Notes

Leonard Pozner
Leonard Pozner is the daddy of a Sandy Hook Elementary School capturing victim, Noah Pozner. He is the founder of the HONR Network, which helps the victims of mass casualty violence in addition to the targets of on-line hate speech and harassment.
Sandy Hook Elementary School capturing
On December 14, 2012, 20 yr outdated Adam Lanza took a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifle into Sandy Hook Elementary school and killed 20 youngsters and 6 teachers. 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 bloodbath was a hoax and a false flag operation and that the victims had been truly crisis actors. Among them was radio-show host Alex Jones, who repeatedly used the conspiracy principle to tell the audience listening to his InfoWars radio program to rise up and "find out the truth", insisting that the capturing was staged by the federal authorities to destroy the Second Amendment and residents' right to bear arms.
While mourning the lack of their kids, Pozner and the other victims' households had to endure accusations that their children were not lifeless, and that the tragedy was a fraud designed to undermine Americans' gun rights. They received dying threats and in-person, online and telephone name harassment from individuals who took up the call from Jones and others. In response, Pozner started reporting harassing and defaming content and claims about him and his family, as well as posts and movies using photographs (often defaced) of his son. "I even have to utterly defend the reminiscence of my son — I truly have no alternative" he said. "I understand how a few of these theories construct up. They don't fade away and the more time they spend on-line, the extra accepted they turn into. The JFK conspiracy theory within the US may be very accepted. Conspiracy theories erase historical past, they erase our reminiscences, and the way will this occasion (Sandy Hook) be remembered 100 years from now? So I think it is essential, the work that I'm doing now."
After Pozner succeeded in getting Infowars videos faraway from YouTube, Jones showed his audience Pozner's private information and maps to addresses associated together with his family. In an effort to guard themselves from the continuing harassment, Pozner and Noah's mother Veronique De La Rosa Haller, and their two surviving kids, moved from Connecticut. The harassment has continued however, as every time they transfer, conspiracy theorists who stalk the household publish their new handle. The family has had to move a quantity of instances since leaving Connecticut. They at present live in hiding in a high-security neighborhood tons of of miles from where their six-year-old son Noah is buried.
HONR Network
Sandy Hook Father
The HONR community is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Pozner in response to the harassment and hate that he and other families of victims of mass casualty occasions endured online. After his son died in the Sandy Hook capturing, and he and his family grew to become the target of online abuse, volunteers reached out offering to help flag and report the hateful content. As extra mass casualty occasions occurred and the survivors and families of other victims reached out for help, Pozner decided to show the loosely knit group into an organized non-profit.
The initial goal of the group was to fight online hate and harassment, significantly when directed at survivors and the families of victims of violent tragedies and mass casualty occasions. More just lately the organization mission has expanded to provide steering for all individuals affected by harassment, bullying and abuse. The HONR Network now has around 300 volunteers who assist monitor and remove harassing content material on-line.
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 a part of the energetic online neighborhood of Americans who imagine that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged and that the victims and their mourning members of the family are solely actors. US district choose James Cohn referred to as Richards' actions towards Pozner "disturbing" and condemned those who unfold false claims about the deaths of the victims. "This is actuality and there's no fiction. There are not any various information" Cohn informed Richards at her sentencing.
Campaigns
Pozner and the HONR Network have had a lot success in altering policy and eradicating 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 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 interplay. Pozner and De La Rosa advised two methods to higher protect victims from harassment: "Treat victims of mass shootings and different tragedies as a protected group, such that assaults on them are specifically against Facebook policy. And present affected individuals with access to Facebook employees who will remove hateful and harassing posts in opposition to victims immediately." Facebook has since taken steps to recognize these victims and Pozner now works with its content moderators and policymakers. In a press release, a Facebook spokesperson advised CBS News: "Following Sandy Hook, Lenny was one of the individuals who despatched us questions and considerations. In the wake of unthinkably tragic expertise, his feedback helped effect change in our policies on bullying and harassment."
Pozner has additionally had success with other online platforms by flagging dangerous content material 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.[10] Blog internet hosting platform WordPress.com initially refused to help. Its parent company Automattic repeatedly responded to Pozner's requests with form letters saying "as a outcome of we consider this to be honest use of the fabric, we won't be removing it right now". In addition, they warned that the corporate might collect damages from people who "knowingly materially misrepresent" copyrights. Automattic have since made direct contact with Pozner and apologised for the form letters. It mentioned the responses Pozner acquired have been "a predefined statement" that is utilized in copyright situations. Automattic then added a model new policy that prohibits blogs from the "malicious publication of unauthorized, figuring out images of minors". This policy meant that images of kid victims can be removed.
In May 2019, on-line activist group Avaaz organised conferences with executives from Twitter and Facebook to additional the campaign against on-line hate and misinformation. Speaking on the meetings were journalist Jessikka Aro and teenage vaccination advocate Ethan Lindenberger. Pozner participated in the conferences remotely and spoke of the want to curb on-line harassment. "I am a strong proponent of the First Amendment, and free speech is an essential aspect of American society. However, there's a elementary misunderstanding of people's rights and duties on-line. A particular person cannot violate my civil rights to be freed from harassment, bullying, or to have my likeness manipulated and my family focused with death threats and intimidation and then merely attempt to cover behind 'free speech..

Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Pozner