The Jones Effect

Cole Bellinger
CB284414@ohio.edu

Alex Jones is off Twitter and fake news is over, right? Well I certainly wish that were the case. If you don't know who Alex Jones is, he is a infamous conspiracy theorist and radio personality. His views on "weather weapons," white genocide, and most notoriously the Sandy Hook school shooting has sparked outrage and intrigue across the nation.  Though he has been removed from almost every social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.). he has still managed to reach across a broad audience and found many like minded people. Even with this victory, we as audience members need to stay ever vigilant for others like Jones.

If you think Jones is the only one of his kind out there you are sorely mistaken. Just browsing one of his sites can lead you to a plethora of other sites that Jones would say "promote a true culture of liberty, transparency and freedom on a planetary scale." One such site I visited was called Freedom Force International. This group actually lists Jones in their "Hall of Honor" stating that he is "known as the man blasting out truth with a bull horn" as well as commending him for warning America about the 9/11 attacks which Jones believed was a globalist conspiracy. This particular site also boasts "information" about how global warming is a lie and even introduces its visitors to a series of courses designed for "freedom warriors to study the merits of individualism, the errors of collectivism, and the strategies to become influential in the power center of their respective countries" all based on selected readings by the publisher.

There are even more egregious examples out there of sites using Jones' platform and voice. Just scrolling through Twitter or researching related sites to Freedom Force International conjures up sites like Liberty Blitzkrieg which backs Jones claims that his ban from social media means an impending authoritarian regime. Truth In Media which is run by Ben Swann who has publicly backed Jones claim that Adam Lanza was not the culprit of the Sandy Hook shooting. One of the more terrifying sites that came up was OathKeepers. OathKeepers actually promoted an assault weapon giveaway for a referral and recruitment program. Just as concerning is their Spartan Training Program which is a private training operation for volunteers who "wish to protect our borders or serve within a Sheriff's posse." It should be noted that members of the Spartan Training Program only serve "patriotic" governors or President Trump as expressed within the article.

A theme I have found in many of these sites is a section which many call "Reality Check" or "Reality Zone". These sections are typically news articles that are hyper-partisan or are riddled with falsehoods. These sites also typically do contests and giveaways such as the OathKeepers contest stated earlier. These publishers realize that these words like winner and free will attract people to visit the site, read and share without them necessarily believing in the articles themselves.

What can we do to combat these types of sites? First we need to learn to increase media literacy as a country. This means we must repress our automaticity and dig into the articles, videos, and publishers that we follow and look at them critically. As an audience member we should realize the biases in some of our favorite and trusted news sites and read between the lines of bias to see what the message is. Of course I don't mean to insinuate that all journalists, especially grass roots and independent journalists, are hacks peddling falsities. There are plenty of great journalists on both sides committed to the truth and I truly believe that my colleagues will continue with powerful, sensitive, and most of all factual work.