[Applause]
>> Roswell Encina: Good
afternoon, everyone.
I'm Roswell Encina, the chief
communications officer for the
Library of Congress. And
because we can't say this
enough, on behalf of my
wonderful colleagues, welcome to
the 2022 Library of Congress
National Book Festival.
It's great to see this huge
crowd here in this stage.
Thank you again.
[Applause]
And if you missed any of
the authors today,
please go to loc.gov/bookfest, 
and you could catch up
with some of our marvelous
authors that's been part of the
festival so far. I know we've
got a lot to cover, so onto our
discussion. You know, almost as
long as--how old this nation is,
there's always been
conspiracies kind of wrapped
around it, whether it's from
the Revolutionary War to the
Cold War, to the assassination
of JFK, to the murders of
innocent children in Newtown
and from September 11th to
January 6th.
Today, we are here to discuss
the struggles that's been dealt
to our nation. Joining us today
is the professor of history at
Boston University and the author
of the book, “The Brethren:
A Story of Faith and Conspiracy
in Revolutionary America”
author Brendan McConville.
[Applause]
And joining him is New York
Times writer and the author of
the new book “Sandy Hook, An
American Tragedy and the Battle
for Truth,” Elizabeth
Williamson.
[Applause]
Welcome to both of you.
Elizabeth, I want to ask you
first, just a couple of weeks
ago, the verdict for Alex Jones
came down. Have you spoken to
any of the families and how are
they reacting to it?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Roswell
I did almost immediately,
and actually throughout the
trial,
which I was covering for The
New York Times, they were
weighing in, and they were
particularly gratified by the
confrontation in the courtroom
that Scarlett Lewis, whose son
Jesse Lewis, died at Sandy
Hook, had with Alex Jones.
For 90minutes, she was on the
stand, and she addressed her
responses to every question to
him personally and held him to
account. So that was something
that really cheered them.
>> Roswell Encina: How are they
coping?
I know this is not the end of
the line yet.
There's a couple more hearings.
How are they feeling moving
forward?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: I
hesitate to characterize any one
or ascribe any one feeling to
the entire group or even to
speak for them. But they are
absolutely determined to hold
Alex Jones and the other
conspiracy theorist who supplied
his content and harassed their
families to account.
[Applause]
>> Roswell Encina: When I
started, I said, you know,
conspiracies have been part
of the
country for more than 200 years.
Brendan's book started 200
years ago.
I do want to quote something
from Elizabeth's book, then I'm
going to pivot to Brendan.
You write, “Conspiracy rumors
can be a collective response to
psychological threats, which
Difonzo defines as an attack by
an outsider on our groups
identity, values, faith or
politics.” Those four last
items seem to be the common
denominator from 200 years ago
to today.
What started it back then?
>> Brendan McConville:
Conspiracy theory runs back in
Anglo-American thinking to the
reign of Elizabeth I at least
and probably even before that.
And so you have a kind of
belief that somehow people
either believe that their
rights or their liberties are
being infringed on, their group
is being threatened.
And there's been different
contexts in which that's
occurred, but it's something
that's deeply ingrained in
Anglo-American political and
social thought, that somehow
liberty or personal autonomy or
group identity is somehow always
a threat by those in power.
And so that is a very common
theme in Anglo-American
political thinking from the
time of Elizabeth I, that at the
sort of beginning of the late
16th and early 17th century
until today and as Elizabeth's
quote suggests.
>> Roswell Encina: Does it seem
like these--the common
denominator of fear and
everything else is what's being
weaponized to move these
theories forward, whether it's
fear or religion or
misinformation?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: I'm
going to punt to Brendan because
he has a lot to say about this
in his book.
>> Brendan McConville: It's
often, I think, in cases where
people feel, as you say, they
feel that something is
threatened. And I'm unsurprised
in the sense of what Elizabeth's
written about, that the issue,
the Second Amendment issue was
in a sense at the core of it,
since it's one of the central
fears, and that fear has run
again.
That runs back to the
Revolutionary generation.
It's fear of a standing army,
fear of an overreaching
government, fear that the
government is going to somehow
infringe your rights or somehow
infringe on your personal
autonomy. And that has run back
deeply in the society.
And, of course, it was a major
issue in the Revolutionary
generation. And it's why it
also ultimately leads to the
Second Amendment and continues
to be an issue, has continued to
be an issue since then.
>> Roswell Encina:
One of the big things
you talked about,
Elizabeth, in your book is the
Second Amendment and freedom of
speech, which tends to be the, I
guess, defense for many of
them.
So where is the line there?
When is it freedom of speech
and when is it you're inciting a
rumor or a bad conspiracy
theory?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Well,
during the the trial, the
lawyers for the Sandy Hook
families had a great phrase that
I think should be put on a
T-shirt actually.
It said, “Speech is free, but
lies you pay for.” And so when
you're spreading lies that harm
vulnerable people or any people
and are patently false and have
been debunked countless times,
there is a penalty for that in
our law.
Free speech does not protect
that, although conspiracy
theorists generally tend to
claim that it does.
Attacks on people, knowing that
they are false, is prohibited.
The First Amendment does not
protect that.
>> Roswell Encina: How did they
deal with it 200 years ago?
>> Brendan McConville: In other
words, conspiracy theory?
In a sense, the Revolution
mobilized on the belief that a
conspiracy had corrupted the
British monarchy and the British
ministry, the British
government, and the Revolution
was mobilized on that belief.
Once the Revolutionary regime
began to take shape, then there
were people who believe that
that regime had been corrupted.
So it works in a sense both
ways, both the regime and the
regimes. People who come to
oppose the regime both argue,
use that kind of what we would
consider a conspiratorial
language, because they believed
that the dispensation of power
was controlled by groups of
individuals or groups of
individuals who wanted to to
gather as much of that power to
themselves. And even in
something like the fear that the
Second Amendment will be
abridged, there's that fear,
that somehow you're going to
lose that.
And that was part of the way
the Revolution was, as I say,
mobilized and resisted in
certain respects.
>> Roswell Encina: So much has
changed, obviously, since the
Revolutionary War. One of the
big things, of course, is the
the factor of media when it
comes to reporting what's
happening. You wrote about this
very well, Elizabeth.
What--How does bad reporting
contribute to bad theories?
>> Elizabeth Williamson:So what
happens in the chaos after a
major event or a mass tragedy
is, of course, that in the rush
to report to Americans what
happened, mistakes are made.
You know, there is, I saw after
a recent mass shooting this idea
of there's rarely a second
shooter, but that is something
that often crops up, for
example.
So there's always this balance
to be struck between getting the
information to people quickly
and making sure that it's
accurate. And what conspiracy
theorists after these events
tend to do is point to
anomalies in the reporting and
say that these are proof of the
fact that it didn't happen that
way, that the official
narrative is false or wrong or
willfully being misrepresented.
And that is where you have to
kind of pitch a perfect game
when you're reporting on these
tragedies, although that is just
not really possible in many
cases because you're getting
information from authorities
who themselves are trying to
piece it together.
>> Roswell Encina: As a
reporter, I've been
meaning to ask you this, during
breaking news like this, in a
very competitive media market,
people just tend to report
whatever is told to them. Have
things changed in newsrooms to
make sure misinformation
doesn't go out there that could
be weaponized later?
>> Elizabeth Williamson:
So I see
really hopeful developments in
the reporting after these mass
tragedies in particular.
And here I want to give a shout
out to my colleague Sewell Chan
at the Texas Tribune, who is
here in the audience, and his
staff reported after Uvalde.
And you can see the attention
being paid not only to making
sure that details are correct,
questioning.
And that was very important
after Uvalde because the police
narrative was false and
self-protective, and that is
still being sort of unpacked by
the media.
And you also have to be
respectful to the families in
doing things like not
repetitively naming the gunman,
not focusing on the gunman to
the exclusion of the victims and
their families, and putting
them first and foremost in your
reporting and being respectful
in doing so.
>> Roswell Encina: Outside from
the mainstream media, the one
big kind of medium that's been
used is social media, whether
it's Twitter or Facebook or
YouTube.
How did these entities
make things worse for the
families of Sandy Hook?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: In
reporting on the
event or the conspiracy theory?
>> Roswell Encina: Actually,
both.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Oh,
okay.
So, again, you have people who 
seize on the initial
reporting to sort of say, you
know, this detail was wrong, and
so, therefore, this part of the
narrative or even the entire
narrative is incorrect or is
being manufactured or, you know,
concocted by the federal
government in particular.
But social media in general is
what gives a megaphone to people
who question these events and
these official reports.
And so that is something, you
know, conspiracy theorists and,
you know, Brendan can speak to
this, you know, were often
isolated. Or in earlier times,
they had to rely on word of
mouth or print.
But social media allows a lie
to really speed around the world
and gain adherence that number,
not just in the handfuls or in
the scores, but in the
millions, and that happens
within minutes.
>> Roswell Encina: To
pivot back to
Brendan, obviously, there was
no Twitter during the
Revolutionary War.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Thank
goodness.
>> Roswell Encina: How did
people get together to, you
know, to form a group?
>> Brendan McConville: Right.
It's interesting. The
Revolutionary generation was
also living through the
expansion of the means of
communication just in the same
way that we are.
Newspapers, pamphlets, broad
bills, speeches, sermons.
So information got out on a
pretty, particularly as the
Revolution mobilizes in 1774
and 1775, the opportunities to
spread information increased
geometrically.
And that's why you get this sort
of uncontrolled situation in
some respects about the way
information is passing, what
amounts to a kind of struggle
over what information is
accurate, what's not accurate.
And one of the things that I
have thought about our own time
and about what Elizabeth writes
about is that we're engaged in a
radical experiment in the
democratization of the spread of
knowledge or a massive new
market in information.
And it's very hard for people
to sort that information and
come to an understanding of
even basic things.
And so you have the legacy media
and you have social media.
There's a tremendous
amplification in what's
available, and there's not much
of an amplification, if
anything, there's a decline in
the ability to make sense of
what you're hearing and what's
accurate and what's not.
So that's something that's gone
on, and it went on with the
Revolutionary generation as
well.
One of the big fears in the
Revolutionary generation is the
fear that Protestantism,
particularly this is true in
1774 and 1775 is somehow being
undermined by hidden Catholics
in the upper end of the British
government, including the king
himself, ultimately. But it
takes hold, even though it's
completely false, that belief.
There was no Catholic
conspiracy in the British
ministry, but they believed
that there was, that Catholics
were trying to seize control of
the British Empire.
>> Roswell Encina: Was it the
case back then like nowadays, as
you mentioned, social media
could really amplify things.
Well back then, maybe the lack
of information kind of really
allowed things to percolate.
>> Brendan McConville: In many
respects, what happens is that
there is a lack of kind of
control of information.
And what had happened in the
Revolutionary generation is that
two new bodies, two new kinds
of institutions appear,
committees of safety and
committees of correspondence.
And so they have a kind of
agenda in their behavior, and
they communicate in certain
ways.
And a lot of people are either
left out of that or they hear,
they have a sort of incomplete
sense of what's going on.
And so they're left to sort of
try to sort things out
themselves. And of course, I
think that's not that different
from people trying to sort
through what they read, which
website is valid, and which one
is being produced by someone who
doesn't know anything about the
situation and just has an axe to
grind, a point to grind.
>> Roswell Encina: One thing I
didn’t know, Elizabeth,
actually, because of some of
the families of Sandy Hook, they
kind of triggered or started
the domino effects of how social
media were regulating, how
some, what information is put
out there. Could you talk more
about that?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Yeah, 
mean, when we speak about the
dramatic uptake in social
media, so in the book, I talked
to a woman named Lori Haas,
whose daughter was injured in
the Virginia Tech shooting in
2007.
And I asked her, you know, and
in the aftermath of that, Lori
became very active in the gun
control movement.
So she was out there a lot.
She was demonstrating.
She was speaking before state
legislatures.
She was pushing for new gun
legislation.
So she was very visible.
And I asked her, “Did anyone
come up to you and, you know,
contact you on social media and
call you a liar or a crisis
actor or someone who was part
of a government plot?” And she
actually went through her
Facebook page and she said, “No,
I really don't see anything.”
But the thing was that was 2007.
Sandy Hook shooting occurred in
2012.
In those five years, in 2007,
there were maybe five million
tweets sent out a day.
In 2012, there were five
million every second.
On Facebook, when Lori was not
finding anything, in 2007, there
were 20 million Facebook users
around the world.
Five years later, when Sandy
Hook happened, there were 1
billion. So you can just see,
you know, the speed and the
virality that happens when
false theories are put out.
And as Brendan said, and the
impossibility of vetting which
of these Facebook accounts is
accurate, which ones are based
on the facts, which one is just
malicious.
>> Roswell Encina: One of the
parents, I can't remember his
name, the father who's the one
who really took action.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Lenny
Pozner.
>> Roswell Encina: Yes, to
making sure that these Internet
trolls were held accountable
for what they posted.
What method did he do to make
sure that Twitter and Facebook
and YouTube did the right
thing?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: So
Lenny Pozner, who is the father
of Noah Pozner, the youngest
Sandy Hook victim, had a
technology background so he
could see that Sandy Hook was
not just a one-off theory or
even something built on gun
control and out of the
realistic expectation that gun
legislation would result from
this tragedy.
What he knew was that this was
a foundational story for how
misinformation and false
narratives have spread in our
society and was a predictor, a
kind of warning bellwether for
where we are today in the
post-January 6th environment and
the kind of world of lies that
we're steeped with online.
So he began by trying to appeal,
as you would, to the social
media companies. Hello,
YouTube, there are thousands of
these videos out here calling
us liars and crisis actors and
saying that this is false.
Facebook, can you take some of
this material down?
You know, less so Twitter
because it was a smaller
platform. He got nothing.
He describes it to shouting at
a locked iron door, “Open up.”
He never even got anything
relating to a response.
He got auto messages and things
like that.
So he started to use his power
as a grieving father to call
attention to what was going on
here.
And so he did op eds in the
newspaper.
He got some interviews, very
powerful interviews on the radio
through BBC, and he called out
these companies and shamed them.
And he also called out the
names of individual conspiracy
theorists who were generating
so much mistruth that his family
was being threatened and
harassed and being forced to
move because people kept
publishing their home address
online. So he started to talk
about the secondary trauma that
was being inflicted on them and
the actual danger that they were
in because of these lies.
And if there's anything the
social media companies respond
to, it's public shaming, and
that's what he was doing.
So he began doing that and he
continues to do that.
He is a true hero of this
story.
And the final thing that he has
done, and now they do pay
attention to him. They go to
him first and he reports this
material on behalf of not just
the Sandy Hook families, but a
whole array of people who are
being tormented online.
>> Roswell Encina: The numbers
you were sharing earlier of how
social media has progressed
since Virginia Tech is kind of
staggering. Brendan, I want to
ask you, from the Revolutionary
War to even just the Virginia
Tech time or even just during
September 11th, conspiracy
theorists always felt like they
were just on the fringe then.
I hate to say it, they’ve
become a little bit more
mainstream now.
>> Brendan McConville: Yeah.
>> Roswell Encina: Why do you
think
it was better controlled 200
years ago?
>> Brendan McConville: I think
it wasn't
always better controlled. When
the society is in crisis, when
there’s a sense of disorder,
these kinds of things move to
the center, can move to the
center of discussion.
When the society has more
stability, there's less chance
for that movement to occur.
One thing that, with what
Elizabeth said, you have a vast,
in the velocity and scale of
information, you have this vast
change. This happened in the
Revolutionary generation as
well, and it took them 40 years
to stabilize the society.
The American Revolution doesn't
really fully stabilize until the
second-party system emerges in
the 1820s, which is 40 years
after the Revolution, and after
you have this explosion in print
culture. In our own time, we're
just at the beginning of this
explosion of social media.
And it really is a test to see
in our society of how we can
have a stable society with this
much information moving this
quickly and with people very
sort of struggling to make sense
of that information and how
fast it moves and what people
say. And people can tweet and
say, “I think it's this way.”
And someone says that. It
breaks down surety of
understanding in a very sort of
concrete way.
>> Roswell Encina: What's scary
is it feels like history repeats
itself. The story in your book
is--you could see the parallels
with what happened with the
Governor of Michigan.
Would you like to tell the
audience that?
>> Brendan McConville: Yeah, in
both cases, a strong, I think a
strong parallel in the sense
that you have a group of people
who feel like the governor of
the state they're in is a threat
and is involved in some kind of
broader action against them.
And in the case of the book I
write, against their Protestant
religion, against their
traditional practices.
And so they, ultimately they
move into a position where they
think we're going to kill not
only the governor of North
Carolina, but the entire
governing elite of North
Carolina. They're going to try
to kill them amid a diversionary
slave uprising, which they're
going to start.
And so you get something, same
thing with the Governor of
Michigan in the sense that you
have a group.
I think what's the real
parallel is that the people who
were hostile or wanted to
kidnap the Governor of Michigan
and the people who had this
assassination plot in 1777, they
were both sort of extreme
manifestations of much broader
belief systems that then been
carried out to sort of their
extreme and sort of irrational
degree where in some cases, the
fears they had in North
Carolina in 1777, was that their
governor didn't share their
religious beliefs, which was
true. But they, nonetheless, I
mean, they carried it out to the
degree they were going to kill
the entire governing elite of
North Carolina and start a
slave uprising to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that
somehow kidnapping the Governor
of Michigan, where does that
go?
It's a strange sort of solution
to a problem of, gee, I don't
like the Governor of Michigan,
maybe I'll vote for the other
candidate instead. It's it's a
strange response, right?
I can vote for somebody else.
I don't have to kidnap the
governor.
[Laughing]
>> Roswell Encina: Now, we're
going to be taking questions
shortly. Just there's two
microphones here in the aisle.
So if you have a question, just
come up.
But before we get there, we'll
keep on talking here.
I do have a question,
Elizabeth.
Reading your book, both your
research and your reporting are
just both outstanding for both
of them.
It does leave you feeling a
little hopeless, I should say.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Sorry.
>> Roswell Encina: I just want
to read one.
I want to read one passage from
your book.
And I mean that with a
compliment, by the way.
[Laughing]
>> Elizabeth Williamson: I mean
it in the best possible way.
>> Roswell Encina: You write,
“Not only do false flag claims
around Sandy Hook persist, they
have metastasized to virtually
every mass shooting since.” It
feels like since Sandy Hook,
which is hard to believe was 10
years ago, and just things, how
more mass shootings have
progressed in the past 10, the
next 10 years after that.
The rumor mill and the theories
just got worse.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Yeah.
>> Roswell Encina: Is there--is
there,
how do you think we could
get a hold of all of this?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: So it
is true that,
you know, now one-fifth of
Americans, after every high
profile mass shooting, espouse
the belief that that shooting
was faked or staged.
That's a shocking statistic.
And it doesn't point to, and I
think it's really important to
say this, it doesn't point to
politics or ideology as much as
it does to psychology.
And that's in that people find
a sense of social belonging and
adhering to these conspiracy
theories.
They find a community online.
They are often lonely.
The ones I interviewed for the
book often have trauma in their
backgrounds. They're looking
for something and they're
looking obviously in the wrong
places.
But it is the reason that once
you try to get someone to
disavow these conspiracy
theories, they are extremely
resistant. They've often
reinvented themselves.
Lenny Pozner tells me, you
know, “Don't say that,” you
know, they have developed an
entirely new identity.
You know, someone, I
interviewed a woman in the book
who had a house cleaning
business in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Being one of the most
pernicious conspiracy theorists
around Sandy Hook allowed her
to reinvent herself as an
author, a researcher, an
investigative journalist.
This is really important for
people.
So there's been a lot of
research into trying to get
people to be suspicious of
these theories, use that natural
suspicion in their
personalities and their natures
and that skepticism and apply
it to when they see this
material online.
And there has been a lot of
very hopeful success and some
breakthroughs in that area.
The other hopeful thing, I
think, is just the fact that I'm
so gratified so many people are
here.
I mean, it really says that
people are recognizing the
message that the Sandy Hook
families have sent, like by
talking with me and that they
send every day through these
lawsuits that this is a
problem, and that’s that this is
a problem. We are being steeped
in a world of lies.
It's affecting not only us as
individuals, but our democracy.
And that is huge.
[Applause]
So that's hopeful.
You know, people are paying
attention.
And people who are in a
position to do something about
this, whether it's the social
media companies tightening up on
their policies, whether it's
Congress looking at new forms of
legislation. And this, by the
way, is a bipartisan effort.
And whether it is the big
thinkers out there looking at
the psychology behind this and
trying to figure this out, those
are all very hopeful signs.
>> Roswell Encina: Brendan,
what can we learn
from history to move forward?
>> Brendan McConville: I think
that going
back to what Elizabeth said
here, it's the ability as we
become more, just as in the
Revolutionary generation, people
begin to come to an
understanding of how do I sort
information that seems rational
to me from what does not.
And I think that that's where
we are, but it takes, as I said
in my earlier comment, it takes
time.
It's a, these social media
things are new.
They come basically, you're
talking about from 2012, just
ten years seems like a long
time, but it's not that long
given the nature and the way
that they've insinuated
themselves. How many people
here in our audience have sat in
bed looking at social media,
looking at tweets, looking at
Facebook? Almost everyone will
have.
They've insinuated themselves
into every corner of our
existence. And so it will take
a long time.
But if you look back, earlier
societies who went through a
similar although much less
dramatic and much less rapid but
some of the paralleling things,
they do go forward.
They do find a path forward in
a sense of creating a more
stable polity and stable order
in their society.
And that's really the hopeful
thing.
But it's also an issue of
education.
You know, that if you
understand that people aren't
going to fake shooting a
7-year-old child.
It just it's hard for me to
believe that anyone could
warrant that, could believe
that.
But it is a question of
education and looking at the
society, I think.
>> Roswell Encina: All right.
We've got a lot of people here
lined up for some questions.
We'll start with this gentleman
right here.
>> Audience Member: Thank you
both for coming out.
I have a question about Sandy
Hook in general and Alex Jones
in specific. To what extent do
you think, he has made an
obscene amount of money on his
website selling things like meal
prep kits and male supplements
and what have you.
To what extent do you think he
sincerely believes what he talks
about versus how much do you
think he's just weaponizing the
act of riling other people up
so that he can then make money?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Thank
you. It's a great question.
So as one of the individuals
who I interviewed for the book
who used to work for Infowars
told me it doesn't matter if he
believes it, and by the way, he
knows it happened.
It's that people in his
audience of tens of millions,
many of them believe the lie
that he's spreading about it.
His business model is
ingenious.
He sells products, as you said,
to people who distrust
traditional medicine,
established science, the federal
government and many of our
institutions.
So they are doomsday preppers
buying, you know, dried food and
things for their shelters.
They're buying diet
supplements, which is an
enormous business for him,
people who distrust traditional
medicine. So he has definitely
built an empire around these
lies. And you could see, and I
trace this in the book, that
traffic to his website surges
when he spoke about Sandy Hook.
So it resonates with people and
that leads to sales.
So it is a very cynical and
ingenious business model that
he's pursued. And it is not
based on any genuine suspicion
around the event itself.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you,
sir.
>> Audience Member: Thank you
very much.
>> Roswell Encina: We'll go
here to my left.
>> Audience Member: Hello. My
name is Alex.
Misinformation and conspiracy
can affect anyone.
I believe we often feel it can
be some distance problem that
doesn't directly impact us,
particularly when we see it on
the confined realm of social
media.
Because of this, when
misinformation takes root in our
personal lives or those close
to us, we can often be caught
off guard. How would you
recommend we navigate a
conversation that effectively
addresses the dangers of
misinformation without damaging
our
interpersonal relationships with
others?
>> Roswell Encina: Brendan, do
you want to take that?
[Laughing]
>> Brendan McConville: I
don't know if I have a
recommendation for that.
I mean, ultimately one of the
challenges we're facing is that
it really is ultimately up to
each individual to weigh what
they're doing, to weigh their
exposure to social media, to
weigh their exposure to
technology in certain terms,
their consumption of
information.
But I do think that it's
important that if you're looking
at something as tragic and as
important as something like
Sandy Hook, that you come to an
understanding that, look, I need
to have an understanding of the
sort of history and the sort of
background to what happened
before you sort of go off and
say, okay, the person who
tweeted that they must be right.
I mean, they they have all the
inside information about how
this was faked.
There's, clearly, anyone can
mount almost anything on the
Internet. There's very little
check on it right now.
And you have to have the
ability, and that calls on the
citizen to develop their own
sense of citizenship, knowledge
of their society, knowledge of
the things around them.
It means reading the papers,
you know, the newspapers.
It means reading and sort of
broadening your understanding to
see how what you're learning
and what you're finding on the
Internet, how it can be
measured and sort of understood.
>> Audience Member: Thank you.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you.
>> Brendan McConville: I don't
think that solves the problem,
but, [Laughing]
>> Audience Member:
Hello.
I just had a general question.
In a world where there is a lot
more awareness and immediate
reporting on these kind of
events that may involve or
surround conspiracy theories in
the news, especially major
tragedies, do you have any
thoughts on how anyone from like
a journalist to kind of a
common person in taking all of
this information can handle
these concepts in the immediate
aftermath of the reporting
without bringing further harm or
attention to the conspiracy?
>> Roswell Encina: That's a
good question.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Really
great question, thank you.
It is important to, and this is
 something that I
struggled with in the book and
that we struggle with every day
in the media. How do you debunk
these conspiracy theories
without drawing more adherence
to them?
I try to focus on, and I do
this in the book religiously, on
the victims of those theories
rather than the substance of
them. And I, you know, I
sometimes see coverage of this,
that you can tell the
conspiracy theorists like it
because it glamorizes what
they're doing and what they're
saying. I try to focus just on
the impact.
And, you know, we didn't really
talk about that here.
But just briefly, it is like
people who have had to move,
like the Pozners had to move
house a dozen times in the 10
years since the shooting
because their address was being
put online and people were
coming to their homes, people
looking in the family members’
windows, digging through their
trash, threatening their lives,
calling their phone, defacing
memorials to the dead, all of
these things.
I try to focus on this because
that
stirs up people who are,
good people
who will do things and to try
and push for a solution.
>> Roswell Encina: Elizabeth,
do you know if any
other families of mass
shootings have been treated the
same way the families of Sandy
Hook?
Have other families moved 10
times so they won't be treated
the same way as these families?
>> Elizabeth Williamson:I would
say the the number of moves that
Lenny and Veronique, Noah's
mom, have had to go through is
sort of a special case in a way
because, just the sheer number,
because they took a very
forward role.
So they were instantly
identifiable with the battle
against the hoaxers.
So they were targeted
specifically for that.
But, yes, unfortunately, the
survivors of mass shootings,
people after the Las Vegas
shooting still in their hospital
beds, were actually logging on
to Facebook to post themselves
as safe and seeing people
calling them liars and crisis
actors while they were still
being hospitalized.
So it does happen after every
shooting.
The Sandy Hook families were
kind of the first.
>> Audience Member: Thank you.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you.
>> Elizabeth Williamson:
Thanks.
>> Audience Member: Good
afternoon. So earlier, you
talked about conspiracy
theories as having a long Anglo
tradition. Having spent quite a
bit of time in the Middle East,
I know that the Arab world can
spin a conspiracy yarn as big as
anybody. And it strikes me more
of a human condition that exists
in places where they sense
secrets are being kept from
them, from various people, just
like it exists in many of these
Arab world governments and I'm
sure in other places as well.
And that the real origin of
these conspiracies is when
somebody perceives, rightly or
wrongly, that some kind of fact
is being hidden from them. And
that's the sewer that the conmen
like Alex Jones live in because
he preys on their erroneous
beliefs. And to that extent,
the belief that, I hear this a
lot, well, we shouldn’t talk
about the shooter's name or
anything like that. Doesn't
that kind of feed into the idea
that somebody somewhere out
there is hiding a fact from me
and therefore I need to go
somewhere else to an alternate
sphere to find the real truth?
And then these hucksters
come in and sweep up that that 
kind of information.
>> Brendan McConville: First,
I had heard,
my understanding is from people
who've lived in the Arab world
and people from the Arab world
is that conspiracy theory is
indeed very common there.
At the heart of all conspiracy
theory is that, in my view, is
that it's the belief that
whatever is happening, somebody
is benefiting from that and
that it's a discernable movement
of a hidden group of people who
are going to benefit from this.
They want something, whether it
be the to abolish the Second
Amendment, to to do whatever it
is to do.
So when you have that, what you
really have is the belief that
everything you're seeing is a
result of the conscious actions
of certain actors who think
they're going to benefit from
this or get something they want
from it.
And when you have that belief,
of course, you see, you can read
it into everything, literally
everything.
And so it becomes common and it
becomes hard then to dissuade
people that, look, you know,
for example, Sandy Hook happened
or Holocaust deniers that the
Holocaust happened.
If you want to believe that,
it's hard to dissuade people,
but it's the belief that
somehow somebody is benefiting
and that they're in control of
events in a way that you're not
in control and that it's being
hidden from you.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you,
sir.
>> Audience Member: Hi,
good afternoon.
Thank you for being here today.
I just had a quick question
about the ethics of journalism.
So on the one hand, as a
journalist, you're an employee
of a company and you have the
responsibility towards your
shareholders and the
beneficiaries of the company,
which might include publishing
something that would generate a
lot of Internet traffic, like a
conspiracy or conspiracy
mongering article or something
that can contribute to a
conspiracy theory. So how do
you reconcile that as being an
employee with also being a
journalist and having that
responsibility towards
presenting the truth to society,
if that makes sense?
>> Elizabeth Williamson:
I think
the earlier question sort of
spoke to a similar issue.
You know, how do you draw
attention to the existence of
this climate of disinformation
that we're living in without
glamorizing it or glorifying
the bad actors?
And we just simply try never to
do that.
And when you talk about
generating traffic for when I
write about for The New York
Times, I find that describing
this battle for truth is really
the way I do it.
And that gains plenty of
readers on its own, because I
think people recognize that
that this battle is extant and
that it is continuing and that
the right way to cover it is to
talk about its impact on people.
Audience Member: Awesome. Thank
 you.
>>  Elizabeth Williamson: Sure.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you.
Yes, sir?
>> Audience Member: Thank you
for the excellent talk.
It seems pretty clear that the
changes in the communications
technology, especially with the
Internet and social media, are
driving a similar revolution
and conspiratorial thoughts
similar to what we've seen with
the rise of print media.
And looking back at the past,
eventually, people figure out
how to deal with the rise of
new forms of media, but
sometimes it can be a very
rough road with things like the
wars of religion or even World
War 2.
So standing where we are today,
can we see just how rocky of a
road is ahead of us as we
figure out how to deal with the
new forms of media?
Or are these changes so greater
in scope and magnitude than
what's happened in the past
that we just have no idea where
this is going to go?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: This
calls for historical context.
>> Brendan McConville: How
rocky a road?
Is that what you're asking?
Boulders are ahead.
Boulders. It's not going to be
easy because we have certain
people because we want to have
a free and open society.
And in that society, one of the
risks is that you're going to
have issues, some issues that
people, in other words, you're
going to have, in this case, a
freedom of information that's
unprecedented, and you're going
to have to learn how to come to
terms with that. And so I see a
very boulderish road ahead in
which we really do struggle to
come to terms with this.
Wouldn't you agree?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Yeah.
>> Brendan McConville: I
certainly don't think we're
anywhere near the end of that
road right now.
Technology is changing too
quickly.
The society is changing quickly.
>> Elizabeth Williamson:But one
thing I think is really
important to
note, and Brandon's book, “The
Brethren,” puts this very well
and that I, in reading his
book, I found myself reassured
that we have these spasms in
our history and that this isn't
something wholly unprecedented.
And the parallel between the
plot to kidnap and assassinate
the leadership of North
Carolina in 1777 versus 2020 and
Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan,
you know, it tells you something
that, you know, that in itself
is a little bit hopeful because
you can see that this is a
feature of our society, of our
country, of our development,
and that, you know, these spasms
can be gotten over.
>> Audience Member: Thank you.
>> Roswell Encina: Thank you.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:Hi. Thank
you for coming today.
My question is do you feel that
the harmful conspiracy theories
will lessen or continue to grow
after the Alex Jones trials?
>> Elizabeth Williamson:I think
the absolute victory that the
families have achieved in
bringing these lawsuits and now,
you know, confronting him in
court.
And by the way, there are two
more trials for damages ahead
against Alex Jones, including a
big one in a couple of weeks in
Connecticut, which is being
brought by the families of eight
Sandy Hook victims, is
highlighting this phenomenon,
showing the human impact of it,
the absolutely devastating
effects it can have on people
who are already traumatized.
So I think it makes other
would-be conspiracy purveyors
think twice about what they're
going to do.
Not everybody has the resources
Alex Jones does to absorb these
kinds of judgments and
verdicts.
So that's that's my hope.
>> Roswell Encina: I was going
to ask you, now I feel like Alex
Jones has been, you know, put
aside.
Is there another Alex Jones
type that's on the horizon that
could maybe reformulate the
formula that he did?
>> Elizabeth Williamson: I'm
going to punt this to Brendon
because of the historical
nature here.
But, yes, there are many.
And that is partly because it
is in our national character to
question official narratives.
>> Brendan McConville: Yeah,
question official narratives, be
suspicious of authority.
I would also say in answer to
your question, we're at the end
of this long and terrible
epidemic.
There's a lot of, of course,
political division.
We're now in the sort of shadow
of two long, contentious and
unsuccessful wars.
So it depends on what the
course of events is going
forward. If there's less, if
there's a longer period of
relative stability, I think the
opportunity for this hardcore
kind of Alex Jones-type
conspiracy theorist to spread
something will diminish.
It won't go away. And it's not,
it's never going away, but it
would diminish if the society
remains in the level of
dislocation and turmoil and
atomization that we're at right
now because of all these
various challenges.
The soil remains very fertile
for it, I think.
I think that's a fair way to
think about it historically.
>> Roswell Encina: It looks lik
we have just time for one more
question. One quick question,
sir.
We'll give you the last one.
>> Audience Member: Hi,
thank you all for coming.
I was wondering if you had any
recommendations for the
audience. How can we more
critically evaluate the
information we see on social
media? What tips can we verify
that information and really
check its veracity?
>> Roswell Encina: A good way
to end today.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Yeah,
it's a really great question.
I mean, it's with a longer
answer than we have time for.
But, you know, the trustworthy
sources of information haven't
changed. That's, and I'm not
saying that one shouldn't
question my employer or, you
know, other mainstream media
accounts, but I think one of
the keys is for people to get
out of that mode in which we
have so much media out there, so
many choices that people tend
to choose the one that closely
corresponds with their
political beliefs.
And that may not, it's not
necessarily feeding them
falsehoods, but it's definitely
coloring the world in a way that
makes them comfortable.
I think if we consume an array
of media and, you know, there's
information out there.
We know that the Infowars of
the world are not trustworthy
sources of news.
But if we graze a little more
widely, I think that is one
step. You know, it's important
to know what people outside your
media bubble are thinking and
questioning in order to more
efficiently argue with them.
>> Audience Member: The group
think of the algorithm, yeah.
>> Brendan McConville: Could I
just address that?
I think one thing that is
important is if you look at the
sources of your information,
books, old media, new media,
visual, television or other
visual things.
In other words, going across
platforms, going across the type
of information you get, that
helps you get a better grip of
how to weigh what you're
hearing and come to a kind of
rational conclusion about it.
I think that that is important,
that it's not just one source,
that you're going across what
we call platforms, right, to
look for different kinds of
information about given
problems, given people, given
issues, given events.
I think that's important.
>> Audience Member: Thank you.
>> Elizabeth Williamson: Thanks
for your great question.
>> Roswell Encina: And thank
you to the two of you.
We appreciate it so much, both 
Brendan and Elizabeth.
[Applause]