Alex Jones achieved the epitome of despicability and now has been ordered to pay for it. His lies – that parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 had been actors taking part in a government plot to manufacture a pretext for stricter gun control – were blatant. He did not subtly deceive through misleading framing or cherry-picked facts. He targeted parents of murdered children, who faced a barrage of threats; at least one family had to flee, moving away from where their child was buried.

Now a Connecticut jury has ordered Jones to pay US$965 million (S$1.37 billion) in damages to several families for his egregious cruelty, adding to a Texas jury award of US$49 million in August to another Sandy Hook family.