aftermath of the 2012 sandy hook school shooting as parents of the victims defended themselves against conspiracy theorists. tonight. i'm very excited. to welcome elizabeth williamson celebrating the release of sandy hook and american tragedy in the battle for truth. this is the work of a humane investigation into the tragedy that follows tragedy as people who dubbed themselves truthers, but in reality do not acknowledge the truth. try to change the narrative of events that have actually occurred and he'd further pain unto those who have already experienced too much. it also examines how the misinformation and conspiracy theories and the people who promote such things. that found space in our country

after sandy hook have emboldened groups to reject the facts and existence of white supremacy covid masking and vaccinations and the validity of our elections. elizabeth williamson is a future writer and former editorial board member from the new york times and she has previously written for the washington post and wall street journal. williamson will be joined in conversation tonight with kara swisher now, please join me in welcoming elizabeth williamson and careless. i like that you have to do the work afterwards. you have to clean up. that's my favorite part of this that introduction. so elizabeth, and i've been talking a lot over years about this topic. it's a topic that's been sort of i wouldn't say near and dear to my heart, but i have been especially troubled by what's been happening in with online social media particularly and how it's sort of congested weaponized and amplified hate and obviously one of the first

instances of this and something i know very well was sandy hook. there's a couple instances of this oddly enough today. the reason i'm late. i was interviewing kathy griffin who as you know got investigated was put on the no-fly list, etc, etc. and then became subject of death threats and stuff like that. i know she's funny, but her story is not as funny. she is and so you see it iterating in little places many years ago. and sandy hook was probably the most reprehensible version of it. although january 6th is is in competition in terms of how much the our society and our the way we talk to each other has changed so dramatically including with conspiracy theories running wild and becoming part of the body politic including including everywhere just everywhere whether it's election lies anti-vax ukraine right now, you're seeing it a lot and they're ukraine with the russians net right now. it's a bio weapon.

whatever it's one lie after another that then gets amplified. anyway, this book is amazing. it's depressing, but it's also very clear what what we have to do about it and stuff like that. so i love i'm excited to talk about this. i'm gonna read just very quickly. i i think the key line. that i think is important that i'd like to start from there elizabeth. driven by ideology or profit or for no sound reason at all conspiracy theorists would use technology to create to create it to unite the world to hunt and attack vulnerable people. it has happened many times since but sandy hook was the first mass tragedy to spawn an online circle of people impermeable and hostile to reality in its messengers whether the mainstream media law enforcement or families of the dead for whom the torment by deniers added immeasurably to the pain. the books the decades distance sandy hook stands as important a warning of the power of the unquenchable viral lies to leap the firewalls of decency and

tradition to engulf accepted fact and established science and to lap at the foundations of our democratic institutions. this book tells the truth of how it happened. so let's start with that. i want to talk we talked about this when we're on twitter spaces and stuff, but talk about how i want to get into how what happened and focus on alex jones and others, but talk about the bigger picture for people here in terms of of why this was as you said a canary in the coal mine. i interviewed len posner whose son. nova was murdered. so talk a little bit about that. so lenny posner was a sandy hook dad whose son. noah was the youngest sandy hook victim and lenny had a tech background. he was interested in computers when the computer industry was in its infancy. he really knew how the algorithms propel lies on to social media platforms and speed them to millions of people. so he was the one who told me, you know, this isn't a one-off that you know was maybe spurred

by sandy hook being a watershed moment in the gun control battle. for example what this really was was a foundational story of how misinformation moves and how people were willing as we say like a group of people we're willing to just deny accepted truth and fact and and science and so it moved from pizza gate to q and on to coronavir. to the to january 6th, and then there we were at the steps of the capital. i mean, i remember i was you know in january of 2021. i remember i was trying to finish you know the last couple of chapters and i was thinking i'm procrastinating little here, but i just want to see what's going on at the capitol so i turn on cnn and people were scaling the walls of the capital and i was thinking well, i guess this would be the last chapter in the book because it was exactly the same delivery

methods often the same characters and people who were spreading these lies. so talk a little bit about how it started that how it began because len posner was quite an interesting interview to do with him. but one of the things is it's sort of he himself was interested in conspiracy theories whether it was around what was the one he was the moon landing or moon landing? yeah. there's a theories aren't davinci code, right? this is not a new thing conspiracy. they've been around since the beginning yeah of time essentially. yeah. i mean one of the interesting things i learned was, you know, america has always been a conspiracist nation and you know, one of the historians that i spoke with catherine olmstead from uc davis was saying, you know, we're a nation of immigrants and we sort of define ourselves and create our own identity by defining the other and then that taken a step further means demonizing the other and so that was something that sort of of people but this was a little different. it wasn't just keeping a check on government or saying, you

know, well government does lie. i mean, we have a struggle instances of it happening. this was never trusting the government and always distrusting the official narrative and always seeing you know that narrative as something to be denied, right? so there have been plenty of things that government has done over the course of years lying about various things vietnam. you can go there's dozens and dozens of examples, but what what happened here was began well before this was it in the reagan administration when it's so don't trust government. where did it habits beginings this this conceptual idea that burst alex jones who then grabbed on to whatever conspiracy theory? yeah among them january 6th for sure. but yeah, but he initially got started on sandy hook. yeah, alex jones kind of had his roots in the early 90s, so he was always distressful of government. he sort of identified with the sort of white christian. nationalist movement out west after the branch davidian

compound siege near waco. he rebuilt the davidian's church. he raised 93,000 for that effort and a group of volunteers so he had strong ties to that world which almost by definition was distrustful of government and you know, keep out of our business and he appealed to them and he was a celebrity among that crowd and they were kind of his core audience. why did he get that way from your perspective? you know, it's hard to know i really struggled with trying to define you know, who is alex jones? he's everybody knows who alex jones is correct if you okay. yeah, which wasn't the case actually right like seven years ago people didn't you know, this entire room would be like, i don't know coming up empty. yeah. i i it's hard to exactly he is conspiratorial by sure, i you know one of one of his employees told me it doesn't really matter

if alex jones believes what he says it matters that his listeners do and you know, there were millions of them and they were willing to defend those false beliefs with violence and he was operating on the fringes of media at the time and i remember interviewing i was perfect. i was completely struck by it, but i oddly enough had ralph reed at one of my early code conferences. i was right noticing that the right wing was doing rather. well, yeah online and it was because they had been zeroed out of other media and so here they found a very fertile ground to get their information, but talk radio was another area but which was jones which was jones but but alternative media was what they were looking for in some fashion. yeah the word out and kind of undercover because nobody really paid attention actually called it he called it. you know, i like to see listen to alex jones when i'm driving. between clients because he represented the other side of information right, but that was

before alex jones got his darkest. so he liked what did he like about it the silliness or the like thinking it to him? it was an intellectual exercise. you know, what if we looked at you know what the government said about the moon landing and we look at what the conspiracy theorists say, and we can just kind of, you know figure out how are they how is the sausage made? you know, how do they figure out like what you know, what's the basis for their doubt, you know these photographs these footsteps, you know, he thought it was fun just to kind of look at those things. right and he didn't think it was toxic in any way. no because at that time alex jones for all of his, you know associations out west. he definitely was a different person, you know, he was a lot less toxic and dark when he was around 2012. so it shifted from those kind of things to more of a propaganda angle because i think one of the things that i hate is the idea of calling it fake news. i just think propaganda is yeah really what you're talking. is it propaganda.

is it not yeah lives would be lies another way to put it some but some is our purposely done. yeah for propaganda purposes. absolutely and sometimes propaganda. i mean drive an agenda to drive an agenda and it can be not necessary negative necessary necessarily. i mean a lot of what zelensky's doing right now is to to sell this under 100% story which is in fact an underdog, so it's actually true but there's a lot of bells and whistles that go along with that, but i'll get to that in a second. so the so the idea was that this guy was doing this stuff and sort of living along the edges. yeah and needed something to take himself upward. so explain how that happened. so this tragedy happened. yeah in in unimaginable for most for everybody talk about how it unfolded. sure. so with visa v alex but visaway the whole incident and then how why this one because there's lots of in lots of shootings. why did this one? yeah, that kind of attention.

so obviously as everyone in this room knows and can probably remember where you were when this happened it was just an unimaginable crime, you know, the slaughter of 21st graders, you know, trying to hide in their classrooms and the six women who tried to protect them. and initially even the parents themselves could not countenance this you know, and the people around them and you know, they they told me about how you know, they'd wake up even today. and say some mornings. that was a nightmare, you know and then realized no actually it's my life. and so i think there were a number of people who congregated online especially moms who had children around that age and they just vanishing. yeah, they just couldn't believe

it. they they would show up at the sandy hook hoax facebook group was one of the biggest denier groups at the time. how many people were on the facebook there were hundreds? yeah, they would gather at night. they would talk all night long. they would show up, you know, usually after work come in and out and just exchange their theories and we talked about this, you know, the earliest facebook groups were quilting and knitting groups people who had aol and it's actually yeah. yeah exactly. i told her story about when i met steve case one of the first times he made me go meet a quilting group that had been had made a quilt for aol on line and they was lovely. they were lovely people who had it interests. they brought them all to aol and they they kept sort of steve case and they gave me and it was lovely it was lovely, but then it started soon. it turned very ugly rather quickly, but it was that was the idea was that yeah that communities of people would come together online.

it was very active among gay people for example, who were couldn't get together or unsafe etc. now, of course, they're unsafe in florida again, so it was really problematic, you know, it was a great way to solve a problem of people like-minded people. yeah or like-minded interests. yeah building each other up correcting with one another this is what happened. it was the same kind of it was the same. that's the eerie thing because it really was the same kind of impulse. you know, let's gather online. let's each, you know, add our peace to the quilt. you know, where were the police helicopters? why were the victims transferred by ambulance instead of by a helicopter? how did that happen? why did porta potties show up at the scene? you know, did someone plan in advance? what were the police doing who was in the woods everybody contributed some little piece of this? quilt that these sandy hook hoax facebook people were building, you know, this this like lenny calls it conspiracy blob. so every new fact that harder it was like a party and yeah, this

has a history in crime because you know, there's you know, the the golden state killer they were there there's there's all kinds of stuff around. yeah police work that actually ends up. yeah, there were a lot of true crime groups right at the time in fact some of those morphed into the sandy hook oaks group. but yeah, it was just building this this whole body of conspiracy, but some of these young moms showed up on there and they just thought you know, i'm here for anybody who could tell me that somehow this didn't happen. that didn't have worried about their own children. yeah, so it's not them into they just it was well lenny described it as a form of ptsd that that these these particular individuals and you know, i think we also for a little of of that, you know, but that was one part of the group. they fell away pretty quickly. they were pretty easily convinced when lenny himself actually joined this group one night to try and present the records of noah's life and death his birth certificate his post-mortem exam his school

records to say look here. i am i'm using my power as a grieving father. i'm going to answer your questions. i'm going to give you this material you can examine it. i'm happy to answer any question you have and a lot of these younger moms were convinced. in fact, they started to dm him and you know kind of join him in a separate group, but then that left the sort of rump group of really hardcore conspiracists and they were egged on by alex jones. so he then took a hold of this and what happened so those individuals became alex jones's content providers, so they were the people who were showing up at newtown two dozen times wolfgang. how big or they people who were following the families around or sending endless public records requests trying to get grizzly details of the crime and photos and whatnot and publish them and publish them and they were people who just were harassing the families to no end both

online and increasingly in person. yeah, which they would show up because this couldn't be true. this is we're going to be prove it as if it's a detective novel. yeah, and the other thing is, you know, when you have people just like the aol thing when you have people in this tight cohesive group building each other up supporting each other exchanging information and these are people who would normally be isolated. you know, they were the person who would hand you a xerox sheet a theories on the subway before or you know, you're crazy uncle who would you know corner you at the family reunion with his jfk theories, but now they found each other through the magic of social media, they all found each other they exchange their theories. they created this very tight-knit social bond among themselves. and so anybody who is there to say? no, actually this is the truth. no, this is what happened. no, here are my documents whether they were a first responder or another participant or they were a parent they were villains and they were threats

and they would break the what they were doing because they what they had to be doing was righteous. yeah, presumably and entertaining. yeah because a lot of these people and it was a form of psychic income that they'd never gotten and also incoming income. so talk about an income they talk about the money alex jones made at this. i'll get to the platforms in a second, but he started talking about it in ceiling and again when people say just asking questions you really have to wonder what's going on. that's an excuse. it's for a lot of stuff. it's very famously tucker carlson does it but lots of people i think joe rogan does it sometimes and a lot of people are saying right a lot of people are saying and just asking questions. yeah, which i never say by the way ridiculate, of course, i'm asking questions, but but just yeah, i'm just asking questions here. so but they're based in fact. as opposed to tucker carlson anyway, and i'll throw sean hannity into so when you when you when he was doing this he was making money so he started doing it and it looked good for

ratings, right? correct? yeah, i mean i often describe people are like, oh clickbait. i'm like, no, it's not really we're not really doing but in this case he saw the numbers. yeah, correct. so when alex jones started getting called on the carpet for this around 2014-15 16. he had two things one was that he didn't come up with these theories. he was only repeating the claims of others, which is false if you listen to his broadcast from that day, which of course i have within hours of the shooting he had started to say this, isn't this is a plot to get americans guns. so that was false and then the other thing was i never made any money from this as a matter of fact these kinds of controversial theories. i i lose listeners. when i put well, that's absolutely wrong between 2013 and 2016 his audience doubled to 50 million viewers a month. wow. yeah and money. and money, you know, so the first thing i had to go on were

records from his divorce in 2013-2014 and there he had his personal income was five million dollars a year, but now some records have started to emerge just in the last several days. actually that suggests that during the trump presidency, which was when alex jones was really riding high he was he had revenues of more than 50 million dollars a year. okay, so 50 million dollars this time most much of it, correct? genius business model, right? yeah, all he was doing was he sells products that are absolutely geared to the paranoia and the fears of his audience. so it's dried food for your doomsday proper shelter. it's untraceable gun components, so you've got a weapon. you don't need to register when the end of times comes it is vitamin supplements and diet supplements for people who don't

trust traditional medicine. it's fluoride free toothpaste because the fluoride the government puts in your water is meant to rot your brain, right? so he sells this stuff from a warehouse out back from his headquarters crazy 50 million dollars a year, right? so he's taking advantage of his customers and also with yeah crappy products. yeah the same time using -- to sell that. yeah, so like often a perfect crab. sorry to say --. so, you know what, it works, unfortunately. so so he of course used social media platforms to do this. he wasn't just you know, he also appeared on a lot of reggie. he started appear in mainstream media rather, you know, whether it was a megyn kelly show who's on joe rogan. he was on a lot of different places. yeah, so that was one part but online was really important for him and he used it the same tactics for january 6. he's turns out to be he's one of the organizers so talk a little bit about that how he moved to the platforms and then what the

platforms did or did not sure so his early business model again pretty genius. he he modeled it after gary allan who in 1971 wrote this sort of seminal conspiracist. tome called nun dare call it conspiracy kind of blaming a global cabal of bankers saying that they're the ones behind american policy not elected officials. he used to sell his theories and he was a real darling of the john birch society the far right birchers and he sell his theories on at that time videocassettes cassette tapes and he did it through mail order and that was how alex jones started so he and kelly jones his ex-wife would create these feature-length films from bohemian grove and railing about the globalists or whatever and they would not only send them out to you if you if you you know contacted them like by their phone or or later on their website.

they encouraged that people who bought them pass them around. let all your friends see them spread this and that was exactly the verbiage he was using during 2020 in the run-up to right the answer but instead they were using these platforms which are much more effective. yeah cassette tape. yeah, right. yeah, which was exponentially obviously. yes, right and one of the that that the i'm gonna read you something i wrote and i'm not going to tell you when i wrote it. but but in a minute in a second, but one of the they went there because these were platforms that allowed them. do this at a much faster rate? without any tracing and any any kind of editorial function right and anonymity. so talk about that if we started to do that. yes. then complain to these platforms, right? it's now i'm not surprised but explain what happened, okay? nothing nothing. okay. that's exactly right. yeah, absolutely. nothing lenny compares it so

many laws. there are governing any tech companies just so you know zero said actually one is very good for them. but go ahead. yeah, go ahead. yeah, so he lenny tried to get this material taken down. so every just to back up for a sec alex jones's material. he started to put every broadcast on youtube and his youtube pay his youtube videos were racking up a billion views. for example, he had a twitter account. he had all the things that everybody has who wants to spread this stuff now so he just exponentially increased his reach and that kind of prepared him for where he was in the trump presidency. so, yeah, he had double his audience he had, you know, put this stuff out online. it was more powerful twitter or facebook. at that time, i think it was well actually youtube was one of the most powerful that's right. there's three of them. yeah. there's the three that are the most important.

yeah is those yeah, so he was putting his videos on there. he was doing that and people were and what were the platforms doing? nothing explain nothing sure because then lenny when he started to see this couldn't believe it. yeah couldn't believe so lenny having realized that trying to debunk these hardcore. oh conspiracists having realized that that wasn't gonna work. he the first tool in his toolkit were our copyright laws, so he had a memorial page to know that had photos of of noah with his sisters family videos. he owns that stuff but the conspiracists were going on and taking that lifting that material and putting it into their videos or onto their websites or whatever. he used the copyright laws dcma to get that stuff taken down. so that was the first real effective thing, but he went to appeal to them directly. he got an automated message. he couldn't even he described it as like standing in front of

iron doors and you're knocking and no one can even you can't even make your knock heard much less anyone opening to you, right? it was just completely few so they couldn't get that except when he went to copyright. correct? exactly. so they they couldn't appeal to this is a bunch of lies. my children just died. they're making things up. no, this is a bunch of lies etc that this would this got no reaction from any of them not correct none. so we went to copyright which they do that. they are familiar. yes, and they're concerned. they have they have reggae. that's the only law that yeah, correct. yeah. what did what did you think of this? and what did he think of this? were you so you called me like kara? why are they doing this? i'm like, would you like a chair? yeah, because they can because they're unaccountable and ungovernable. not right. they are not to be governed by anybody but exactly and as you said, you know these are you here analogy about facebook just sticks with me that mark zuckerberg has built a city

without police without fire department without sewage treatment without trash pickup and we all have to live in it and he gets all the rent and he gets all the rent from our movements around that city. it's called the purge. it's a very good movie. you should enjoy it very much. so what happened to shift that because he did get them to start to pay attention, right? so as long also said, yeah public shaming was and there was a in the book there is a really great incident where cara interviewed alex jones or whatever you mark zuckerberg. about alex jones asked him, you know. i bet it before you even sat down with him before they were even recording said you're going to take down this material you are going to take down alex jones. yes. i did it you're going to do platform it i said three weeks. yeah deep platform and he was like, no. he said no. he said that's ridiculous. i'm not and i said, oh no you are and he goes, he's essentially said who's gonna make me and i'm like me. yeah, so you brought it up in

the end. i brought it up right away. yeah and thinking that he would avoid that question of the the thorny question about alex jones nice segway right over to the holocaust. yes, and unfortunately yeah being basically oh, those people are just mistaken. no. he said they don't mean to lie. yeah, and i felt it was a definition of a holocaust denial that they actually mean to lie and malevolently. yeah, and so what happened in that case and i want you to react to this is yeah, i wasn't surprised by what he did what they did facebook did was when he moved from out. he said we were talking about alex jones and he didn't he felt uncomfortable because at the time it was getting a lot of attention. yeah, and he said, you know, let's move on to the holocaust and i was like, no, okay. don't do it mark. i was i felt bad as a parent you tell me that don't do it, but that was in an earlier version of the book actually. yeah, and i was like, okay do it and one of the things i did was not speak interrupt. yeah did not interrupt and i

wanted to say when he started to say holocaust deniers don't mean to lie, and therefore should be able to say what they think instead of saying you fatuous popinjay. of course, they mean to lie. that's the whole game. i said. oh interesting. please go on go on go on. were you surprised by that because you were right in the midst of this at that that this was he actually said the quiet part out loud, which yeah way of putting it right? it's just like what facebook used to say back in those times or a little earlier. we'll never play by china's rules, you know, so this was something that lenny really picked up on and he did an op-bed in which he called zuckerberg out on the holocaust lie and on gee you're not even protecting people who are targeted by holocaust and irs, and we're even lower down the food chain and that got a real reaction right and within a month alex jones was off of

facebook right only because apple did it first right have apple and they were like dominoes. yeah. yeah. it's because tim cook did yeah. and then twitter did and then the others and the others at a date we're going to do it without apple doing it a hundred percent. so we're talk about we're gonna get some questions from the audience. where are we now with this has happened. this is i think you've moved from surprise that they're doing this to yeah, what how it ended up because the sandy hook hoax page is gone. yep. what about all this material? what was really interesting is the sandy hook hoax facebook page was gone, but when we did our first conversation about the book on twitter spaces the sandy hook hoax twitter account suddenly disappeared that was yeah two weeks ago. yep, so it's pretty amazing how little they do to try and police these platforms. and do you give them any excuses to why there's so much information because it's

happened in covid. it's happened vaccines that happened election that happened january 6th. it's now, you know starting q&a course. yeah pizza gate. other men shootings. yes, exactly. so what do what do you imagine has to happen? do you think things have improved or people because they're trying to sort of starch their black ads white and this ukraine thing right by immediately pulling it down. they didn't wait for me or you to yell at them like please do this. i used to call myself the the call center for these places. yeah. yeah the kind of thing where i would call and say the one i had is when i called it was cheryl sandberg and i said hillary clinton is not a lizard. i have met her. she's not a lizard. can you take down all this these conspiracy theories? yeah. she's an actual lizard and it's under her skin and it led to be ultimately and pedophile in this and that yeah, so what do you imagine they're going to do now. what do you think's gonna happen lani is doing this group where he tries to do and he's trying to expand it. yeah. what happens next from your perspective?

well on alex jones, so at the end of last year right there were four separate defamation lawsuits filed by the families of 10 victims. alex jones has lost those suits because he refused to cooperate and to give his business records or to provide adequate depositions. so he basically just defaulted himself and so they won so it's a sweeping victory for the families, but it means that now in the spring just in a couple weeks from now the trials will begin so juries will set damages, so it's just damage so it they lost all that. he's lost and all the juries have to do is decide how much he should pay them in damages and he will of course declare bankruptcy or well, he's already screwing and running and and setting up and and juggling a web of llc's that he has to try and hide his income and then it's sort of the pain that these

families continue. it's still around. yeah, but now i think it's moved to a policy level because sadly they're joined by many more people who have been wronged by this same thing right and you know there there are some interesting moves on on section 230, which is the legal shield that these platforms have that keep them from being sued for defamation themselves. this is a very early law part of the communications decency act that protects gives broad immunity not just a tech companies, but laura it was meant to allow the nascent internet to take off. yeah, very good. it was wrong sure did right it did. yes. it did. what and the question is if you pull it off what will happen because there's also some very good arguments for not doing. yeah. absolutely. what do you imagine will happen? well, we continue in this sort of information desert full that's full of information or data or rattlesnakes and rattlesnakes. yes. it's a desert full of rattlesnakes. what do you imagine happening? and then i'm gonna to ask some questions, okay.

you know, i think it's anyone. guess i mean, i think the reason that i wrote this book and that i was so compelled to get this into the world is that you know, these families shared with me the worst day of their lives because they really feel like if people read this book and get mad they'll begin to push for some kind of policy change and i think that you know, that's what i hope for i mean, that's yeah that i think that has because it does run up. it's like what what money told you in your sway interview, you know the department of information security. you know, what what a department of information security be able to police these platforms or at least try and come up with some kind of broad fixes. i mean we could be pessimistic about this, but at least people are talking about it and there seems to be some bigger brains in the room now and it does seem that the platforms are not able

to those iron doors on. be with a complaint anymore. i mean lenny's heroic in that he got their number. you know, he really felt like i'm gonna you know, he he i'm gonna make this my life's work, you know, but is it really fair that a grieving parent should make it his life's work after losing his son to get these platforms to behave themselves, right? exactly and this is ongoing. how old would noah would be well, noah would be 15 this year 15 in november 20th. he would be 15 years. so this is how long it's been toiling 60 right the age of one of my yeah children. yeah, let me i'm gonna read you something because i want it because i want you to answer the final question i have here in this thing. i'm not gonna say when i wrote it, but i'll tell you at the end. okay, it says it's so it was about trump and twitter about whether they should take him off. he had violated all the rules almost continually. yeah. he's the most high profile example. yeah, someone being deep platform, but he just broke the rules. that's all i did.

yeah, they can use any word they want every day, but that's all i did. he broke the rules. yeah their rules that they don't enforce. okay. it's so happens in recent weeks including at a fancy pants washing a dinner party this past weekend. i've been testing companions with the hypothetical scenario. i made up. my premise was had been to ask what twitter management should do of mr. trump loses the 2020 elections and then tweets inaccurately the next day and for the rest of the month that there have been widespread fraud and moreover that people should rise up and armed insurrection to keep him in office. most people i posed this question to you at the same response throw mr. trump off twitter for inciting violence a few study. probably should only be temporarily suspended to quell. any unrest very few said he should be allowed to continue to use the service without repercussions since he was no longer the president one high level government official asked me what i would do my answer. i would never have let it get this bad to begin with i wrote this in 2019. this was fully a year and a half before this happened. i got called by all the executives at these companies

and said, how dare i create such a terrible scenario, which of course is exactly what happened, right? so how how did it how does it not get how did it get this bad to begin with and to me? this was the moment? yeah that if we tolerate not just guns, but this information and how do you think we fix it? yes, you're in charge. oh, yeah, queen for a day. i don't know. i don't know i i do think. these platforms are so enormous that. you know, they obviously can't believe themselves. i think even with her and we talked about this when i interviewed you for the book that it it's they are so large that even if they wanted to even if they were forced to they wouldn't be able to remove all this content. so i don't know. i mean it is the kind of question that makes some of the big thinkers out there in tech say blow it up and start over.

yeah, so i don't know. do you think blowing it up and starting over would be a better solution. um, you know, jaren lanier who i think is one of the smartest thinkers on it said it's the biggest experiment in human communication and it's failed. yeah, you know there are some people i have a star set star trek a star wars theory where i think it started off as star trek where everyone gets along, you know, this multi-racial group of people get along and even the villains get turned good, you know, and then there's star wars where everybody dies really, you know what i mean? like nobody comes out. well, right. oh the empire. oh is always striking back. yeah. i think we live in star wars. yeah, and i'm not sure what to do about that. yeah, so, so, let me let me ask some questions. this is this is general jennifer griffin's here. oh the woman who's doing god's work. we love you jennifer works for fun. and i was like, oh i was gonna be so happy. yes amazing. i've been tweeting love letters to who are on the on twitter because using your powers, good.

well, it's god's work which she's doing over there at fox anyway, but fantastic national security reporter. she's wonderful was there ever any russian link to alex jones what percentage of his shares were bots and to what degree is russia behind this explosion of conspiracy theories in america? great question. yes, so alex jones. we love this part out of our narrative was a regular on our tea so he would get up. this is russia today. yeah, russia today kremlin funded state tv. he would get up in the middle of the night, you know, his ex-wife told me clamber out of bed, you know ready to go on our tea at all hours. he was eager to expand his platform by whatever means necessary. he's been a putin fan and apologist from the start. he admires that and i actually think and you know, paul and i have talked about this. when i was a reporter in eastern

europe, it was you know, even then not terribly long ago. it would have taken a pretty sophisticated foreign adversary like russia to sew the kind of disinformation that we are doing ourselves and if we're worried about russia interfering in our next election, don't worry about it because we've already done it and we'll do it again, right? so it's ours. it's not where these groups in this country. yeah, but was he funded now, but talk about bots one, you know, i asked him about when i interviewed alex jones. i asked him about russia and our tea and he went absolutely bananas. it was the only time during our interview that he truly lost it and what and it made me wonder you know, where what is your relationship there? it was either that he thought just that association would sort of ruin him with his audience. or there is something there, but i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist myself. i don't really know so yeah. yeah, but the bots are

interesting, but what degree was russia behind this explosion of conspirin very much. so yeah, well look at what you know what really struck me the other day. what did russia say about that maternity hospital. that was bombed. yeah, ukraine. they said that the pregnant women being evacuated were crisis actors. i mean that is absolutely and the foreign minister said script said russia had been canceled, right? yeah exam right they have anyway, it was ridiculous to use a term like that. yeah. it's but you know, they they gloried in you know, russia has you know loved to and that was one of the reasons alex jones was on there early was to talk about, you know, american mayhem, you know, there's nothing better than to broadcast news, you know outside in russia about american gun related mayhem. yeah, and that welcome there. yeah, he's a what do they used to call it a fellow traveler anyway, so one of the things about bots just jennifer you want to know i did a story

there's a bunch of good companies, but remember roseanne barr so that terrible thing and then samantha b a week later said something not very nice about ivanka the but they were the same bots ginning it up. they they were like, can you they getting on both side of the roseanne thing saying she's right and then no she's terrible and they were all from the same company. that's they're doing it and then humans get involved. they're like, oh look fight kind of thing. so the bots started the fight the same companies did the same thing with samantha b. so they had no politically. just wanted to create mayhem which to me felt like it was the internet. what was the thing in russia the that group, but that does this. oh, all right. yeah ira that does this and russia uses contractors? they also do road meaning they hire these people ransomware and things like that. it's not just that it's iterated other places. okay, what groups are disproportionately affected by these conspiracy lies minorities women.

income lgbtq etc. well yes to all go ahead. yeah, so and how yeah really all the above because an essential element of a conspiracy theory is is demonizing and division. so you pick a group and you hold them out and in the case of sandy hook, it was the families the first responders everybody who sort of represented the kind of good of the case the facts and the truth and and in in all of these other theories, you know, i mean alex jones the master at this, you know, i mean every time he's been sued it's because he's demonized a certain group. you know, hom, do you look high of from chobani yogurt? he said he was importing immigrant rapists and the united states. so it's always about demonizing one of these groups one of these groups and whatever it happens to be but they don't care right presumably it's just whatever sells. oh, yeah. no. yeah and enrageman is engagement. yeah. that's my big line. there's been a lot of discussion in public spaces recently about the restoration of trust in

america based on your reporting elizabeth. what do you believe we need to do to improve trust in american institutions? like the media government and each other. question, that's a big question. you have a whole another program on that. well, actually the conflict in the ukraine is very interesting. bring it together nato again. oh people agree. yeah, which is a sad. there's aesthetic way to get back. yeah that kind of unity it has a salutary effect. of course, i mean one of the worrying things is the erosion of trust in the mainstream media because you know as one of the sandy hook lawyers put it if there are no arbiters of truth than anybody can be an arbiter of truth and that's what this is. mm-hmm. so it meaning that everybody has their own set of fact, this is also how to restore trust when people do not even agree on a basic set of fat. yeah. yeah. i i mean you have an answer. i wish i knew i really wish i knew yeah, it's a really interesting issue when everyone's getting different they're in silos. yeah. it's something mark and i used to talk about with he's trying to bring everyone together. i'm like, all you're doing is

creating silo after side and not just on it happens on cable news. it happens everywhere. yeah. medialist literacy what age to start teaching young people it and how and our adults a lost cause a mother is i pointed her to you jennifer quite nice jennifer here. whatever. how do we restore the trust in the media or immediate literacy? maybe teach people is it really is possible? yeah, and i do see a healthy even among my own boys who are both here. they david is 18 and charlie is 25. yeah. yeah, they're like now tell our birthdays. will you get you're like 25 you were there presume? yeah. i was there. they both just had their birthday.

okay. i'm still doing last year's math. all right, okay, but what you're set your point that i skeptical both of their own use, you know in their own use and also of what they read online and i think that's a really i think the i think gen z my sons are two of my kids are 16. i have four kids, but 16 and 19 the older ones that can the others can't read yet. although i had a big argument with rick granell last night. he's like you think the baby knows more. i'm like the baby can't read rick like it was a weird twitter fight with that idiot, you know, there's like her tell is that she thinks her baby can read i'm like, okay, but they have the same thing this idea that young people are more critical of believing anything online and there's some really in the book. there's some really interesting research on something called pre-bunking which is about teaching people how the sausages made so that they can recognize the elements of a conspiracy theory and they're less likely

to share it and more likely to report it and make it harder to share it. there's a lot of do you really want to do this? studio you want to share? yeah, and i love that. that's a study done out of and a lot of work being done out of cambridge. and i think that's so fascinating because it uses that i mean one of the things that drives some of these conspiracists is this possession of superior knowledge. so if they feel like when they get online, oh i've done this little study and played this game because they've done it through online games. i know what that is, you know, they kind of use their own character traits in order to turn them against cancer, but do you think some of these warnings that they have on like twitter has one on like if you're angry you sure you want to share it you sure you want to do this be sure you believe it. maybe you haven't read this. i'm sort of like that's like putting a twinkie on a plate and saying you sure you want to eat this right? i know exactly. yeah, not a twinkie go a nice. oh, you're right twitter. let me just hang on click through that. let's not eat that question. yeah, you're gonna know it's like yeah total instant gratitude.

it's such a waste. it's it's the least possible thing you could do and it yeah typical of that's virtue signals exactly. i'm not i don't know. it's just useless is what it is. can you talk about how you discovered this story and decided to pursue it. that's an excellent question. yes. so in mid 2018 when the first two well the families of two sandy hook victims two children who are killed it was lenny posner and veronique de la rosa noah's mom and neil haslin and scarlett lewis, who are the parents of jesse lewis who also died at sandy hook when they sued alex jones for defamation in texas in mid 2018. i thought this is a very interesting test of the first amendment all around and that's when i first got involved in it, but that was you know, what i went to talk to the lawyers and then i spoke with lenny. that was when i realized this is a much bigger story even then these families saga there there.

they're awful saga is what is symbolic of what we are all going to live through in our communities of something isn't done. okay, what is your sense of the moral equivalency culpability of social media companies who simply claim to be providing? platform for a multitude of voices meaning we're just a benign platform, right? how is mark zuckerberg? no worse than alex jones. is it arguable that he is worse given his clear goal to profit from facilitating propaganda lies and hate. that's a good question. i'm gonna ask that one of him, but go ahead. he's never given you another interview. no, he's never going to cost me. no, yes. so but the parlor guy did that didn't turn out well for him. yeah the yeah, i you know, you could argue i could see why people argue that you know, i mean, it's one thing to know. yeah. okay, we have time okay. we'll okay. go ahead go finish it. okay, we're gonna yeah, i mean, not really i think that that's

legit argument that right, you know, he knows what's going on. yeah. he it's been too long. he knows what he's created. he just can't control it and he's he's one of the richest people in the world. yeah. all right, so i'm gonna ask one more question. me see which one see they're all so good. sorry. we didn't get to that's okay. i think this is the same email email me. yeah, it's these are the same one. i'm gonna read them both and then i it's kind of a tough question did plunging into a very dark aspect of human delusion and cruelty change your view about our society. leave you more or less hopeless, and how did you keep despair at bay? well, right. oh, it's as a baseline right more or less. how did you keep despair at bay while writing this book actually elizabeth because it's incredibly depressing top. yeah, you know, i always feel a little uncomfortable when and a lot of people have asked me that and in fact, i was just telling lisa take his story today where

women i know said. hey that woman over there in the salon. she wrote this book about sandy hook and that woman was like be a downer. oh, no downer. she's not a downer. i can attest midwestern pol. yeah, yeah, so actually who's being eaten apart inside? no serious. yeah, what what dinosaur? no, actually no, you know and i will say that it was the grace of these families. they i mean i always say when people say, oh my god, that must have been so hard. i just say imagine living it, you know, they shared this as i'll say it again, you know, they shared these moments because they want all of you to do something and to me that is like the most inspiring thing they have hope that things like what kara does or this book will inspire somebody to take some

action so they have faith actually, you know, despite all of these efforts to undermine our democracy to lie about the deaths of their children. they believe they still believe and so, how can we give up? how could i so last thing? what can these people do? what can i do? write your congressman. i i think that it's it's well first thing read the book as robbie said the other night, we did a book event, robbie parker sandy hook dad said i would encourage people, you know, this is hard material, but it's not too hard that you can't stand it and take it on read it and then get -- and you know contact people who can make change whether it's the social media platforms or it's members of congress who are starting to grapple with they are they are in a bipartisan way. it's one of the few bipartisan

efforts that is actually taking root in the congress. yes. i was before this conflict. but yeah therefore, yeah, so so you're saying get angry. yeah. yeah. i hope people, you know, people said, you know, i don't mind a radio host said to me the other day. i don't mind telling you this book made me a little mad. i said, that's absolutely the goal. yeah, and also think about what you're caring around you you are a i always say you're cheap dates for the internet. they get all the money they get all the data and you get a dating service a map or whatever understand what they're doing what they're doing. it's not like opiate companies the sacklers who are exactly giant pieces of --, but but it's not unlike that it's not unlike it's because it's addictive and it's this pandemic has shown us. it's addictive it's necessary for your job and your life and your social life and it's run by the richest people in the history of the world running the companies that are the most valuable companies the top 10 companies except for saudi

aramco, which might be wanting forward after this crisis. the top 10 companies in the world are tech companies valuable the top richest people in the world except for the saudis. richest people in the world. just keep that in mind. that's your money. that's your they're eating there there, you know soylent green is people. let me just say think about it and they fix it. yeah. anyway elizabeth, this is a book. you really should read do not look away what's happened to these parents and the kind of you're right the grace that they have is really inspiring and don't let them down elizabeth. thank you karen. thank you. thanks for coming. so thank you very much for thanks for having us for the book for the conversation for the questions. just the housekeeping reminder.

i know it's annoying of putting your chairs against the wall when you're done a reminder with the store does close at 8:00. so just i don't actually know what time it is. oh it isn't it and to end on a hopeful. no in i don't know if everybody can so. i'm originally from newtown and you know talking about the the outpouring of support you mentioned a number of times in the book to go against the cd underbelly of society in the weeks afterwards newtown got so many pieces of mail from so many places in the world that the town munisable center town hall. had to run shifts of 40 to 50 volunteers opening mail. from all over the world. i don't even know how many thousands of people pieces of

mail were sent for everybody saying. we're with you we support you. we're gonna do kindness. we're gonna do acts of of in our own communities, so if you don't want to get involved in writing your congressman, or you don't know anything about tech law or anything like that you can be that person of kindness in your community you can interrupt any sort of conspiracy theorist from impacting your own friends and family and you can you can just go out and say i'm going to be nice to somebody today. i don't know who i don't know where it's gonna happen, but i'm gonna go out. i'm going to be nice to somebody today and that could be what changes that person's life for the rest of their life. so, you know, go ahead take that take the book. you will cry just so you know, you will cry during this book. i went tears during the first chapter. yeah.

so just take it. take what it means to you and then go out and and be the positive change. so, thank you. thank you. here's a look at current best-selling nonfiction books according to the los angeles times topping. the list is michelle zahner's memoir crying in h mart. after that is atomic habits james clears advice on breaking bad habits and forming good ones. and then it's amy bloom's memoir about her husband's alzheimer's diagnosis and his decision to end his own life in her latest book in love. that's followed by atlas of the heart university of houston professor. bernay brown's thoughts about making meaningful human connections. and wrapping up our look at the los angeles times bestselling non-fiction books is archaeologists david wengroe and the late anthropologist. david graber's critical look at the development of human society

the dawn of everything. some of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch their programs anytime at booktv.org. c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store browse through our latest collection of c-span products apparel books home decor and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. i'll look now with some publishing industry news the ryzen challenged and banned books was a topic of a recent hearing a house subcommittee heard from students parents librarians teachers and author and civil rights activist. ruby bridges. chairman. jamie raskins said many books are being targeted for censorship these days simply because they address racism or white supremacy as historical or

sociological realities or address lgbtq+ issues because the protagonist or author is gay or person of color or for some other allegedly objectionable reason. republican nancy mace of south carolina argued that free speech at college campuses is a greater issue saying there have been disturbing campaigns to expel students fire faculty or disinvite speakers whose views are considered to go against the progressive consensus or groupthink these universities and colleges are unlawfully stifling speech to coddled young adults at a time when their educational careers should be exposed to a variety of ideas and perspectives. also in the news author jack higgins has died at the age of 92. the british thriller writer was best known for his 1975 novel the eagle has landed that was later adapted into a film with michael caine and donald sutherland mr. higgins was the author of close to 80 books that sold over 250 million copies worldwide. in other news the 87th annual

anusfield wolf book awards were presented last week. this year's nonfiction winners are george mccary's of fear and strangers and all that. she carried by taya miles a lifetime achievement. award was also given to author and publisher ishmael reed. and according to npd book scan print book sales are down close to 9% for the first quarter of this year adult nonfiction sales have slipped over 10% book tv will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news and you can also watch all of our past programs anytime at booktv.org. welcome. my name is chelsea lake. i'm a member of the events team at politics and prose bookstore and i'd like to welcome you to pnp live. before we get started a few housekeeping notes at any point during the event. you can click on the link that i'll be dropping momentarily into the chat to purchase the revenge of power how autocrats are reinventing