Notes

Leonard Pozner
Leonard Pozner is the daddy of a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim, Noah Pozner. He is the founding father of the HONR Network, which supports the victims of mass casualty violence in addition to the targets of on-line hate speech and harassment.
Sandy Hook Elementary School taking pictures
On December 14, 2012, 20 year outdated Adam Lanza took a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifle into Sandy Hook Elementary school and killed 20 youngsters and 6 lecturers. One of the kids killed was Pozner's six-year-old son Noah. Shortly afterwards, conspiracy theorists used Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other social media platforms to claim the massacre was a hoax and a false flag operation and that the victims had been actually crisis actors. Among them was radio-show host Alex Jones, who repeatedly used the conspiracy concept to inform the viewers listening to his InfoWars radio program to rise up and "find out the truth", insisting that the taking pictures was staged by the federal government to destroy the Second Amendment and citizens' right to bear arms.
While mourning the lack of their youngsters, Pozner and the opposite victims' households had to endure accusations that their children weren't useless, and that the tragedy was a fraud designed to undermine Americans' gun rights. They obtained death threats and in-person, online and phone name harassment from individuals who took up the decision from Jones and others. In response, Pozner started reporting harassing and defaming content and claims about him and his household, as nicely as posts and videos using photos (often defaced) of his son. "I have to utterly defend the memory of my son — I really have no alternative" he stated. "I know the way a few of these theories build up. They don't fade away and the extra time they spend on-line, the extra accepted they turn out to be. The JFK conspiracy concept in the US is very accepted. Conspiracy theories erase history, they erase our recollections, and the way will this occasion (Sandy Hook) be remembered a hundred years from now? So I assume it's necessary, the work that I'm doing now."
After Pozner succeeded in getting Infowars videos faraway from YouTube, Jones showed his viewers Pozner's private information and maps to addresses associated together with his family. In an effort to protect themselves from the continuing harassment, Pozner and Noah's mother Veronique De La Rosa Haller, and their two surviving children, moved from Connecticut. The harassment has continued nonetheless, as each time they transfer, conspiracy theorists who stalk the family publish their new tackle. The household has had to transfer several times since leaving Connecticut. They presently reside in hiding in a high-security group tons of of miles from the place their six-year-old son Noah is buried.
HONR Network
The HONR network is a 501(c)nonprofit organizationfounded by Pozner in response to the harassment and hate that he and different households of victims of mass casualty occasions endured on-line. After his son died within the Sandy Hook shooting, and he and his household turned the goal of on-line abuse, volunteers reached out offering to assist flag and report the hateful content material. As additional mass casualty occasions occurred and the survivors and families of other victims reached out for assistance, Pozner decided to turn the loosely knit group into an organized non-profit.
The preliminary goal of the organization was to fight online hate and harassment, particularly when directed at survivors and the households of victims of violent tragedies and mass casualty occasions. More just lately the organization mission has expanded to provide steering for all folks affected by harassment, bullying and abuse. The HONR Network now has around 300 volunteers who assist monitor and take away harassing content material online.
Lucy Richards
In 2017, Floridian Lucy Richards was sentenced to five months in jail for threatening Pozner's life. She admitted in her guilty plea to being part of the lively on-line neighborhood of Americans who consider that the Sandy Hook taking pictures was staged and that the victims and their mourning relations are solely actors. US district judge James Cohn referred to as Richards' actions in the direction of Pozner "disturbing" and condemned those who unfold false claims about the deaths of the victims. "This is actuality and there could be no fiction. There aren't any alternative information" Cohn informed Richards at her sentencing.
Campaigns
Pozner and the HONR Network have had a lot success in changing coverage and eradicating dangerous content material from the internet. In July 2018, Pozner and De La Rosa wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg which was revealed by The Guardian web site. In the letter they appealed for assist from the Facebook CEO, urging him to honor the pledge he made in the US Senate: to make Facebook a safer and extra hospitable place for social interaction. Pozner and De La Rosa suggested two ways to raised defend victims from harassment: "Treat victims of mass shootings and other tragedies as a protected group, such that assaults on them are specifically in opposition to Facebook policy. And provide affected people with access to Facebook workers who will remove hateful and harassing posts in opposition to victims immediately."Facebook has since taken steps to acknowledge these victims and Pozner now works with its content material moderators and policymakers.[10] In a press release, a Facebook spokesperson advised CBS News: "Following Sandy Hook, Lenny was one of the people who sent us questions and issues. In the wake of unthinkably tragic experience, his feedback helped impact change in our policies on bullying and harassment."
Pozner has additionally had success with different on-line platforms by flagging harmful content for violations similar to invasions of privateness, threats and harassment, and copyright infringement. In 2018, HONR Network reported 2,568 videos to YouTube and had 1,555 removed. Blog internet hosting platform WordPress.com initially refused to assist. Its father or mother company Automattic repeatedly responded to Pozner's requests with type letters saying "as a outcome of we consider this to be truthful use of the fabric, we won't be removing it presently". In addition, they warned that the company may acquire damages from individuals who "knowingly materially misrepresent" copyrights. Automattic have since made direct contact with Pozner and apologised for the form letters. It stated the responses Pozner received have been "a predefined assertion" that's utilized in copyright conditions. Automattic then added a model new policy that prohibits blogs from the "malicious publication of unauthorized, figuring out pictures of minors". This coverage meant that images of child victims can be removed.
In May 2019, on-line activist group Avaaz organised meetings with executives from Twitter and Facebook to additional the campaign in opposition to on-line hate and misinformation. Speaking at the meetings were journalist Jessikka Aro and teenage vaccination advocate Ethan Lindenberger. Pozner participated within the conferences remotely and spoke of the want to curb online harassment. "I am a powerful proponent of the First Amendment, and free speech is an important side of American society. However, there's a elementary misunderstanding of people's rights and obligations on-line. A individual cannot violate my civil rights to be free of harassment, bullying, or to have my likeness manipulated and my household focused with death threats and intimidation and then simply try to hide behind 'free speech.'"
Alex Jones defamation case
In April 2018, in state district courts in Travis County, Texas, lawyers representing Pozner and his ex-wife Veronique de la Rosa launched a defamation swimsuit towards Alex Jones. In August 2018, Judge Scott Jenkins rejected Jones' argument and his motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In the month following the launch of the defamation suits, separate actions had been launched in Connecticut, by another six families of Sandy Hook victims, and one FBI agent who was a primary responder at the scene. In February 2019, in response to this swimsuit, Judge Barbara Bellis dominated that Jones should submit to a sworn deposition, along with turning over inside monetary, enterprise, and marketing documents associated to InfoWars' operations. In 2019, Jones and Infowars misplaced an attraction towards the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss.
Sandy Hook Dad
The identical law firm filed related defamation instances in opposition to Alex Jones and Infowars on behalf of two different mother and father who misplaced children at Sandy Hook — Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis.
In a separate case by the identical legal professionals, Marcel Fontaine launched defamation proceedings against Jones for falsely identifying him because the gunman within the Stoneman Douglas High School capturing. In response, Jones tried to have the Pozner and Fontaine instances dismissed underneath the Texas Citizens Participation Act. This act is designed to guard residents' right to free speech in opposition to plaintiffs who goal to silence them by way of pricey litigation. Jones additionally sought more than $100,000 in courtroom costs from the Pozner family.
As of February 2021, Jones and Infowars misplaced appeals about all 4 instances in the Texas Third District Court of Appeal; were denied evaluate by the Texas Supreme Court; and are pending motions for reconsideration of those denials.
The plaintiffs' regulation agency, Farrar & Ball, set up an web site with the filings in every of these circumstances, and revealed two movies of their deposition of Alex Jones.
Wired magazine has described the Pozner versus Jones case as highly vital almost about free speech in the digital age. "Whether Jones wins or loses, his suit, in accordance with First Amendment legal professionals, will be a constructing block for the means in which we think of free speech within the age of the web."
Nobody died at Sandy Hook book
In June 2019, Wisconsin choose Frank Remington ruled that Pozner had been defamed by the authors of "Nobody Died At Sandy Hook: It was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control." The 455-page book, published by Moon Rock Books, argued that the Sandy Hook massacre had by no means happened. In it, they claim a quantity of instances that Pozner had faked his son Noah's demise certificate.[29] Pozner's submissions in the case included DNA samples that match those taken by a Connecticut health worker that show Noah was his son. Additionally, he submitted Noah's birth certificates, report cards and medical data into the general public document. The choose dominated that there was no question of reality within the dispute, and dominated in favor of Pozner in the libel case: that the co-editors of the e-book, James Fetzer and Mike Palecek, had defamed Pozner. "This is a victory for myself and my household" Pozner stated in an interview. "It is also a victory for the survivors and victims' households of all mass casualty occasions who've been focused by these individuals." In an e-mail, Fetzer restated his belief that Noah's dying certificate was faked: "The American people are entitled to know the truth about their very own history. Pozner later stated "If Mr Fetzer wants to imagine that Sandy Hook never happened and that we're all crisis actors, even that my son by no means existed, he has the proper to be incorrect. But he doesn't have the proper to broadcast those beliefs if they defame me or harass me. He does not have the best to use my baby's image or our title as a advertising ploy to boost donations or sell his merchandise. He would not have the proper to convince others to hunt my family."
As the result of a separate judgment against the book's writer, the principal officer of Moon Rock Books, Dave Gahary, agreed to stop selling the book. After listening to a 15-hour deposition, Gahary mentioned that he now not had any doubt that Pozner had truly lost his son. "I came away from that believing that he was telling the reality, and I felt personally bad for anything that I had carried out to contribute to his distress." Gahary, who has revealed many books on conspiracies, said he had been inundated with hate mail from deniers of the Sandy Hook bloodbath since his change of heart had turn into public. He hoped that he was sending these individuals a message: "If someone like me is saying that I believe him, it should carry some weight, and they want to have a look at this occasion in a different way." A jury trial to resolve damages was set for October 2019. At the trial's conclusion in July 2020, the Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Court ordered Fetzer to pay Pozner a complete of $1.1 million — $450,000 in jury-awarded damages, $650,000 in lawyer's fees, and $7,395.13 in fees and costs.(Palecek and Moon Rock Books beforehand settled out of court docket.) Fetzer said he would enchantment..

Homepage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Pozner