There Are No Girls on the Internet - Alex Jones did a lot of lying in his trial about lying

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00:00:43.740 welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone

00:00:49.960 who thinks pride and prejudice and love island to serve the same level of discourse each week

00:00:54.500 we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite

00:00:58.520 writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions listen to pro society

00:01:05.240 on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i survived nine months in

00:01:12.540 captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed

00:01:17.900 them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm with survivors

00:01:24.200 who lived through the unthinkable,

00:01:26.160 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:01:29.980 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:33.820 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

00:01:36.600 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

00:01:39.620 or wherever you get your podcasts. 1.00

00:01:45.720 There Are No Girls on the Internet

00:01:47.140 is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:54.200 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. 0.86

00:01:59.320 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.

00:02:10.260 It's a scam. It's a grift.

00:02:12.560 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.

00:02:21.740 And right now, spreading lies for profit is a booming business.

00:02:26.860 Just ask Alex Jones.

00:02:29.800 So on Thursday, a jury determined that conspiracy theorist InfoWars radio show host Alex Jones

00:02:36.460 will have to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of a six-year-old child

00:02:41.320 who was shot and killed in a Sandy Hook school shooting, $4.1 million in damages.

00:02:47.520 Now, this is a lot less than what the parents had initially asked for,

00:02:51.140 which was at least $150 million, but there's still a chance that he'll have to pay more

00:02:55.980 in punitive damages. This trial was the first of three trials brought by the families of the

00:03:01.340 victims of the shooting. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened back in 2012 in Newtown,

00:03:06.920 Connecticut. 20 elementary school kids and six school staff were shot and killed. It was a

00:03:12.800 horrific tragedy, and Alex Jones spent the aftermath of that tragedy baselessly and

00:03:19.020 repeatedly claiming that it never happened, and that it was staged in order to increase

00:03:23.840 gun control, and that the children who lost their lives and the parents who grieved them

00:03:28.660 were actually actors.

00:03:30.700 Well, they're obviously looking for a big PR bonanza and then to bring in all the actors 0.98

00:03:36.200 to break down and cry, and I think we're so stupid they even use the same actors as 0.98

00:03:40.740 different people. 0.98

00:03:42.060 I mean, all I know is we've all seen the footage, and maybe they're real parents, whatever,

00:03:46.260 But when you've got somebody laughing and smiling and you want to watch this and then walk over to them and then start crying for the cameras.

00:03:53.100 Now, this is a pretty well-worn conspiracy theory.

00:03:56.440 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.

00:04:05.660 Like you'll see memes falsely claiming that the people who died were actually actors who were later seen performing in the Super Bowl.

00:04:13.280 or that an actor has been used in multiple mass shootings.

00:04:18.620 At this point, it's really predictable.

00:04:20.980 I saw the same bogus claims floating around the web

00:04:23.920 after the awful, awful shooting in Texas earlier this year.

00:04:27.980 Now, it's not clear if the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories started with Alex Jones,

00:04:32.960 but the families say that Alex Jones, with his millions of listeners,

00:04:37.260 lit a match and ignited it and turned their lives into a nightmare.

00:04:42.040 Neil Heslin testified that Alex Jones turned his life into a, quote, living hell,

00:04:47.040 and that because of Jones, he'd been harassed and threatened,

00:04:50.340 saying, what was said about me and Sandy Hook itself resonates around the world.

00:04:54.620 As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was.

00:04:57.880 My life has been threatened. I fear for my life. I fear for my safety.

00:05:01.760 I can't even describe the last nine and a half years of the living hell

00:05:08.260 that I and others have had to endure

00:05:11.480 because of the negligence and the recklessness of Alex Jones.

00:05:16.940 Now, Alex Jones was caught in multiple lies during the court proceedings.

00:05:21.420 Honestly, it would take way too much time to list through all of them here,

00:05:24.480 but here's a little sampling.

00:05:25.760 At one point, the plaintiff's lawyers asked Jones

00:05:28.080 if he had tried to connect Maya Guerrera Gamble,

00:05:31.260 the judge overseeing the trial,

00:05:32.880 to things like human trafficking and pedophilia, and he said no.

00:05:36.840 And then the lawyer played a clip of him doing exactly that.

00:05:41.680 Jones went on his show and noted that the judge once worked for CPS, or Child Protective Services.

00:05:48.160 Judge Maya Gamble comes from CPS, who has been exposed for human trafficking and working with pedophiles.

00:05:57.060 That's what you mean when you say you're taking this seriously.

00:06:00.660 I take this as serious as cancer.

00:06:03.200 And in one of the more bizarre lies that I have ever seen happen in a courtroom,

00:06:08.640 Jones testified that he searched his own cell phone for any mention of Sandy Hook

00:06:13.000 and that he didn't find anything.

00:06:14.740 So that means he did not give any text messages about Sandy Hook from his phone to the court as evidence

00:06:20.260 because, as he said, there weren't any. 0.88

00:06:22.840 But that turned out to be a lie, which was revealed in the most ridiculous way you could ever imagine.

00:06:29.920 Apparently, Jones's attorneys accidentally sent the contents of two years' worth of text messages

00:06:36.640 from his cell phone to the plaintiff's attorney.

00:06:39.780 And then, after the plaintiff's attorney did what they were supposed to do and told them this,

00:06:44.640 Alex Jones's attorneys took no action to remedy it.

00:06:48.940 So, that's how it was determined that there actually were text messages on Jones's phone pertaining to Sandy Hook,

00:06:54.920 and that he failed to turn them over to the court as evidence and lied about it.

00:06:58.620 pretty badly i should add mr jones did you know that 12 days ago 12 days ago your attorneys messed

00:07:08.740 up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've

00:07:16.260 sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged

00:07:22.660 or protect it in any way and as of two days ago it fell free and clear into my possession

00:07:27.780 And that is how I know he lied to me.

00:07:30.700 This led the judge to giving Jones a pretty stunning reminder

00:07:34.380 that he is obligated to tell the truth because he's under oath.

00:07:38.160 Which, I feel like if the judge in court has to remind you that you can't lie,

00:07:43.960 like, something is going wrong.

00:07:46.320 Things are not going your way.

00:07:48.180 You're already under oath to tell the truth.

00:07:51.780 You've already violated that oath twice today

00:07:56.100 in just those two examples it seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth

00:08:06.100 while you testify yet here i am you must tell the truth while you testify this is not your show

00:08:14.380 you need to slow down and not take what you see as opportunities to

00:08:24.420 further the message

00:08:28.000 you're wanting to bring.

00:08:33.380 Let's take a quick break.

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00:09:30.780 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:09:36.620 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:09:42.980 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:09:46.540 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

00:09:55.140 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:09:59.400 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:10:03.960 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:10:11.400 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:10:15.220 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:10:18.880 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:10:22.460 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:10:30.900 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:10:36.800 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,

00:10:43.000 pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the

00:10:47.580 same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,

00:10:53.000 the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:10:56.420 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So obsessed.

00:11:00.000 From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

00:11:04.860 nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling

00:11:11.000 characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart

00:11:16.260 pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much

00:11:21.020 you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app

00:11:25.640 apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts see you between the pages

00:11:30.420 And we're back.

00:11:38.920 So we're breaking down the Alex Jones trial for a defamation lawsuit

00:11:43.000 brought by the parents of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims

00:11:45.980 and some of the different lies that Alex Jones got caught in during the proceedings.

00:11:50.900 Jones also lied about being bankrupt.

00:11:53.680 Basically, he is being accused of suing himself.

00:11:57.640 According to Reuters, the Sandy Hook family said that the company could not be trusted

00:12:01.760 to make accurate statements about its finances and that Jones took $62 million from the company

00:12:07.420 while burdening it with $65 million in, quote, fabricated debt owed to a company that he

00:12:14.000 himself owns to try to make it seem like he has less money than he actually does to avoid

00:12:19.420 having to pay more in damages.

00:12:21.480 But despite what he might have tried to say in court,

00:12:24.980 Alex Jones actually makes really, really good money

00:12:27.920 telling lies about the families of murdered children.

00:12:31.360 After the plaintiff's attorneys got the contents of his cell phone

00:12:34.260 from that ridiculous mistake that Alex Jones' own lawyer made,

00:12:38.500 Jones had to admit in court that he is not as cash-strapped as he tried to say he was.

00:12:43.500 In fact, he admitted that during some peak periods,

00:12:46.540 the InfoWars store can rake in as much as a whopping $800,000 a day

00:12:52.720 and that he takes in $300 million annually.

00:12:56.240 Now, Jones has also tried to say that he lost lots and lots of money

00:12:59.400 after being deplatformed from major social media platforms back in 2018.

00:13:04.800 But actually, as Vox points out, contrary to Jones's repeated assertions,

00:13:09.900 he actually became more financially profitable

00:13:12.400 after his company was permanently deplatformed.

00:13:15.540 You might recall that Apple was the first to pull Jones' podcast from their platform,

00:13:20.140 and then other big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter followed suit.

00:13:24.120 And it would not be an episode of this podcast if I didn't get in a little dig at Facebook.

00:13:28.720 After Jones was deplatformed from Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened to soften rules

00:13:35.540 to allow his content to continue to be posted on the platform by Jones' followers,

00:13:40.800 according to a report from BuzzFeed.

00:13:42.340 So this is something that I think is really key. Harmful lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are lucrative. Infowars makes a lot of money from peddling harmful conspiracy theories that ruin people's lives, people who were already grieving the most painful loss imaginable, and caused real-world harm in doing so.

00:14:04.500 People like Alex Jones, who traffic in lies, do it in part because it makes them money.

00:14:09.880 They're grifters and scammers, and there is no limit to how low they will stoop, 0.95

00:14:15.020 even lies about dead children, to make a profit. 0.90

00:14:19.120 And even though this $4.1 million judgment really isn't a lot of money,

00:14:23.580 like it kind of sounds like it might be a drop in the bucket for somebody like Alex Jones,

00:14:27.260 I still do hope that it sends a message that doing this, trafficking in harmful lives that hurt people and ruin people's lives for profit, comes at a cost.

00:14:39.140 And I want to end with some of the most powerful testimony that I think we saw, which came from Scarlett Lewis, Jessie's mom, who spoke directly to Alex Jones in the courtroom.

00:14:50.020 Truth is so vital to our world. Truth is what we base our reality on.

00:14:57.260 We have to agree on that to have a civil society.

00:15:00.660 Sandy Hook is a hard truth, hard truth.

00:15:03.640 Nobody would want to ever believe that 26 kids could be murdered.

00:15:10.320 Nobody would ever want to believe that.

00:15:11.740 I understand people not wanting to believe that, actually.

00:15:15.200 I don't want to believe it.

00:15:17.000 Jessie was real.

00:15:18.240 I am a real mom.

00:15:19.760 There's nothing out there, nothing.

00:15:22.560 There's records of Jessie's birth, of me.

00:15:26.540 I mean, I have I have a history and there's nothing that you could have found because it doesn't exist that I'm deep state.

00:15:35.620 It's just not true. I know, you know, that that's the problem.

00:15:40.720 I know, you know, that and you keep saying it, you keep saying it.

00:15:46.680 Why? Why? For money?

00:15:51.560 Because you've made a lot of money while you've said it.

00:15:54.700 And she's right.

00:15:56.660 Alex Jones has made a lot of money lying about her son and harming her family.

00:16:01.900 And that's really the thing here.

00:16:03.780 Listen, I am glad that the jury awarded Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslund some money for what Alex Jones put them through because it sounds like hell.

00:16:11.680 And I hope they get even more impunitive damages.

00:16:15.100 Frankly, I hope the families that Alex Jones has hurt take him for everything he's got.

00:16:20.360 But I know that money cannot bring back their son, Jesse.

00:16:24.220 And it can't turn 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.

00:16:35.500 And it can't undo the damage done to all of us.

00:16:39.320 When harmful lies are platformed, it makes us all less safe.

00:16:42.880 We saw this on January 6th.

00:16:44.720 It can empower and embolden really dangerous people.

00:16:48.320 And we cannot have a healthy digital landscape

00:16:51.040 if these kinds of dangerous lies are also profitable

00:16:54.620 because it will just incentivize trafficking in them.

00:16:57.980 Let's build a world where scammers like Alex Jones

00:17:01.300 can't get rich off of peddling the kinds of lies

00:17:04.220 that tore Scarlett and Neil's life apart.

00:17:07.660 We all deserve better.

00:17:12.540 If you're looking for ways to support the show,

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00:17:22.160 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.

00:17:24.520 You can also find transcripts for today's episode

00:17:26.240 at tangody.com.

00:17:27.860 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me,

00:17:29.720 Bridget Todd.

00:17:30.580 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

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00:17:50.620 or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:17:58.260 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:18:04.940 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:18:10.220 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,

00:18:14.040 abducted stalked controlled and nearly silenced these are stories about what it takes to make it

00:18:20.780 out alive listen to the survivor files with elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple

00:18:26.880 podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally

00:18:32.380 important to your personality welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club

00:18:38.660 part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level

00:18:42.960 of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:18:47.500 with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:18:52.260 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

00:18:56.740 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:19:00.260 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - August 05, 2022

Alex Jones did a lot of lying in his trial about lying

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