Infowars named in libel suit for misidentifying Parkland shooter

By Christen Smith

Infowars and its leader, Alex Jones, are at the center of a defamation lawsuit for misidentifying the Parkland shooter. (Photo: Infowars/Facebook)
A Massachusetts man sued Infowars in a Texas court this week for defamation after the popular conspiracy theory website misidentified him as the Parkland shooter in a story published in February.
Marcel Fontaine alleges the site and its leader, Alex Jones, circulated his photo simply because of the red shirt he was wearing, which read “the Communist Party” and featured Karl Marx sporting a lampshade as a hat and Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro drinking from red solo cups.
Mark D. Bankston, Fontaine’s attorney, told the New York Times on Tuesday the shirt was clearly a joke and accused Infowars of “intentionally disregarding fundamental newsroom ethics due to its desire to politicize the tragedy.”
Fontaine said in court documents he still receives threats and harassment daily. He seeks more than $1 million in damages.
It’s not the first time Infowars retracted one of its salacious stories. In March 2017, Jones apologized for spreading a fake story about a satanic child pornography ring disguised as the Comet Ping Pong pizza shop in Washington, D.C. The story — dubbed Pizzagate — attracted

Source: Guns.com