Alex Jones

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Alex Jones
Birthname Alexander Emerick Jones
Date of Birth Feburary 11, 1974
Birth Place Dallas, Texas
Nationality American
Occupation Radio host of The Alex Jones Show
Biography Alex Jones is the founder of Infowars, a conspiracy theorist news site

Alexander Emerick Jones is the creator and owner of a far-right news media site, Infowars. He is known for his conspiracy theories and controversial ideas on politics. He is a radio host on The Alex Jones Show out of Austin, Texas, which is run through the Infowars website[1]. He is popular for his ideas that the government is out to get the public and claiming terrorist attacks, such as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing, were inside jobs. He believes that there is a “New World Order” that is attempting to create an international government to gain militarized control over the world[2]. His ideas and theories have led to both political debate and harmful action taken by his followers[3].


Early Life

Alex Jones was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1974. His father was a dentist and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. When he was a teenager, he moved to Austin where he joined a broadcast station called Austin Public Access[4]. He graduated high school in 1993 and became a part-time student at Austin Community College. He used his extra time to fill in for radio hosts. His conspiracy theorist ideas began with the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. He was quick to mention that the government could have played a part. He received reports of people agreeing with his conspiracies, and the praise led to his own position at a local radio station[5]. When he dropped out of community college, his father gave him money with which he created films about his conspiracy theories and the "New World Order." He purchased time spots on the radio to host his own show where he discussed his various conspiracies. He considered himself a libertarian, not wanting to belong to either the Republican nor Democratic parties[6].


Infowars

Infowars is a well-known conspiracy news network. It reaches 3.2 million unique viewers per month in the United States and 3.9 million unique viewers per month across the globe[7]. Infowars content has been removed by YouTube, Facebook, and Apple for disregarding their policies on hate speech and harassment. It has also been targeted for “glorifying violence” and using poor language against people in the transgender community and Muslims. Twitter was the only big social media platform that did not remove Infowars. It said nothing Infowars had posted disobeys the terms and regulations of Twitter[8]. To many, Infowars is more of a source of income for Jones than a source for news. He sells various products from t-shirts to survivalist products. Since Infowars is a private company, its financial records aren’t publicly available. However, Jones claimed to have made $20 million annually[9].


Alex Jones defending himself against defamation charges from families of Sandy Hook victims

Conspiracy Theories

Jones has stated that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was an inside job without giving a reason behind it.


Alex Jones and Infowars have reputations for producing conspiracy theories related to the government. They believe the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center were organized by the U.S. government in an effort to convince other countries to reduce freedoms granted to citizens.


Infowars has stated it believes the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 was carried out to deceive the public into thinking a specific group had done it.


They have also said that the Oklahoma City bombing was executed by the American government[10].


Censorship

In March of 2018, YouTube decided to take down all videos from Alex Jones’ channel. YouTube claimed the account was shut down due to a disregard for the terms of service, although the specific terms were not mentioned. Infowars related channels accumulated billions of views across more than thirty thousand videos on YouTube alone. Paul Joseph Watson, who works for Jones at Infowars, was still allowed to keep his videos up, despite representing the same ideas as Jones[11]. Apple, Facebook, and Spotify joined YouTube in erasing Infowars material on their platforms, giving “hate speech and glorifying violence” as their reasoning. Facebook specifically said that fake news was not the reason for Jones’ removal, but his racist and violent remarks toward groups broke the terms of Facebook[12]. Like YouTube, Facebook did not give specific examples of posts or behaviors that led to the removal[13]. On August 29, 2019, YouTube allowed Infowars to return in the interest of sharing different viewpoints. Thirteen videos were posted before YouTube decided to remove them once more[14]. More pressure is being placed on these technology companies to only show information that is correct. In a world where finding the truth is difficult, censorship of ideas is criticized as well[15].


Alex Jones hosting a show on Infowars

Major companies who share ads on YouTube removed their ads from all Infowars-related videos. Companies such as Nike, Acer, and Expedia, claimed they did not know their ads were linked to these videos and requested that YouTube take down all ads on the Alex Jones Channel[16].


Ethical Issues

Alex Jones’ conspiracy theories and far-right ideals have led to ethical concerns in different ways. They directly affect the topic of free speech and where the line is when it comes to sharing ideas. They indirectly affect people living their everyday lives through the fear of listeners[17].


Direct Issues

Big tech companies that acted in removing and censoring content generated by Alex Jones and Infowars have been faced with heavy criticism. Conservatives have continually attacked YouTube, Facebook, Google, and others for removing conservative content on their platforms. It’s not just popular conservatives that are being affected by this. When removing an account it believes promotes hate speech, Facebook also deletes some posts of followers. It will not allow those views to be represented by anyone on Facebook[18].


Tech companies make sure that their algorithms are not leaked to anyone outside the company. Because of this, it is impossible to know for certain whether these tech companies are censoring conservatives. Many of the biggest companies have said there is no bias in their algorithms toward conservative viewpoints[19]. The big disagreement comes with a discussion about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. There is a gray area surrounding the article about freedom of speech. The First Amendment says the U.S. government cannot limit speech, but a privately owned company can prohibit whatever they want[20]. Technically, Google and Facebook are privately owned corporations. However, there are 220 million Facebook users and 259 million Google users in the United States, and if they are biased against conservatives, then those people may not be hearing both sides of the story[21][22]. Alex Jones has made claims time and again that he is being banned from these platforms only because he has different ideas[23].


Indirect Issues

Alex Jones' conspiracies have been proven wrong, but he is a professional bullshitter. He has a large following, and with that, many people have become convinced that his conspiracy theories are actually the truth. To give his theories credit, he tells his listeners to look into the situations themselves and generate their own ideas. This led to more dangerous ethical issues.


Jones and a cameraman snuck into restricted Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California. They filmed people around a fire, and Jones called it an “occult ritual.” Two years later, a man entered Bohemian Grove with weapons and set the place on fire. When asked why he did it, the man said Jones’ video and statements made him believe human sacrifices were happening.


Amid the 2016 Presidential campaign, Jones released his theory that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats had a child sex ring they were operating from a pizza place in Washington, D.C. he called “Pizzagate.” Later that year, a man walked into the pizzeria with a rifle, following Jones’ orders to investigate his theories. He shot the rifle inside the restaurant, despite not finding any confirmation.


One of Alex Jones’ biggest conspiracy theories is that the shooting at Sandy Hook was faked. When the father of one of the victims had YouTube remove Jones’ video, Jones revealed personal family information of the father. A listener of Jones named Lucy Richards, ended up in prison after sending death threats to the father, whose family was forced into hiding[24].


References

  1. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones arrested for DWI in Texas. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/conspiracy-theorist-alex-jones-arrested-dwi-texas-69514961
  2. Alex Jones. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/alex-jones
  3. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html
  4. Alex Jones. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/alex-jones
  5. Zaitchik, A. (2018, June 25). Meet Alex Jones. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/meet-alex-jones-175845/
  6. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html
  7. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20171210072444/https://www.quantcast.com/infowars.com?qcLocale=en_US#/trafficCard
  8. Riley, C. (2018, August 6). YouTube, Apple and Facebook remove content from InfoWars and Alex Jones. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/06/technology/facebook-infowars-alex-jones/index.html
  9. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html
  10. week, L. (n.d.). Advertisers flee InfoWars founder Alex Jones' YouTube channel. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/03/technology/youtube-ads-infowars-alex-jones/index.html
  11. BBA4-HFVU: YouTube terminates an Infowars account - again ... : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/perma_cc_BBA4-HFVU
  12. Chappell, B., & Tsioulcas, A. (2018, August 6). YouTube, Apple, and Facebook Ban Infowars, Which Decries 'Mega Purge'. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-facebook-ban-infowars-which-decries-mega-purge
  13. week, L. (n.d.). Advertisers flee InfoWars founder Alex Jones' YouTube channel. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/03/technology/youtube-ads-infowars-alex-jones/index.html
  14. Baca, M. C. (2019, August 30). Infowars returned to YouTube. It lasted less than a day. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/30/infowars-returned-youtube-it-lasted-less-than-day/
  15. Chappell, B., & Tsioulcas, A. (2018, August 6). YouTube, Apple, and Facebook Ban Infowars, Which Decries 'Mega Purge'. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-facebook-ban-infowars-which-decries-mega-purge
  16. week, L. (n.d.). Advertisers flee InfoWars founder Alex Jones' YouTube channel. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/03/technology/youtube-ads-infowars-alex-jones/index.html
  17. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html
  18. Facebook bans Alex Jones and other controversial figures for hate speech. (2019, May 2). Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-ban-alex-jones-milo-yiannopoulos-20190502-story.html
  19. Schwartz, O. (2018, December 4). Are Google and Facebook really suppressing conservative politics? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/04/google-facebook-anti-conservative-bias-claims
  20. Technology. (2019, June 19). Here's How Conservatives Can Defeat Big-Tech Censorship. Retrieved from https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/19/heres-conservatives-can-defeat-big-tech-censorship/
  21. Clement, J. (2019, December 2). Facebook users in U.S. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-facebook-users/
  22. Gordon, K. (n.d.). Topic: Google. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/
  23. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html
  24. Williamson, E., & Steel, E. (2018, September 7). Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html