THE ALEX JONES VERDICT: IS THIS THE WAY TO STOP ‘FAKE NEWS’?
By Professor Duncan Richard Shaw
Madrid, 6 August 2022
At the beginning of each of my courses at Schiller, I spend time making sure my new students know the difference between fact and opinion.
I have been doing this since around 2000, when the uncontrolled growth of the internet started to hum with all manner of counter-factuals and conspiracy theories: Holocaust denial, flat-earthism, George Soros planning a world government, NASA inventing the moon landing…
Back in the 1990s, I was originally positive about the internet: surely a free global forum for debate among citizens of the world could only be positive?
How naive I was. Within a few years it was sadly taken over by trolls haters, conspiracy freaks, Holocaust deniers, 9/11 deniers, Al-Qaeda fanatics, misogynists, climate change deniers, Russian and Chinese bots – not to mention Rupert Murdoch’s dismal battalion of professional liars and distorters.
When David Irving’s ridiculous libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt was thrown out by the High Court in London, I hoped that that would start to turn back the tide, against the Holocaust deniers and conspiracy fanatics.
How naive I was. 9/11 quickly became another tiresome cause célèbre for the fly-in-the-face-of-the-facts brigade, along with the invasion of Iraq and the ‘white replacement theory‘.
In 2004, John Kerry’s presidential campaign was sunk by lies of Karl Rove’s ‘Swift Boat‘ dirty campaign.
In 2016, Donald Trump swept into the White House on a tide of lies about Hillary Clinton (remember ‘Pizzagate‘?), Mexican immigrants and American Muslims.
Trump’s dissembling advisers gleefully predicted a ‘post-truth world’ of ‘alternative facts‘, while welcoming the support of QAnon fanatics like Marjorie Taylor Green.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Murdoch, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage lied their way to victory in the scandalous Brexit referendum.
But is the tide finally starting to turn against the liars, or is this just wistful thinking and schadenfreude on my part?
Johnson was recently ejected from Downing Street because of his shameless lying. And the links between Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and the January 6 Washington riot are currently being investigated by a high-profile Congressional panel.
And yesterday the appalling Alex Jones was sentenced to pay almost 45.2 million dollars for claiming that the parents of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre were ‘crisis actors’ inventing the massacre in order to promote gun control laws in the US.
I’ve had mixed feelings about mentioning Jones in class, as an extreme example of a lying conspiracy theorist making money with his falsehoods. After all, this is surely what he wants: to be talked about in universities and schools.
Forty years ago, before the advent of the internet, Jones would have been a loudmouth barfly in Texas mouthing off about the Kennedy killing – and a United Nations plan to impose a world government on the USA and abolish the First and Second Amendments.
I have, unfortunately, run into many such ‘barfly motor-mouths’ in America, especially in roadside service stations in the South. The internet has given them a dangerous platform where they consider themselves unaccountable for their lies.
Until Friday’s verdict, that is.
It is important to note that this happened in a Texas court rather than a federal one. And that it was a Texas jury that decided Jones had been lying about Sandy Hook for ten long years – and should pay massive damages to the parents.
Will the Jones verdict prove to be a watershed moment in the crucial battle against lies and conspiracy theories?
Is a civil lawsuit, demanding massive damages, the way to stop ‘fake news’?
Or was Joseph Goebbels right, when he infamously said that if you tell a lie often enough most people will end up believing it?
Will truth eventually prevail against lies or not?
Your comments please…
Internet is medium where all kinds of information can be found. Some people are pushing nonsense but some, even if their theories may not be completely correct, are at least raising the questions big media tries to suppress. (To be clear: I’m not following Alex Jones). I think the biggest pushers of fake news today are the BBCs and CNNs of the world. Not to mention the leaders of the socialist country that I grew up in could stand in awe watching the level of censorship imposed by these media and Twitter, Facebook, etc. So I wouldn’t look for fake news in Alex Joneses of the world before fixing those fake news empires that are financed through our tax money.
The problem is to only read and believe directly without analyzing some issues. Perhaps we are lazy to investigate enough facts before stating as true any peace of news.
Good article! In the 1990s I was very positive about internet, too. Nowadays, it is very difficult to stop fake news.
Better to believe that truth will prevail against lies instead of the theory of Joseph Goebbels.
I would like to believe that truth will prevail, but based on observations in the US over the last five years, I doubt that will be the case. I totally agree with most of what is in this piece, but I think that the internet is a valuable tool in today’s world. We need to teach people how to determine facts from fiction on the internet.
Invest in education. Teachers scaffolding civitas will help to improve discernment on the internet. It’s the best way to save democracy worldwide; otherwise we’ll need Plato’s philosopher king to regulate our scurrilous behaviours.
A thought provoking article.
While the internet has 'democratized' information, we now all have the means to share our opinions, this does not necessarily make for better information. We are living in a world where we no longer want to pay for investigative journalism or to make the mental effort to compare and analyze different sources. We all have inherent biases and comparing different interpretations of events is vital to reach a deeper understanding of an event and its implications. This should also lead to a greater level of self knowlege as we should also question our own interpretations. However downright malicious lies such as those pushed by Jones, should be prosecuted.
This is an excellent piece. I keep hoping that people like Jones will slither off into their snake pits and never be heard from again. Unfortunately, I am afraid that is wishful thinking. The fact that someone thinks BBC and CNN are purveyors of fake news discourages me. Of course mainstream news sources can display some bias in the way they present stories, but leaning left or leaning right is NOT the same as broadcasting out and out lies. Reputable news sources do make mistakes, but they also retract anything erroneous they have published. Unlike those sources, Jones and his ilk instead double down on their lies because they continue to rake in millions by deceiving their followers.
In order to answer Dr. Shaw last questión, I would like to raise this one:
What can we expect of the mass media in the post-truth era ?
Fully agree with your thoughts. Not sure if truth will eventually prevail against lies but the current scenario is not appealing. The thing is that the current internet / world has become a place where opinions are overtaking facts to drive decisions (bad decisions on purpose).
Is it new?
I don’t think so. Back in time at the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar might have used this type of ‘misinformation’ to pursuit his objectives, manoeuvre the senate and become what we all know (even his assassination) but now in our current digital environment and evolution these actions have multiplied the reach and the speed to control people for Geopolitical purposes! 😊
It's a good thing that the people were awarded 45 million. But it took 10 years and a private civil suit to do it. And it was in a Texas court. Not exactly a very efficient way of dealing with the problem. Libel laws are part of the solution, but not all of it.
It doesn’t seem feasible for the government to set up a watch-dog institution. Too much to watch.
Another part of the solution is to have social media companies monitor posts on their websites. However, it is problematic to let the problem be solved by private companies like Twitter, Facebook, or Fox News. They after all have an obligation to make money, that’s why they exist, and ethical questions are often resolved by that goal. It seems though that federal regulation to insist that they watch their own posts is part of the solution.
There are numerous sites that have "fact-checkers." Nice, if anyone pays attention! We do know, though, that the best way to fight a rumor is not to address it directly, but to provide alternative information. Will this work against "false news?"
I’m afraid that we are going to have to live with false news. As Barry Goldwater once said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." It seems like the price we have to pay for a free internet is increased vigilance.
A thoughtful article Professor and some great comments. Yes we have to live with fake news and the only solution is education. As someone said when asked the importance of studying history....,'stops you believing rubbish' was the terse reply!