Disaster Trolls: 7. I Helped Bring Down Alex Jones
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BBC
2.8 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rob tried to stop his Infowars colleagues spreading conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook shooting. Now his testimony has helped hold his former boss to account in court.
Twenty of the 27 people killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, were children. But for years after the attack, Infowars host Alex Jones used his show to spread false claims that nobody died, and that the shooting was faked to create a pretext to disarm US gun owners.
In this episode, Rob talks about his 13 years working for Infowars, and how in that time he saw Jones achieve enormous wealth and fame by pushing ever more extreme conspiracy theories.
Rob was mocked and ignored when he urged Jones and other co-workers to drop the harmful lies they were pushing about Sandy Hook. But his testimony, about what went on inside the company, has now helped parents of the shooting victims to win huge damages awards against his former boss.
Could this sort of legal action provide a way for those targeted by similar conspiracy theories in Britain to seek accountability from their tormentors?
In this BBC Radio 4 podcast series, Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation and social media correspondent, investigates how survivors of UK terror attacks and other tragedies, suffer, online abuse and threats. This episode contains audio from the Infowars website.
Presenter: Marianna Spring Producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Ed Main
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Savings, credit cards, car finance, reclaiming, insurance, investing, power of attorney, decision, |
| 0:06.2 | indecision, analysis, paralysis. |
| 0:09.4 | Don't panic. |
| 0:10.4 | The Martin Lewis podcast is twice weekly, helping you navigate our complex consumer world. |
| 0:15.2 | I'll walk you through a big money saving topic step by step. |
| 0:18.4 | Then in question time, you set the agenda and ask whatever's on your mind. |
| 0:22.5 | Would you rather be locked in an empty shopping centre with a thousand snakes or just one gorilla? |
| 0:27.6 | Within reason. |
| 0:28.1 | The Martin Lewis podcast, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.8 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:38.1 | Ginger! Ginger, come, radio, podcasts. Ginger! |
| 0:39.4 | Ginger, come inside. |
| 0:41.4 | Come on. |
| 0:43.5 | This is Rob Jacobson. |
| 0:45.0 | Sit down. |
| 0:45.9 | He's talking to me from his kitchen in New Orleans, where he lives with his dog, Ginger. |
| 0:51.4 | I wanted to speak to Rob because of an unusual job he held for 13 years. |
| 0:56.4 | I used to work for Alex Jones from 2004 to 2017, so I worked there for a long time. |
| 1:07.6 | I'm Mariana Spring. I'm the BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent. |
| 1:13.3 | And I've been investigating the online trolls who target people after disasters, particularly in the UK. |
| 1:19.8 | But perhaps the most notorious of all is the USA's Alex Jones. |
| 1:24.6 | If you haven't heard of him, he's one of the world's most infamous conspiracy theorists. |
... |
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