The Business of Conspiracy Theories

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2018

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sites offering wild theories, and unsupported claims, are increasingly the stuff of modern online discourse. But what's the business model that's fuelling their rise? Alex Jones, the prominent radio host, is pretty much America's best known conspiracy theorist. As well as warning of a deep state conspiracy against the President, he's also claimed that the government is controlling the weather, that demons are taking over America, and that school mass shootings including the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 small children dead, was in fact a hoax involving child actors. Such comments, offensive to many in the US, have recently seen his shows removed from Facebook and YouTube and suspended on Twitter, saying he's violating their rules around community reporting. Apple and Spotify have also taken down his podcasts. We hear from James Bridle, the author of a book called New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, on why conspiracy theories are flourishing in the internet age, and from Filipo Menczer, Professor of Informatics and Computer Science at Indiana University, and Charlie Warzel, a news reporter at BuzzFeed, who has been looking at how these sites can now raise tens of millions of dollars, largely by selling medications to followers. Plus Professor Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist and fake news expert at Miami University in Florida who says that conspiracy theories have now themselves become part of the mainstream.

(Credit: Stevanovicigor, Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC.
0:09.6	Today, the growing business of selling conspiracies and why some reckon the president is supporting their rise.
0:17.0	He couldn't go after mainstream Republican voters. He went after the fringier Republicans.
0:22.6	And that's who brought him to the dance, and now he has to dance with them.
0:26.6	Also, the growing industry in far-fetched medications that conspiracy theories are supporting.
0:32.2	You find a lot of ads for things like snake oil that promise that they will cure cancer.
0:38.5	And it's very easy to prey on gullible people like this.
0:41.7	Selling Conspiracies Business Daily from the BBC.
0:49.5	This is the most censored broadcast in the Western Hemisphere.
0:52.7	I'm Alex Jones, your host.
0:54.0	Coming up, they're making their deep state coup move against the president.
0:58.5	They're making a move on us.
0:59.8	An extract there from the Alex Jones show broadcast on the Info Wars website.
1:05.9	Alex Jones, if you haven't heard of him, is the prominent radio host, pretty much America's best known conspiracy
1:12.4	theorist, as well as warning of a deep state conspiracy against the president. He's also claimed
1:17.1	that the government is controlling the weather, that demons are taking over America, and that
1:21.3	school mass shootings, including the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School that left
1:26.9	20 small children dead was in fact
1:28.8	a hoax involving child actors. It's comments like that, offensive to so many in the US, that
1:35.0	have recently seen his shows remove from Facebook and YouTube and seen him suspended on Twitter.
1:40.8	Under what's clearly been sustained pressure, the platforms have decided he's violating
1:44.8	their rules around community reporting. Apple and Spotify have also taken down his podcast. It's
	...

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