Citizens 129
accused the Clinton administration of organising the Oklahoma City
bombing of 1995 in which 168 people died and in 1998 released his
first film, America Destroyed by Design: it was such activities that
led Zaitchik to label him “the most paranoid man in America”.
11
And
yet Jones himself has offered a refutation of this view of himself, most
notably via legal representation in court cases which would end up
presenting him with considerable difficulties. In 2017, during a longrunning divorce case, his attorney Randall Wilhite described his client
as “really a performance artist” who was “playing a character” and
nothing like his online persona in real life.
12
Then in 2018, during the
defamation lawsuit brought against him by parents from the Sandy
Hook shooting (concerning which Jones had promoted various conspiracy theories), the defence argued that his show was really a satire
and that at no point did Jones speak factually, and that “no reasonable
person would expect that Jones spoke factually on his show”.
13
While
Jones, then, may come across to viewers as a modern-day Thereau
John, his tactic when faced with legal challenges is to assert that, in
this modern-day pamphlet war, he is closer to John Taylor. Infowars is
satire and entertainment and not, as many of its readers actually seem
to believe, news for “infowarriors”.
The site itself was established by Jones in 1999, essentially a home
page advertisement for various documentaries promoted by him with
titles such as Wake Up or Waco and Police State 2000. At this stage,
Jones was also carrying appeals to help rebuild the Branch Davidian
church destroyed during the siege of Waco in 1993, and it was this radicalisation against what he saw as the global order that drove much of his
transmission of conspiracy theories. According to an early profile by Lee
Nichols, Jones appeared to sincerely believe that David Koresh and his
followers were peaceful people who had been murdered by the Bureau
of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco, and he was removed from a rally for
George W. Bush that year when he constantly interrupted the Governor’s speech.
14
In its early stage, the website was a minor adjunct to The
Alex Jones Show, which was set up as a public-access TV programme in
Austin, Texas, and its influence barely spread across the entire state, let
alone outside it.
Throughout the early 2000s, Infowars.com promoted Jones’s show
and a basic news aggregator for stories that Jones found interesting,
largely disseminating a generally libertarian view that opposed increased
government and “deep state” intervention, whether in terms of military
action, ecological policies, or opposition to personal rights. Most content that was originated by Jones for the website consisted of adverts
for documentaries or his book, 9-11 Descent into Tyranny, in which he
attacked the “Bush crime family”. Even those generalisations, however,
cover the very eclectic range of Jones’s tastes: for example, in late 2002,
his attention shifted to GM-crops (which were also entangled by him
accused the Clinton administration of organising the Oklahoma City
bombing of 1995 in which 168 people died and in 1998 released his
first film, America Destroyed by Design: it was such activities that
led Zaitchik to label him “the most paranoid man in America”.
11
And
yet Jones himself has offered a refutation of this view of himself, most
notably via legal representation in court cases which would end up
presenting him with considerable difficulties. In 2017, during a longrunning divorce case, his attorney Randall Wilhite described his client
as “really a performance artist” who was “playing a character” and
nothing like his online persona in real life.
12
Then in 2018, during the
defamation lawsuit brought against him by parents from the Sandy
Hook shooting (concerning which Jones had promoted various conspiracy theories), the defence argued that his show was really a satire
and that at no point did Jones speak factually, and that “no reasonable
person would expect that Jones spoke factually on his show”.
13
While
Jones, then, may come across to viewers as a modern-day Thereau
John, his tactic when faced with legal challenges is to assert that, in
this modern-day pamphlet war, he is closer to John Taylor. Infowars is
satire and entertainment and not, as many of its readers actually seem
to believe, news for “infowarriors”.
The site itself was established by Jones in 1999, essentially a home
page advertisement for various documentaries promoted by him with
titles such as Wake Up or Waco and Police State 2000. At this stage,
Jones was also carrying appeals to help rebuild the Branch Davidian
church destroyed during the siege of Waco in 1993, and it was this radicalisation against what he saw as the global order that drove much of his
transmission of conspiracy theories. According to an early profile by Lee
Nichols, Jones appeared to sincerely believe that David Koresh and his
followers were peaceful people who had been murdered by the Bureau
of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco, and he was removed from a rally for
George W. Bush that year when he constantly interrupted the Governor’s speech.
14
In its early stage, the website was a minor adjunct to The
Alex Jones Show, which was set up as a public-access TV programme in
Austin, Texas, and its influence barely spread across the entire state, let
alone outside it.
Throughout the early 2000s, Infowars.com promoted Jones’s show
and a basic news aggregator for stories that Jones found interesting,
largely disseminating a generally libertarian view that opposed increased
government and “deep state” intervention, whether in terms of military
action, ecological policies, or opposition to personal rights. Most content that was originated by Jones for the website consisted of adverts
for documentaries or his book, 9-11 Descent into Tyranny, in which he
attacked the “Bush crime family”. Even those generalisations, however,
cover the very eclectic range of Jones’s tastes: for example, in late 2002,
his attention shifted to GM-crops (which were also entangled by him