If it hadn’t been so painfully sad, the trial of Alex Jones, accused of defamation, could have been cathartic.
Jones, a supplement salesman and conspiracy theorist, was ordered to pay more than $45 million in damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of a six-year-old who was murdered in the 2012 Sandy High School massacre. Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. The jury found Jones responsible for defaming the two, who he falsely accused for years of being actors in a government-planned “false flag” operation.
For victims of Jones’ harassment campaigns and for those who have followed his career for years, the verdict seemed long overdue – a notorious internet villain finally facing real consequences for his actions. The families of the dead children, many of whom waited years to see Jones pay for their lies, are undoubtedly relieved.
Before celebrating Jones’ punishment, however, we need to recognize that the verdict is unlikely to affect much of the phenomenon it represents: belligerent fabulists building lucrative media empires on easily refutable lies.
Jones’ megaphone has dwindled in recent years — thanks in part to the decision by platforms like Facebook and Twitter to bar him. But his reach is still substantial and he has more influence than you might think.
Legal records showed that Jones’ store Infowars, which sells dubious performance-enhancing supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million from 2015 to 2018. Despite the platform exclusion, Jones still appears as a guest on podcasts. popular and YouTube shows, and millions still consider him, if not a reliable chronicler of current affairs, at least crazy fun — and rich; a witness estimated the net worth of Jones and his holding company Free Speech Systems to be between $135 million and $270 million (R$703m to R$1.4bn).
In the coming weeks, Jones, a master of martyrdom, will no doubt turn his court defeat into hours of content, which should generate more attention, subscribers and money. A bigger reason to be cautious, however, is that whether or not Jones continues to make money off lies, his trick is now everywhere.
You can see and hear Jones’ influence on Capitol Hill, where attention-seeking Republican politicians often appear to be auditioning for Infowars seats. When Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene suggests that a massacre of civilians could have been orchestrated to convince the party to support gun control measures, as she did in a Facebook post about the Illinois Fourth of July massacre, she is ringing hits from Jones’ back catalogue.
He also played a key role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in ways that are still unclear. (The House panel investigating the uprising asked for copies of Jones’ text messages that were mistakenly sent to plaintiffs’ lawyers in their defamation case.)
You can also see Jones’ influence in the right-wing media. When Tucker Carlson stirs up nativist fears on his Fox News show or when a Newsmax host concocts a bizarre conspiracy theory about an attempt by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to have Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh killed, it’s proof that Infowars DNA has entered the conservative bloodstream.
Even outside of politics, Jones’ wide-eyed, angry style has influenced the way a new generation of conspiracy theorists seeks fame online.
Not all of these creators talk about gay elves and frogs. But they are relying on the same fact-free manual. Some focus on softer subjects, like the eccentric influencers who went viral for suggesting that Lyme disease is a “gift” caused by intergalactic space matter. Or like Shane Dawson, popular on YouTube, who has racked up hundreds of millions of views with conspiracy theory documentaries in which he gullibly examines claims like “Chuck E. Cheese reuses uneaten pizza” and “fires are caused by directed energy weapons.” .
Others are less likely than Jones to end up in court, in part because they learned from his mistakes. Rather than directly accusing the families of the massacre victims of making it all up, they adopt a naive stance of “just asking questions” while punching holes in the official narrative.
When attacking an enemy, they tiptoe to the edge of defamation, being careful not to do anything that could lead to them being prosecuted or barred from the networks. And when they lead harassment campaigns, they choose targets intelligently, often defaming public figures rather than private citizens, which gives them greater freedom of speech protections under the First Amendment.
That’s not to say there won’t be more lawsuits or attempts to hold conspiracy theorists accountable. Fox News, for example, is facing a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges the TV made false statements about fraud in the 2020 election.
But these cases are the exception, not the rule. The truth is, the media ecosystem today is overflowing with Infowars-style conspiracy theories — from History Channel shows about ancient aliens building the Egyptian pyramids to TikToks of yoga moms who think an online furniture store sells kids. trafficked—and it’s not clear that our legal system can or should try to stop them.
Internet platforms can help stem the spread of harmful lies, making it harder for fabulists to garner large audiences. But they have their own limitations, including the simple fact that conspiracy theorists have become more sophisticated in evading their rules.
If you write a sentence claiming that the boogeyman is real, attention-seeking eccentrics will simply get millions of views stating that it “might” be real and that the public should do their own research to find out what secrets related to the boogeyman. the deep state cabal is hiding.
Even if Jones’ career is ruined, his legacy of blatant and unrepentant dishonesty will live on — strengthened, in a way, by the knowledge of exactly how far a lie can spread before consequences arise.
