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Leonard Pozner
Leonard Pozner (born 1967) is the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim, Noah Pozner. He is the founder of the HONR Network, a nonprofit organization that supports victims of mass violence who experience hate speech and harassment online.
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and 6 teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school before committing suicide. One of the children killed was Pozner's six-year-old son Noah. Shortly afterwards, conspiracy theorists used Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and other online platforms to claim the massacre was a hoax and a false flag operation and that the victims were actually crisis actors. Most notable among them was radio show host Alex Jones, owner of InfoWars, who instructed his audience to rise up and "find out the truth", insisting that the shooting was staged by the federal government to destroy the Second Amendment. Pozner and other family members of victims were accused of lying about the deaths or sometimes the entire existence of their deceased children. They received a campaign of harassment, including death threats, from people who contacted them in person, online, and over the phone.
Pozner began attempting to remove defamatory content about his family, including defaced photos of Noah, from social media and web sites. He stated that "conspiracy theories erase history" and expressed concern for how the Sandy Hook shooting would be remembered in a hundred years.
After Pozner succeeded in getting Infowars videos removed from YouTube, Jones publicized Pozner's personal information including addresses associated with his family. To escape harassment, Pozner moved with Noah's mother, Veronique De La Rosa Haller, and their two surviving children (one of Noah’s three sisters was in university so didn’t live with the family) out of Connecticut. The harassment continued, and it continued after several of their subsequent moves, because conspiracy theorists stalked the family and published their new addresses online. They currently live in hiding in a high-security community hundreds of miles from where Noah is buried.
Floridian Lucy Richards repeatedly transmitted death threats to Pozner through interstate communications. In 2017, she was sentenced to 5 months in prison and was prohibited from visiting conspiracy-promoting websites such as Infowars as part of her parole. US district judge James Cohn called Richards' actions towards Pozner "disturbing".
In 2014, Pozner founded the HONR Network to "bring awareness to hoaxer activity" and "prosecute those who wittingly and publicly defame, harass and emotionally abuse the victims of high-profile tragedies". Before the efforts were organized into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Pozner organized volunteers to report harassment en masse to social media platforms. Some of the volunteers became involved after emailing Pozner with requests to support his work. The Guardian reported in 2017 that HONR Network had 300 volunteers.
Pozner and the HONR Network have had success in changing social media policies and removing harmful online content. 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 make Facebook a safer and more hospitable place for social interaction. Pozner and De La Rosa suggested two ways to better protect victims from harassment: "Treat victims of mass shootings and other tragedies as a protected group, such that attacks on them are specifically against Facebook policy. And provide affected people with access to Facebook staff who will 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.
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 help. Its parent company Automattic repeatedly responded to Pozner's requests with generic form letters saying "because we believe this to be fair use of the material, we will not be removing it at this time" along with a warning to him that the company could collect damages from people who "knowingly materially misrepresent" copyrights. After the company's response generated controversy, Automattic apologized and enacted a policy to prohibit blogs from the "malicious publication of unauthorized, identifying images of minors". This policy meant that images of child victims would be removed.
Leonard Pozner
Leonard Pozner (born 1967) is the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim, Noah Pozner. He is the founder of the HONR Network, a nonprofit organization that supports victims of mass violence who experience hate speech and harassment online.
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and 6 teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school before committing suicide. One of the children killed was Pozner's six-year-old son Noah. Shortly afterwards, conspiracy theorists used Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and other online platforms to claim the massacre was a hoax and a false flag operation and that the victims were actually crisis actors. Most notable among them was radio show host Alex Jones, owner of InfoWars, who instructed his audience to rise up and "find out the truth", insisting that the shooting was staged by the federal government to destroy the Second Amendment. Pozner and other family members of victims were accused of lying about the deaths or sometimes the entire existence of their deceased children. They received a campaign of harassment, including death threats, from people who contacted them in person, online, and over the phone.
Pozner began attempting to remove defamatory content about his family, including defaced photos of Noah, from social media and web sites. He stated that "conspiracy theories erase history" and expressed concern for how the Sandy Hook shooting would be remembered in a hundred years.
After Pozner succeeded in getting Infowars videos removed from YouTube, Jones publicized Pozner's personal information including addresses associated with his family. To escape harassment, Pozner moved with Noah's mother, Veronique De La Rosa Haller, and their two surviving children (one of Noah’s three sisters was in university so didn’t live with the family) out of Connecticut. The harassment continued, and it continued after several of their subsequent moves, because conspiracy theorists stalked the family and published their new addresses online. They currently live in hiding in a high-security community hundreds of miles from where Noah is buried.
Floridian Lucy Richards repeatedly transmitted death threats to Pozner through interstate communications. In 2017, she was sentenced to 5 months in prison and was prohibited from visiting conspiracy-promoting websites such as Infowars as part of her parole. US district judge James Cohn called Richards' actions towards Pozner "disturbing".
In 2014, Pozner founded the HONR Network to "bring awareness to hoaxer activity" and "prosecute those who wittingly and publicly defame, harass and emotionally abuse the victims of high-profile tragedies". Before the efforts were organized into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Pozner organized volunteers to report harassment en masse to social media platforms. Some of the volunteers became involved after emailing Pozner with requests to support his work. The Guardian reported in 2017 that HONR Network had 300 volunteers.
Pozner and the HONR Network have had success in changing social media policies and removing harmful online content. 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 make Facebook a safer and more hospitable place for social interaction. Pozner and De La Rosa suggested two ways to better protect victims from harassment: "Treat victims of mass shootings and other tragedies as a protected group, such that attacks on them are specifically against Facebook policy. And provide affected people with access to Facebook staff who will 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.
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 help. Its parent company Automattic repeatedly responded to Pozner's requests with generic form letters saying "because we believe this to be fair use of the material, we will not be removing it at this time" along with a warning to him that the company could collect damages from people who "knowingly materially misrepresent" copyrights. After the company's response generated controversy, Automattic apologized and enacted a policy to prohibit blogs from the "malicious publication of unauthorized, identifying images of minors". This policy meant that images of child victims would be removed.