There Are No Girls on the Internet - Elon Musk welcomes BFF Alex Jones back to Twitter

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00:00:48.920 Each week, we're connecting the dots

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00:01:08.820 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:16.940 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:22.120 So we have a little news on the slow downfall of the platform formerly known as Twitter.

00:01:27.080 conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been let back on Twitter after being banned from the

00:01:31.760 social media platform, and honestly, most social media platforms, for the last five years.

00:01:37.440 Back when Elon Musk first took over Twitter, he started letting a bunch of people who had

00:01:41.820 been previously banned back on, including Donald Trump. And when he was asked if he'd

00:01:46.860 be letting Alex Jones back on, he said that he would never do that because he had a baby

00:01:51.160 that passed away and he would never allow someone who profited from lies about dead

00:01:55.220 Children, which Alex Jones did about Sandy Hook, back on the platform. Tucker Carlson, formerly a

00:02:02.960 Fox News host who I guess now hosts some kind of a show on Twitter, did a 90-minute interview with

00:02:09.140 Alex Jones where Jones returning to Twitter came up. It was really clear that Alex Jones wants to

00:02:15.200 be back on social media. And I guess this whole conversation about him coming back to Twitter

00:02:20.240 must have changed Elon Musk's mind because Elon Musk did one of those easily gamified,

00:02:26.440 totally unscientific polls on Twitter asking people whether or not Alex Jones should be

00:02:31.700 left back on the platform. Side note, I just have to say, I hate it when Elon Musk does those polls.

00:02:38.380 It seems like an attempt to put the onus of whatever he wants to do on the people who vote

00:02:43.180 and then blame them for driving the direction of his business, like totally spineless. Anyway,

00:02:49.260 The choice to let Alex Jones back on Twitter does not bode well for the platform. 0.94

00:02:53.360 And it feels like just another signal that the platform is being overrun by the worst types of grifters, liars, and scam artists.

00:03:00.960 Just like back when Elon Musk was promoting anti-Semitism, it feels like a new low for the platform where people, not to mention advertisers, just don't want to be associated with it anymore.

00:03:11.880 Because Musk did not just let Alex Jones back on Twitter, oh no.

00:03:15.480 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 Vivek Ramaswamy, who might have actually gone to the bathroom without muting during the spaces.

00:03:34.780 Gross.

00:03:35.780 So during Elon Musk's conversation on Twitter Spaces with Alex Jones,

00:03:39.880 Alex Jones seemed to imply that the statements that got him booted

00:03:43.180 from pretty much every social media platform out there

00:03:45.580 were either taken out of context or deep fakes.

00:03:50.140 The whole thing really just did not bode well.

00:03:52.980 When Musk asked Jones about his comments about Sandy Hook,

00:03:56.100 he really just downplayed it like it wasn't a big deal,

00:03:58.940 saying, I had a very small operation

00:04:01.160 and I did not even understand how powerful I was.

00:04:03.640 And so in that event, the school shooting, which I do believe happened 11 years ago, the internet exploded, and it was the top story and went on for years.

00:04:11.760 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.

00:04:18.380 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.

00:04:31.740 And Elon Musk might accept Alex Jones' lies that he basically had nothing to do with calling Sandy Hook a hoax,

00:04:38.060 but we don't have to buy that, especially since there are receipts.

00:04:42.440 Like, he was found liable in court.

00:04:44.640 This man shamelessly lied about Sandy Hook, the kids who lost their lives,

00:04:48.740 and the parents and family who grieved those losses to fatten his own pockets.

00:04:53.880 He was sued by the families for it.

00:04:56.180 And all during the trial, sat on the stand and continued to lie about it.

00:05:00.120 Today, Alex Jones owes the Sandy Hook family's $1.5 billion, and so far, he's not really

00:05:07.440 paying up.

00:05:08.380 He tried to weasel out of it by declaring bankruptcy.

00:05:11.460 On his show, he called the amount that he was ordered to pay, quote, hilarious, and

00:05:16.400 said, do these people really think they're getting their money?

00:05:20.020 So here's our breakdown of what happened in that trial, and I'm rerunning it in the

00:05:24.080 hopes that it serves as a reminder of exactly what kind of person Alex Jones is and an

00:05:28.740 example of what kind of person Elon Musk thinks should be elevated and given a platform on Twitter.

00:05:34.860 So here's our episode from 2022, all about the many lies of Alex Jones.

00:05:43.320 Something we talk about a lot on this podcast are the ways that people who traffic in things

00:05:48.120 like lies, conspiracy theory, and disinformation are oftentimes doing it because it makes them

00:05:53.400 money. It's a scam. It's a grift. And I think it's important that we frame it this way because

00:05:59.580 I don't think we will ever truly beat disinformation until we make spreading it

00:06:04.820 unprofitable. And right now, spreading lies for profit is a booming business. Just ask Alex Jones.

00:06:13.840 So on Thursday, a jury determined that conspiracy theorist InfoWars radio show host Alex Jones

00:06:20.580 will have to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Hesslin,

00:06:23.700 the parents of a six-year-old child

00:06:25.420 who was shot and killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting,

00:06:28.580 $4.1 million in damages.

00:06:31.620 Now, this is a lot less

00:06:33.320 than what the parents had initially asked for,

00:06:35.340 which was at least $150 million.

00:06:37.700 But there's still a chance

00:06:39.080 that he'll have to pay more in punitive damages.

00:06:41.700 This trial was the first of three trials

00:06:43.920 brought by the families of the victims of the shooting.

00:06:46.860 The Sandy Hook elementary school shooting

00:06:48.900 happened back in 2012,

00:06:50.100 in Newtown, Connecticut.

00:06:52.000 Twenty elementary school kids

00:06:53.440 and six school staff were shot and killed.

00:06:56.360 It was a horrific tragedy.

00:06:58.740 And Alex Jones spent the aftermath of that tragedy

00:07:01.840 baselessly and repeatedly claiming that it never happened

00:07:05.340 and that it was staged in order to increase gun control

00:07:08.800 and that the children who lost their lives

00:07:11.240 and the parents who grieved them were actually actors.

00:07:14.680 Well, they're obviously looking for a big PR bonanza

00:07:17.920 and then to bring in all the actors to break down and cry. 0.98

00:07:22.220 And I think we're so stupid they even use the same actors as different people. 0.97

00:07:26.160 I mean, all I know is we've all seen the footage, 0.99

00:07:28.900 and maybe they're real parents, whatever,

00:07:30.560 but when you've got somebody laughing and smiling and going,

00:07:32.800 watch this, and then walking over and going,

00:07:34.940 and then starting crying for the cameras.

00:07:37.200 Now, this is a pretty well-worn conspiracy theory.

00:07:40.780 And whenever a mass tragedy like a shooting happens,

00:07:44.140 conspiracy theorists will claim that it didn't really happen

00:07:46.720 and that it was actually a false flag operation.

00:07:49.780 Like you'll see memes falsely claiming

00:07:52.240 that the people who died were actually actors

00:07:54.560 who were later seen performing in the Super Bowl

00:07:57.380 or that an actor has been used in multiple mass shootings.

00:08:02.720 At this point, it's really predictable.

00:08:05.080 I saw the same bogus claims floating around the web

00:08:08.040 after the awful, awful shooting in Texas earlier this year.

00:08:12.100 Now, it's not clear if the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories

00:08:15.280 started with Alex Jones,

00:08:17.220 but the family say that Alex Jones,

00:08:19.680 with his millions of listeners,

00:08:21.380 lit a match and ignited it

00:08:23.060 and turned their lives into a nightmare.

00:08:26.200 Neil Heslin testified that

00:08:27.700 Alex Jones turned his life into a, quote,

00:08:30.320 living hell,

00:08:31.140 and that because of Jones,

00:08:32.560 he'd been harassed and threatened,

00:08:34.440 saying,

00:08:35.140 what was said about me and Sandy Hook itself

00:08:37.000 resonates around the world.

00:08:38.420 As time went on,

00:08:39.580 I truly realized how dangerous it was.

00:08:42.040 My life has been threatened.

00:08:43.340 I fear for my life.

00:08:44.380 I fear for my safety. I can't even describe the last nine and a half years of the living hell

00:08:52.360 that I and others have had to endure because of the negligence and the recklessness of Alex Jones.

00:09:01.020 Now, Alex Jones was caught in multiple lies during the court proceedings. Honestly,

00:09:05.840 it would take way too much time to list through all of them here, but here's a little sampling.

00:09:09.440 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.

00:09:21.380 And then the lawyer played a clip of him doing exactly that.

00:09:25.780 Jones went on his show and noted that the judge once worked for CPS, or Child Protective Services.

00:09:32.340 Judge Maya Gamble comes from CPS, who has been exposed for human trafficking and working with pedophiles.

00:09:41.220 That's what you mean when you say you're taking this seriously.

00:09:44.820 I take this as serious as cancer.

00:09:47.300 And in one of the more bizarre lies that I have ever seen happen in a courtroom,

00:09:52.700 Jones testified that he searched his own cell phone for any mention of Sandy Hook and that he didn't find anything.

00:09:58.420 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. 0.64

00:10:06.960 But that turned out to be a lie, which was revealed in the most ridiculous way you could ever imagine.

00:10:14.060 Apparently, Jones's attorneys accidentally sent the content of two years worth of text messages from his cell phone to the plaintiff's attorney.

00:10:23.420 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.

00:10:33.020 So that's how it was determined that there actually were text messages on Jones's phone pertaining to Sandy Hooked and that he failed to turn them over to the court as evidence and lied about it.

00:10:43.160 Pretty badly, I should add.

00:10:45.100 Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of 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 free and clear into my possession, and that is how I know you lied to me.

00:11:14.500 This led the judge to giving Jones a pretty stunning reminder that he is obligated to tell the truth because he's under oath.

00:11:22.260 Which, I feel like if the judge in court has to remind you that you can't lie, like, something is going wrong.

00:11:30.380 Things are not going your way.

00:11:32.280 You're already under oath to tell the truth.

00:11:35.860 You've already violated that oath twice today in just those two examples.

00:11:42.360 it seems absurd to instruct you again

00:11:48.120 that you must tell the truth while you testify

00:11:51.140 yet here I am

00:11:52.760 you must tell the truth while you testify

00:11:55.840 this is not your show

00:11:58.480 you need to slow down

00:12:02.920 and not take what you see as opportunities

00:12:07.280 to further the message you're wanting to bring.

00:12:17.660 Let's take a quick break.

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00:13:10.340 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:13:15.800 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:13:22.200 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:13:25.660 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:13:31.340 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:13:34.060 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:13:38.520 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:13:43.080 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:13:50.520 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:13:54.480 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:13:57.920 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:14:01.060 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:14:14.980 And we're back.

00:14:17.880 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.

00:14:29.880 Jones also lied about being bankrupt.

00:14:32.680 Basically, he is being accused of suing himself.

00:14:36.640 According to Reuters, the Sandy Hook family said that the company could not be trusted

00:14:40.760 to make accurate statements about its finances,

00:14:43.560 and that Jones took $62 million from the company

00:14:46.420 while burdening it with $65 million in, quote,

00:14:49.920 fabricated debt owed to a company that he himself owns

00:14:54.040 to try to make it seem like he has less money than he actually does

00:14:57.820 to avoid having to pay more in damages.

00:15:00.500 But despite what he might have tried to say in court,

00:15:04.000 Alex Jones actually makes really, really good money

00:15:06.920 telling lies about the families of murdered children.

00:15:10.380 After the plaintiff's attorneys got the contents of his cell phone

00:15:13.260 from that ridiculous mistake that Alex Jones' own lawyer made,

00:15:17.500 Jones had to admit in court that he is not as cash-strapped

00:15:20.600 as he tried to say he was.

00:15:22.500 In fact, he admitted that during some peak periods,

00:15:25.520 the InfoWars store can rake in as much as a whopping $800,000 a day

00:15:31.720 and that he takes in $300 million annually.

00:15:35.240 Now, Jones has also tried to say that he lost lots and lots of money

00:15:38.400 after being deplatformed from major social media platforms back in 2018.

00:15:43.820 But actually, as Vox points out, contrary to Jones's repeated assertions,

00:15:48.900 he actually became more financially profitable

00:15:51.400 after his company was permanently deplatformed.

00:15:54.540 You might recall that Apple was the first to pull Jones' podcast from their platform,

00:15:59.140 and then other big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter followed suit.

00:16:03.120 And it would not be an episode of this podcast if I didn't get in a little dig at Facebook.

00:16:07.720 After Jones was deplatformed from Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened to soften rules

00:16:14.540 to allow his content to continue to be posted on the platform by Jones' followers,

00:16:19.800 according to a report from BuzzFeed.

00:16:21.340 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.

00:16:43.500 People like Alex Jones, who traffic in lies, do it in part because it makes them money.

00:16:48.880 They're grifters and scammers, and there is no limit to how low they will stoop, 0.95

00:16:54.020 even lies about dead children, to make a profit. 0.90

00:16:58.120 And even though this $4.1 million judgment really isn't a lot of money,

00:17:02.580 like it kind of sounds like it might be a drop in the bucket for somebody like Alex Jones,

00:17:06.260 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.

00:17:18.120 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.

00:17:29.020 Truth is so vital to our world. Truth is what we base our reality on.

00:17:36.260 We have to agree on that to have a civil society.

00:17:39.660 Sandy Hook is a hard truth, hard truth.

00:17:42.640 Nobody would want to ever believe that 26 kids could be murdered.

00:17:49.320 Nobody would ever want to believe that.

00:17:50.740 I understand people not wanting to believe that, actually.

00:17:54.200 I don't want to believe it.

00:17:56.000 Jessie was real.

00:17:57.240 I am a real mom.

00:17:58.760 There's nothing out there, nothing.

00:18:01.820 There's records of Jessie's birth, of me.

00:18:05.540 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.

00:18:14.620 It's just not true. I know, you know, that that's the problem.

00:18:19.720 I know, you know, that and you keep saying it, you keep saying it.

00:18:25.680 Why? Why? For money?

00:18:30.540 Because you've made a lot of money while you've said it.

00:18:33.700 And she's right.

00:18:35.660 Alex Jones has made a lot of money lying about her son and harming her family.

00:18:40.900 And that's really the thing here.

00:18:42.780 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.

00:18:50.680 And I hope they get even more impunitive damages.

00:18:54.100 Frankly, I hope the families that Alex Jones has hurt take him for everything he's got.

00:18:59.360 But I know that money cannot bring back their son, Jesse.

00:19:03.220 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.

00:19:14.500 And it can't undo the damage done to all of us.

00:19:18.320 When harmful lies are platformed, it makes us all less safe.

00:19:21.880 We saw this on January 6th.

00:19:23.720 It can empower and embolden really dangerous people.

00:19:27.320 And we cannot have a healthy digital landscape

00:19:30.040 if these kinds of dangerous lies are also profitable

00:19:33.620 because it will just incentivize trafficking in them.

00:19:36.980 Let's build a world where scammers like Alex Jones

00:19:40.300 can't get rich off of peddling the kinds of lies

00:19:43.220 that tore Scarlett and Neil's life apart.

00:19:46.640 We all deserve better.

00:19:51.540 If you're looking for ways to support the show,

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00:20:06.860 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me,

00:20:08.720 Bridget Todd.

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00:20:14.040 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:20:16.260 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

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00:20:37.060 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:20:45.760 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:20:49.040 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:20:57.020 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:21:00.820 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:08.760 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

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00:21:28.380 creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - December 12, 2023

Elon Musk welcomes BFF Alex Jones back to Twitter

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