The families of the victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 want to seize the social media accounts of Alex Jones, including his 2.3 million follower X account, according to a report from Reuters Thursday. And their argument makes a lot of sense when you hear it.
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The families won a $1.5 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones after he defamed them by repeatedly falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre, which killed 20 children and 6 adult staff at the school, was actually a staged operation and no one actually died. The lies told by Jones led to the constant harassment of the family by his completely demented followers.
That lawsuit forced both Jones and his company InfoWars to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy almost two years ago. But after Jones and the victims’ families failed to negotiate a payout smaller than $1.5 billion, the conspiracy theorist recently filed for permission to liquidate his assets in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, something that’s expected to be approved in court on Friday.
But that brings us to the details of the proposed liquidation, which are currently being contested in court filings according to Reuters, and the question of what should be sold and seized.
From Reuters:
The Sandy Hook families asked the judge to make clear that the Jones’ “@RealAlexJones” account on X.com, formerly known as Twitter, will be among the assets turned over to a court-appointed trustee in charge of liquidating Jones’ assets. Jones’ X account, which has 2.3 million followers, is “no different than a customer list of any other liquidating business,” the Sandy Hook families argued.
The families also claim Jones has been trying to divert sales from his InfoWars store to his father’s website, DrJonesNaturals.com, by promoting it on social media.
But an attorney for Jones, Vickie Driver, reportedly objects to handing over the social media accounts, claiming, “The Connecticut Plaintiffs have never wanted money from Jones but to silence him.” And while the families are the only ones who can really answer that question, it doesn’t seem like that would be an altogether unreasonable goal, given everything they’ve gone through.
After all, this is the guy who repeatedly defamed them and made their lives an absolute hell as they were dealing with the grief of losing loved ones, including 20 small children. If the argument is that they didn’t sue a millionaire for selfish financial reasons, but instead to ensure he can’t continue to lie and harm people, that seems like a completely reasonable goal.