptcy" filings show Jones pulling more than 60MM in member distributions out of these companies.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by DoctorOW on Friday August 05, 2022 @10:33PM (#32364278)
The problem with addressing Alex Jones and the rest "censored" is that they don't believe ANYTHING they say. Or rather, their spoken beliefs are fluid to suit the argument. You can't convince people there's not a "Big Tech" conspiracy about all these companies being controlled by whatever minority is trendy to hate now... You can't logic someone out a position they didn't logic their way into.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by roenxi on Saturday August 06, 2022 @12:11AM (#32364764)
> The problem with addressing Alex Jones and the rest "censored" is that they don't believe ANYTHING they say.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/reminder-wapo-nyt-won-pulitze...

There are 2 attacks that are just not worth bringing up because we all know they are true:

1) [Politician] is lying.

2) [Media Personality] doesn't really believe what they are reporting.

What you say is true, but also not interesting. Anyone who doesn't already know either of those facts doesn't care to know. It is normal.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by johnmosermd on Saturday August 06, 2022 @02:15PM (#32370335)
Hey I always have clear facts and reasoning backing up my policy claims. Lies are too hard to maintain, and they're fragile.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by DoctorOW on Saturday August 06, 2022 @12:41AM (#32364884)
Is that the link you meant to paste? I don't see the relevance?
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by roenxi on Saturday August 06, 2022 @01:31AM (#32365121)
I'll give you a hint - it is impossible to do Pulitzer-prize level reporting on a hoax without uncovering that it is a hoax. They knew they were fabricating a story out of nothing. And that isn't a problem, it is celebrated as good journalism.

The only thing that is different about Jones is he is targeting low-class low-intelligence audiences.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by DoctorOW on Saturday August 06, 2022 @04:26AM (#32366145)
Okay I was giving you a benefit of the doubt. But you're literally being the exact type of conspiracy theorist I was criticizing in my original comment.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by roenxi on Saturday August 06, 2022 @04:50AM (#32366262)
Well, now I'm very confused. Where do you think the conspiracy is here? I don't think there is one. And the Washington Post doesn't count as big tech (nor does the NYT).

The whole point is that there was no conspiracy, and that those two papers were making it up. Like Jones does and for very similar reasons (people love to hear a good conspiracy theory). conspiracy theorising is a fun and routine activity in the press.

Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by sleepybrett on Friday August 05, 2022 @08:43PM (#32363662)
This was gone into during the damages trial. When he got kicked off youtube his sales and profits from his boner pills went way up.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by johnmosermd on Saturday August 06, 2022 @02:10PM (#32370287)
This is the "exception that disproves the rule" fallacy. It's like going back to 16th century America and finding the one black guy who isn't a slave, or the one white guy who is, and claiming that black slavery wasn't really a thing, just slavery itself as a general thing.
Re:Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Ho... by stjohnswarts on Friday August 05, 2022 @09:30PM (#32363932)
It's not effective because he was able to build a rabid group of suckers. He always mentioned his website all over and steered people to it.