(OPINION) The following is an excerpt from the Guardian news publication. “I assume every reader of the Guardian will cheer the news of a $965m fine imposed on Alex Jones, the rightwing American conspiracist. A Connecticut court fined him for disseminating the cruel lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was staged with actors by the anti-gun lobby. Justice is now done. Up to a point.
One of the most unfortunate pieces I ever wrote was to greet the internet in the 1990s as of benefit only to lawyers and pornographers. Wired magazine called me Neanderthal of the Year. I admit that among millions of other beneficiaries, I should also have added political maniacs. But the guilty parties uniquely let off scot-free by the Jones jury were the agents of his mendacity, the gold diggers of social media.
There have always been Alex Joneses spreading poison from the world’s soap boxes and pavements. As a boy I used to listen to them at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. We would turn away with a grimace from their rubbish, while a couple of police stood by in case of trouble. Their lies never made it into newspapers or on to the airwaves. Free speech went only as far as the human voice could carry. Beyond that, “news” was mediated behind a wall of editors, censors and regulators, to keep it from gullible and dangerous ears.
That wall has crashed. Jones, like QAnon, Donald Trump, and others, can navigate fake news sites and social media to reach millions. For years, the latter refused to admit responsibility for their content, Facebook asserting that it was a “platform” not a “publisher”. Free speech was what it said on the tin. The global village was open to all, ordered anonymously by the democracy – or perhaps anarchy – of the web.
A quarter century has rendered us wiser and less gung ho. Of course, the internet has brought myriad gains and enjoyments. The main social media outlets have accepted a modicum of responsibility to monitor content. Increasingly frantic attempts are made to keep up with a deluge of often biased and mendacious material, but almost invariably, by the time it is taken down it re-emerges elsewhere. Jones has been banned by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but he can still reach audiences on his own website. He says he will appeal forever. He is unrepentant, while his multitudinous backers will pay. Justice is meaningless without enforcement or prevention. READ MORE
