All the lies of Alex Jones and other dangerous conspiracy theorists in the USA.

During the last decades, the broadcaster and founder of the InfoWars platform, Alex Jonesdedicated himself to spreading a series of conspiracy theories that ranged from the alleged secret plans hatched in the White House to the alleged deception behind the shooting that occurred in the sandyhook school in December 2012.

This Wednesday the 12th, a Connecticut jury sentenced jones to pay reparations of US$965 million to relatives of victims of the massacre.

LOOK: Alex Jones: Broadcaster To Pay $965 Million To Sandy Hook School Victims For Defamation

The verdict comes two months after another trial in Texas where he was ordered to pay two fines, one $45.2 million and one $4.1 million, to the parents of another victim.

jones is awaiting a third similar process against him, which must be carried out before the end of the year.

Jones was ordered by a Connecticut court to pay $965 million in fines to the parents of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones has called staged for years. (HEARST CONNECTICUT MEDIA / AP /)

shooting denier

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newtown, Connecticut, and began shooting at those in the hallways and classrooms. The tragedy left a balance of 28 dead, of which 20 were children.

Jones, who had already spent 13 years as an important figure within the most radical groups of the American right and had forged a reputation as a conspiracy theorist, came out to say that what had happened in Sandy Hook was a setup orchestrated by political groups seeking to remove forward a reform for greater gun control.

According to the announcer, the victims’ parents were “crisis actors” and the massacre had been “the fakest thing since the $3 bill.”

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left 28 dead, including the shooter, of whom 20 were children. (JUSTIN LANE / EFE /)

Jones’s comments caused a group of people to come to the town of Newtown to harass the relatives of the victims.

“The Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists accused relatives of those killed, survivors of the shooting, religious leaders, neighbors and first responders of being part of a government plot (…) This provided an early example of how misinformation spread on social media could cause damage in the real world”, points out the professor of Journalism at the University of Connecticut, Amanda J. Crawford, in an article published a year ago in the digital medium “The Fulcrum”.

Despite the claim of the relatives of the victims and the complaints against him, Jones continued to spread this version through his InfoWars platform.

In 2018, however, a formal complaint was filed with the Connecticut justice system against Jones. This process is the one that ended this week with a fine of more than US$900 million for the broadcaster.

InfoWars, for its part, was banned from almost all digital platforms in 2018, accused of spreading false information.

Jones has been associated with the most radical groups of the American extreme right. (JOSE LUIS MAGANA / AFP /)

More lies and nonsense

But Jones’s lies did not begin with the Sandy Hook tragedy.

After spending his early years working for Texas television and radio stations, he founded InfoWars in 1999 and began broadcasting his show online the following year. Since he was part of the traditional media, Jones had shown his inclination to think that there was a hidden power that elaborated different situations to deceive the public.

In this sense, he believed, for example, that what until then was considered the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United States, the attack in Oklahoma City in 1995, had been planned by the government to help Bill Clinton win. the 1996 elections.

When Al Qaeda carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, Jones came out once again to say that it was a “false flag” attack. On that occasion, he showed the White House telephone numbers and asked his audience to call “and tell them that we know about their terrorist plans.”

Showing off the White House phones, Jones asked his audience to call “and tell them we know about their terrorist plans.” (Video capture/)

Jones himself admits that this theory cost him 70% of his audience, but he emphasizes that he kept the other 30% who over the years fed on increasingly crazy theories.

In 2010, the announcer assured that “the reason why there are so many gays” it was due to a chemical covert operation.

Five years later, the conspiracy theorist claimed that the government was “Putting chemicals in the water to turn frogs gay.”

In 2016, he spread one of his most dangerous theories, because, as with the Sandy Hook case, it had repercussions in the real world. Although this time they could cost the lives of several people.

Jones joined the far-right groups that claimed to have found hidden references to a human trafficking and pedophile network that operated in the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, located in Washington DC.

Despite the fact that the owner of the business, James Alefantis, came out to deny what Jones said, the pizzeria and the businessman were harassed on social networks and in the same place.

On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old man, entered Comet Ping Pong and fired his AR-15 rifle at the venue. The police managed to arrest him and during interrogation he admitted that it was an attempt to rescue the allegedly kidnapped children.

In 2016, the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria was the scene of a shooting in which the author claimed to be convinced that a human trafficking and pedophilia network operated there, motivated by the conspiracy theory spread by Alex Jones. (NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP /)

Other dangerous subjects

Unfortunately, Jones is not the only promoter of these conspiracy theories.

In 1994, the documentary “The Clinton Chronicles” was released, a film produced by Larry Nichols and promoted by Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell, in which Democrat Bill Clinton was accused of being the author of different crimes, including murders.

The journalist and owner of the cable channel Newsmax, Christopher Ruddy, was one of the main defenders of this theory despite the fact that different media such as The Chicago Tribune, the Lakeland Ledger or the fact-checking page Snopes showed that many of the alleged victims they had been misidentified or were still alive.

In 1994, the documentary “The Clinton Chronicles” was released, where Democrat Bill Clinton was accused of being the author of different crimes, including murders.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, which pitted Democrat Barack Obama against Republican John McCain, the theory arose that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore had no right to run for office.

Although Obama’s team wasted no time in publishing the certificate proving that he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, the theory held even after his victory at the polls.

Although the origin of the story is uncertain, over time a name was linked to this theory: Orly Taitz, a dentist, lawyer and conservative activist began a series of complaints against Obama, assuring that the certificate presented was false.

In October 2009, a federal judge sentenced Taitz to pay a $20,000 fine for wasting the court’s time with the same case, even though it had been dismissed multiple times. The following year, the Supreme Court responded to Taitz’s appeal by upholding the sentence ordered in 2009.

To date, Taitz has been behind a number of similar cases, accusing Republican Senator Ted Cruz “of the same crime as Obama” and accusing Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Chuck Schumer of “borderline criminal conduct” in January 2021. an attempt to stop the second impeachment against Donald Trump.

Orly Taitz was one of the main promoters of the theory that Barack Obama was not American. (NICK UT / AP/)

In her article for “The Fulcrum”, Professor Crawford highlights how the rise of social media has allowed the voices that spread these kinds of stories to reach more and more people and allow unsubstantiated rumors to become dangerous. stories assumed to be true. Some of them, as we have already seen, with dangerous results.

One of the public figures who reflects the dangers behind these theories is former US President Donald Trump. The New York tycoon has taken more than one of these stories for certain; for example, in 2008 he revived the debate about Obama’s nationality and insisted on it in 2011, despite the fact that there was already a court ruling against that story.

More recently, in 2021, Trump supported the theory that emerged within the QAnon conspiracy movement – which claims that there is a powerful shadow sect in the United States, made up mainly of Democrats, who runs the country as they please – to point out that they had stolen the presidential election held a year earlier.

This position caused a group of people to storm the Capitol in January 2021 during the ratification of Biden’s victory, leaving 5 dead. The investigations that a parliamentary committee has been carrying out in this regard have shown the relationship between Trump’s speech and the violent reaction of his followers.

Source: Elcomercio