Today was a bad day in court for Alex Jones and Infowars, who lost an appeal in the defamation case brought against them by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting. Jones had accused the parents of lying as part of his conspiracy theories concerning the event. The appeal was in regards to Infowars' efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed as frivolous; it may now proceed after months of delay.
Infowars filed its now-dismissed appeal one day after Sandy Hook parent Neil Heslin filed a motion for contempt against Infowars as part of an ongoing legal battle against the outlet, which in 2017 broadcast claims that Heslin argued were meant to insinuate that he lied about holding his murdered son’s body and to subject him to harassment and emotional damage by those who believe Sandy Hook was a “false flag” conspiracy—a conspiracy theory advanced by the host of an Infowars program and amplified by Jones himself.
Heslin had filed a motion for expedited discovery and a motion for sanctions against defendants Jones, Infowars employee Owen Shroyer, Free Speech Systems LLC, and Infowars LLC, after it was revealed that Jones had ordered Infowars employees to remove “social media pages and video content relating to the Sandy Hook shooting” from the internet. Jones and his lawyers had previously filed a motion to have Heslin’s lawsuit dismissed under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a 2011 Texas law meant to aid individuals facing a frivolous lawsuits, but the judge hearing the case agreed with Heslin’s argument that Infowars’ efforts to delete content relevant to his case had hampered his ability to respond to Infowars’ motion to dismiss.
