There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm bridget Tat and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet, so we have a little nudes on the slow downfall of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been let back on Twitter after being banned from the social media platform and honestly most social media platforms for
the last five years. Back when Elon Musk first took over Twitter, he started letting a bunch of people who had been previously banned back on, including Donald Trump, and when he was asked if he'd be letting Alex Jones back on, he said that he would never do that because he had a baby that passed away and he would never allow someone who profited from lies about dead children, which Alex Jones did about Sandy Hook back on the platform.
Tucker Carlson, formerly a Fox News host who I guess now hosts some kind of a show on Twitter, did a ninety minute interview with Alex Jones where Jones returning
to Twitter came up. It was really clear that Alex Jones wants to be back on social media, and I guess this whole conversation about him coming back to Twitter must have changed Elon Musk's mind, because Elon Musk did one of those easily gamified, totally unscientific polls on Twitter asking people whether or not Alex Jones should be left back on the platform. Side note, I just have to say I hate it when Elon Musk does those polls.
It seems like an attempt to put the onus of whatever he wants to do on the people who vote and then blame them for driving the direction of his business. Like totally spineless. Anyway, the choice to let Alex Jones back on Twitter does not bode well for the platform, and it feels like just another signal that the platform is being overrun by the worst types of grifters, liars, and scam artists, just like back when Elon Musk was
promoting anti Semitism. Feel like a new low for the platform where people, not to mention, advertisers, just don't want
to be associated with it anymore. Because Musk did not just let Alex Jones back on Twitter, oh No, he rolled out the digital red carpet for him by hosting a Twitter spaces on Sunday, that included former Trump National security advisor Michael Flynn, alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, and presidential candidate Vivic Ramaswami, who might have actually gone to the bathroom without muting during the spaces gross So, during Elon Musk's conversation on Twitter Spaces with Alex Jones, Alex
Jones seemed to imply that the statements that got him booted from pretty much every social media platform out there were either taken out of context or deep fakes. The whole thing really just did not bode well. When Musk asked Jones about his comments about Sandy Hook, he really just downplayed it like it wasn't a big deal, saying I had a very small operation and I did not
even understand how powerful I was. And so in that event, the school shooting, which I do believe happened eleven years ago, the internet exploded and it was the top story and went on for years. All these professors and former school safety people, all of them said that they believed it was a drill and I was simply covering that. So I do not think that we should be letting Alex Jones completely rewrite history in a way that obscures his culpability for the way that he made a fortune lying
about people who lost their babies in Sandy Hook. And Elon Musk might accept Alex Jones's lives that he basically had nothing to do with calling Sandy Hook hoax, but we don't have to buy that, especially since there are receipts Like he was found libel in court. This man shamelessly lied about Sandy Hook, the kids who lost their lives, and the parents and family who grieved those losses to fatten his own pockets. He was sued by the families for it, and all during the trial sat on the
stand and continued to lie about it. Today, Alex Jones owes the Sandy Hook families one point five billion, and so far he's not really paying up. He tried to weazel out of it by declaring bankruptcy. On his show. He called the amount that he was ordered to pay quote hilarious and said, do these people really think they're
getting their money? So here's our breakdown of what happened in that trial, and I'm rerunning it in the hopes that it serves as a reminder of exactly what kind of person Alex Jones is and an example of what kind of person Elon Musk thinks should be elevated and given a platform on Twitter. So here's our episode from twenty twenty two, all about the many lies of Alex Jones.
Something we talk about a lot on this podcast are the ways that people who traffic in things like lies, conspiracy theory, and disinformation are oftentimes doing it because it makes them money. It's a scam, it's a grift, and I think it's important that we frame it this way because I don't think we will ever truly beat disinformation until we make spreading it unprofitable, and right now, spreading lies for profit is a booming business. Just ask Alex Jones.
So on Thursday, a jury determined that conspiracy theorist Info Wars radio show host Alex Jones will have to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of a six year old child who was shot and killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting, four point one million dollars in damages. Now, this is a lot less than what the parents had initially asked for, which was at least one hundred and fifty million dollars, but there's still a chance to all
have to pay more impunitive damages. This trial was the first of three trials brought by the families or the victims of the shooting. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened back in twenty twelve in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty elementary school kids and six school staff were shot and killed. It was a horrific tragedy, and Alex Jones spent the aftermath of that tragedy baselessly and repeatedly claiming that it never happened and that it was staged in order to
increase gun control. In that the children who lost their lives and the parents who grieved them were actually actors.
Well, they're obviously looking for a big pr bonanza.
And then to bring in all the actors to break down and cry.
And I think we're so stupid they when to.
Use the same actors as different people. I mean, all I know is we're all beating the footage and maybe they're real parents whatever. But when you've got somebody laughing and small and who want to watch this and then walking over one and then starting crying for the cameras,
now this is a pretty well worn conspiracy theory. And whenever a mass tragedy like a shooting happens, conspiracy theorists will claim that it didn't really happen and that it was actually a false flag operation, like you'll see memes falsely claiming that the people who died were actually actors who were later seen performing in the Super Bowl, or that an actor has been used in multiple mass shootings.
At this point, it's really predictable. I saw the same bogus claims floating around the web after the awful, awful shooting in Texas earlier this year. Now it's not clear if the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories started with Alex Jones, but the family say that Alex Jones, with his millions of listeners, lit a match and ignited it and turned
their lives into a nightmare. Neil Husslin testified that Alex Jones turned his life into a quote living hell, and that because of Jones, he had been harassed and threatened, saying what was said about me and Sandy Hook itself resonates around the world as time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was. My life has been threatened. I fear for my life. I fear for my safety. I can't even describe the last nine and a half years of the living hell that I and others had.
Had an indoor because of the negligence and the recklessness of Alex Jones.
Now, Alex Jones was called in multiple lives during the corporate seeding. Honestly, it would take way too much time to list through all of them here, but here's a little sampling. At one point, the plaintiff's lawyers asked Jones if he had tried to connect Maya Guerrera Gamble, the judge overseeing the trial, to things like human trafficking and pedophilia, and he said no, and then the lawyer played a
clip of him doing exactly that. Jones went on his show and noted that the judge once worked for CPS or Child Productive Services.
Judge, Maya Gamble comes from the CPS who has been exposed from.
Human trafficking in working with the head of files.
That's what you mean when you say you're taking the series.
I take this to sure. It's just an answer. And in one of the more bizarre lies that I had ever seen happen in a courtroom, Jones testified that he searched his own cell phone for any mention of Sandy Hook and that he didn't find anything. So that means he did not give any text messages about Sandy Hook from his phone to the court as evidence, because as he said, there weren't any. But that turned out to be a lie, which was revealed in the most ridiculous
way you could ever imagine. Apparently, Jones's attorneys accidentally sent the content of two years worth of text messages from his cell phone to the plaintiff's attorney, and then, after the plaintiff's attorney did what they were supposed to do and told them this, Alex Jones's attorneys took no action
to remedy it. So that's how it was determined that there actually were text messages on Jones's phone pertaining to Standy Hook, and that he failed to turn them over to the court as evidence and lied about it pretty badly, I should add.
Mister Jones, did you know that twelve days ago, twelve days ago, your attorneys messed up and sitting an entire digital copy over your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years, and when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protect it in any way, and as of two days ago, it fell fretty and clear into my possession, and that is how.
I know you lied to me.
This led the judge to giving Jones a pretty stunning reminder that he is obligated to tell the truth because he's under oath. Which I feel like if the judge in court has to remind you that you can't lie like something is going wrong, things are not going your way, You're.
Already under oath to tell the truth. You've already violated that oath twice today in just those two examples. It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify. Yet here I am you must tell the truth while you testify. This is not your show. You need to slow down and not to take what you see as opportunities to further the message you want.
Let's take a quick break at her back. So we're breaking down the Alex Jones trial for a defamation lawsuit brought by the parents of the Sandy Hook School shooting victims, and some of the different lies that Alex Jones got caught in during the proceedings. Jones also lied about being bankrupt. Basically,
he is being accused of suing himself. According to Reuters, the Sandy Hook family said that the company could not be trusted to make accurate statements about its finances, and that Jones took sixty two million from the company while burdening it with sixty five million in quote fabrication debt owed to a company that he himself owns to try to make it seem like he has less money than he actually does to avoid having to pay more in damages.
But despite what he might have tried to say in court, Alex Jones actually makes really really good money telling lies about the families of murdered children. After the plaintiff's Atorneys got the contents of his cell phone from that ridiculous mistake that Alex Jones's own lawyer made, Jones had to admit in court that he is not as cash strapped
as he tried to say he was. In fact, he admitted that during some peak periods, the Info War Store can rake in as much as a whopping eight hundred thousand dollars a day, and that he takes in three hundred million annually. Now, Jones has also tried to say that he lost lots and lots of money after being deplatformed from major social media platforms back in twenty eighteen.
But actually, as Box points out, contrary to Jones's repeated assertions, he actually became more financially profitable after his company was permanently deplatformed. You might recall that Apple was the first to pull Jones's podcast from their platform, and then other big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter followed suit. And it would not be an episode of this podcast if
I didn't get in a little dig at Facebook. After Jones was deplatformed from Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened to soften rules to allow his content to continue to be posted on the platform by Jones's followers, according to a report from BuzzFeed. So this is something that I think is really key. Harmful lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are lucrative.
Info Wars makes a lot of money from peddling harmful conspiracy theories that ruin people's lives, people who were already grieving for the most painful loss imaginable, and caused real world harm in doing so. People like Alex Jones, who traffic and lives do it in part because it makes them money, their grifters and scam and there is no limit to how low they will stoop, even lies about
dead children to make a profit. And even though this four point one million dollar judgment really isn't a lot of money, like it kind of sounds like it might be a drop in the bucket for somebody like Alex Jones, I still do hope that it sends a message that dooming, this trafficking and harmful lies that hurt people and ruin
people's lives for profit comes at a cost. And I want to end with some of the most powerful testimony that I think we saw, which came from Scarlett Lewis, Jesse's mom, who spoke directly to Alex Jones in the courtroom.
Truth is so vital to our ural Truth is what we base our reality on. We have to agree on that to have a civil society.
Sandy Hook is a hard truth, hard truth.
Nobody would want to ever believe that twenty six kids could be murdered. Nobody would ever want to believe that. I understand people not wanting to believe that. Actually I don't want to believe it.
Jesse was real.
I am a real mom. There's nothing out there nothing. There's records of Jesse's birth of me. I mean, I have a history, and there's nothing that you could have found because it doesn't exist that I'm deep state. It's just not true. I know you know that. That's the problem. I know you know that, and you keep saying it. You keep saying it. Why Why for money? Because you've made a lot of money.
Why you've said it?
And She's right, Alex Jones has made a lot of money lying about her son and harming her family. And that's really the thing here. Listen. I am glad that the jury awarded Scarlett Lewis and Neil Hesland some money for what Alex Jones put them through, because it sounds like hell, and I hope they get even more impunitive damages. Frankly, I hope the families that Alex Jones is hurt take
him for everything he's got. But I know that money cannot bring back their son, Jesse, and it can't turn him back the clock on the last few years that Alex Jones has spent lying about their son, weaponizing his death, and getting its followers to harass and threaten them, And it can't undo the damage done to all of us. When harmful lies are platformed, it makes us all less safe.
We saw this on January sixth. It can empower and embolden really dangerous people, and we cannot have a healthy digital landscape if these kinds of dangerous lies are also profitable, because it will just incentivize trafficking in them. Let's build a world where scammers like Alex Jones can't get rich off of peddling the kinds of lies that tore Scarlet and Niel's life apart. We all deserve better. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our
March store at tangoti dot com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, You can reach us at Hello at teangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at TENG Goody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is
our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.