> They reached the sum by multiplying the state law’s $5,000 per-violation fine by the 550 million social media exposures Jones’s audience received on his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts in the three years following a school shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.<p>Is this defamation calculation valid? Is the calculation based on the number of people who listen or read? If so, they would need to see how many actually viewed as not every follower sees every post by people they follow.<p>Maybe one of the nice upsides is that these social media firms are forced to reveal the source to how they display posts.
If so, that's quite stupid. That's more money that the richest person in the world has, and it's incommensurate with the impact of Jones's behavior. It serves nobody- not even the families whose children were killed.