• ameancow@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It was a defamation suit.

    Which, like most suits, seeks reparations for damages, particularly in civil cases, this is going to be the entire point of the case.

    Of course the goal is to shut him up

    No lol, at least not explicitly. Everyone keeps saying this, but it has never been stated as a goal of the trials.

    make him stop defaming his victims

    In the normal world, punishing someone for causing damages usually teaches them to stop doing the thing, the “silencing” part is just a consequence of a judgement, because with a precedent in place the defendant could easily be charged and convicted again. If you become held liable for damages (which again, was the goal of this and most civil cases) and you continue to do the thing you’re charged with, you would have to be either utterly incompetent, or a celebrity who thinks you can ride on your fame and public profile enough to get around the law, and having your right to speak taken away from you in the US is a very rare thing.

    Everyone is getting angry at the people explaining this, when the problem here is the fact that this is a celebrity case. Jones is not a normal person who gets punished for doing thing and thus stops doing thing for fear of being punished further, in this case he’s trying to make it worse for himself because that translates to ratings and money, but, that inflow of money is considered an income and many times courts will allow a defendant to continue to work to raise the funds for the judgement, but in all it’s a very grey area.

    The wildest part here is that people explaining these facts are getting called sympathizers? I am baffled how immature the general public has become. Just like how people who explain that Trump isn’t getting jail time are getting called “fascists,” this is a prime example of how everyone is spending too much time rotting their goddamn brains on the internet.

    • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Laws and courts do not exist as ends in and of themselves. They’re tools created to serve a greater purpose, namely to discourage and stop bad behavior. If the tool is failing at its primary purpose, it deserves criticism.

      Responding to criticisms about how the courts work with “but that’s how the courts work” is missing the point.