Notes

Leonard Pozner
On December 14, 2012, 20 year old Adam Lanza took a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifle into Sandy Hook Elementary school and killed 20 children and 6 teachers. Among the children killed was Pozner's six-year-old son Noah. Shortly afterwards, conspiracy theorists used Facebook, YouTube, blogs along with other social media marketing platforms to claim the massacre was a hoax and a false flag operation and that the victims were actually crisis actors. Included in this was radio-show host Alex Jones, who repeatedly used the conspiracy theory to inform the audience listening to his InfoWars radio program to rise up and "find out the reality", insisting that the shooting was staged by the federal government to destroy the next Amendment and citizens' to bear arms.
While mourning the loss of their children, Pozner and the other victims' families had to endure accusations that their children weren't dead, and that the tragedy was a fraud designed to undermine Americans' gun rights. They received death threats and in-person, online and telephone call harassment from people who took up the call from Jones among others. In response, Pozner began reporting harassing and defaming content and claims about him and his family, and posts and videos using photos (often defaced) of his son. "I must absolutely defend the memory of my son ? I have no choice" he said. "I understand how a few of these theories build up. They don't really fade and the more time they spend online, the more accepted they become. The JFK conspiracy theory in america is very accepted. Conspiracy theories erase history, they erase our memories, and how will this event (Sandy Hook) be remembered a hundred years from now? THEREFORE I think it's important, the task that I'm doing now."
After Pozner succeeded in getting Infowars videos taken off YouTube, Jones showed his audience Pozner's personal information and maps to addresses associated 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 however, as every time they move, conspiracy theorists who stalk the household publish their new address. The household has had to go many times since leaving Connecticut. They currently live in hiding in a high-security community hundreds of miles from where their six-year-old son Noah is buried.
HONR Network
The HONR network is really a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Pozner in response to the harassment and hate that he and other groups of victims of mass casualty events endured online. After his son died in the Sandy Hook shooting, and he and his family became the target of online abuse, volunteers reached out offering to help flag and report the hateful content. As additional mass casualty events occurred and the survivors and families of other victims reached out for assistance, Pozner made a decision to turn the loosely knit group into an organized non-profit.
The initial goal of the business was to combat online hate and harassment, particularly if fond of survivors and the groups of victims of violent tragedies and mass casualty events. More recently the business mission has expanded to provide guidance for several people affected by harassment, bullying and abuse. The HONR Network now has around 300 volunteers who help monitor and remove harassing content online.
Lucy Richards
In 2017, Floridian Lucy Richards was sentenced to 5 months in prison for threatening Pozner's life. She admitted in her guilty plea to being section of the active online community of Americans who think that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged and that the victims and their mourning members of the family are only actors. US district judge James Cohn called Richards' actions towards Pozner "disturbing" and condemned those that spread false claims concerning the deaths of the victims. "That is reality and there is absolutely no fiction. There are no alternative facts" Cohn told Richards at her sentencing.[
Campaigns
Pozner and the HONR Network have had much success in changing policy and removing harmful content from the internet. In July 2018, Pozner and De La Rosa wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg which was published by The Guardian website. In the letter they appealed for help from the Facebook CEO, urging him to honor the pledge he made in the US Senate: to create Facebook a safer and much more hospitable place for social interaction. Pozner and De La Rosa suggested two methods to better protect victims from harassment: "Treat victims of mass shootings and other tragedies as a protected group, such that attacks in it are specifically against Facebook policy. And provide affected people with usage of Facebook staff who'll remove hateful and harassing posts against victims immediately." Facebook has since taken steps to recognize these victims and Pozner now works with its content moderators and policymakers. In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson told CBS News: "Following Sandy Hook, Lenny was one of many people who sent us questions and concerns. In the wake of unthinkably tragic experience, his feedback helped effect change inside our policies on bullying and harassment."
Pozner has also had success with other online platforms by flagging harmful content for violations such as invasions of privacy, threats and harassment, and copyright infringement. In 2018, HONR Network reported 2,568 videos to YouTube and had 1,555 removed. Blog hosting platform WordPress.com initially refused to greatly help. Its parent company Automattic repeatedly taken care of immediately Pozner's requests with form letters saying "because we believe this to be fair use of the material, we shall not be removing it at this time". In addition, they warned that the business could collect damages from individuals who "knowingly materially misrepresent" copyrights. Automattic have since made direct contact with Pozner and apologised for the form letters. It said the responses Pozner received were "a predefined statement" that is used in copyright situations. Automattic then added a fresh policy that prohibits blogs from the "malicious publication of unauthorized, identifying images of minors". This policy meant that images of child victims would be removed.
In May 2019, online activist group Avaaz organised meetings with executives from Twitter and Facebook to help expand the campaign against online hate and misinformation. Speaking at the meetings were journalist Jessikka Aro and teenage vaccination advocate Ethan Lindenberger. Pozner participated in the meetings remotely and spoke of the need to curb online harassment. "I'm a solid proponent of the First Amendment, and free speech is an important aspect of American society. However, there exists a fundamental misunderstanding of people's rights and responsibilities online. A person cannot violate my civil rights to be free from harassment, bullying, or even to have my likeness manipulated and my family targeted with death threats and intimidation and then simply attempt to hide behind 'free speech.'"
Alex Jones defamation case
Sandy Hook Father
In April 2018, in state district courts in Travis County, Texas, lawyers representing Pozner and his ex-wife Veronique de la Rasa launched a defamation suit against Alex Jones. In August 2018, Judge Scott Jenkins rejected Jones' argument and his motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In the month following a launch of the defamation suits, separate actions were launched in Connecticut, by another six families of Sandy Hook victims, and something FBI agent who was simply a first responder at the scene. In February 2019, in reaction to this suit, Judge Barbara Bellis ruled that Jones must submit to a sworn deposition, as well as turning over internal financial, business, and marketing documents linked to InfoWars' operations. In 2019, Jones and Infowars lost an appeal against the district court's denial of these motion to dismiss.
The same lawyer filed similar defamation cases against Alex Jones and Infowars with respect to two other parents who lost children at Sandy Hook ? Neil Heslin[21] and Scarlett Lewis.
In another case by exactly the same lawyers, Marcel Fontaine launched defamation proceedings against Jones for falsely identifying him as the gunman in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. In response, Jones attempted to have the Pozner and Fontaine cases dismissed beneath the Texas Citizens Participation Act. This act is made to protect citizens' to free speech against plaintiffs who aim to silence them through costly litigation. Jones also sought a lot more than $100,000 in court costs from the Pozner family.
By February 2021, Jones and Infowars lost appeals about all four cases in the Texas Third District Court of Appeal; were denied review by the Texas Supreme Court; and are pending motions for reconsideration of those denials.
The plaintiffs' lawyer, Farrar & Ball, set up a website with the filings in each one of these cases, and published two videos of these deposition of Alex Jones.
Wired magazine has described the Pozner versus Jones case as highly significant with regards to free speech in the digital age. "Whether Jones wins or loses, his suit, according to First Amendment lawyers, will be a building block for the way we think about free speech in the age of the internet."
Nobody died at Sandy Hook book
In June 2019, Wisconsin judge Frank Remington ruled that Pozner had been defamed by the authors of "Nobody Died At Sandy Hook: It was a FEMA Drill to market Gun Control." The 455-page book, published by Moon Rock Books, argued that the Sandy Hook massacre had never happened. Inside it, they claim many times that Pozner had faked his son Noah's death certificate. Pozner's submissions in the case included DNA samples that match those taken by a Connecticut medical examiner that prove Noah was his son. Additionally, he submitted Noah's birth certificate, report cards and medical records into the public record. The judge ruled that there is no question of fact in the dispute, and ruled and only Pozner in the libel case: that the co-editors of the book, James Fetzer and Mike Palecek, had defamed Pozner. "This is a victory for myself and my children" Pozner said in an interview. "It is also a victory for the survivors and victims' families of all mass casualty events who've been targeted by these people."Within an email,[clarification needed][when?][to whom?] Fetzer restated his belief that Noah's death certificate was faked: "The American folks are entitled to know the reality about their own history.[citation needed] Pozner later said "If Mr Fetzer wants to think that Sandy Hook never happened and that people are crisis actors, even that my son never existed, he has the proper to be wrong. But he does not have the proper to broadcast those beliefs should they defame me or harass me. He doesn't have the right to use my baby's image or our name as a marketing ploy to raise donations or sell his products. He does not have the proper to convince others to hunt my children."
As the consequence of a separate judgment contrary to the book's publisher, the principal officer of Moon Rock Books, Dave Gahary, decided to stop selling the book. After hearing a 15-hour deposition, Gahary said that he no longer 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 whatever I had done to donate to his misery." Gahary, who has published many books on conspiracies, said he had been inundated with hate mail from deniers of the Sandy Hook massacre since his change of heart had become public. He hoped that he was sending these folks a note: "If someone like me says that I really believe him, it will carry some weight, plus they should understand this event differently." A jury trial to decide 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 attorney's fees, and $7,395.13 in fees and costs. (Palecek and Moon Rock Books previously settled out of court.) Fetzer said he'd appeal.

Here's my website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Pozner