Good afternoon everyone. I am roswell encina the chief medications officer for the libra congress. On behalf of my wonderfulul colleagues welcome to the 2022 book festival. Its great to see this huge crowd on the stage. Thank you again. [applause] if you missed any of the authors today please go to loc. Gov book fest and you can catch up with her marvelous authors and take part in the festival so far. We have got a lot to cover so once your discussion. Almost as long as how will this nation is theres always been conspiracies wrapped around her whether its from the revolutionary war to the cold war to the assassination of jfk to the murders of innocent children in newtown and the september 11 to january 6. Today we are here to discuss the struggles that mundel to our nation. Joining us today is a professor of history at Boston University and author of book the brethren a story of faith and conspiracy in revolutionary america, author brandon mcconville. [applause] and joining him is New York Times writer and author of a 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 around. Had he spoken to any families and how are they reacting to it . I did almost immediately and throughout the trial which i was covering for the New York Times they were weighing in and they werewe particularly gratifd by the confrontation in the courtroom that the parents of jesse lewis had with alex jones but she was on the stand for 90 minutes and she addressed it her response to every question to him personally and tell them to account so that was something that really cheered them. How are they coping . I know this is not the end of the line yet. There are couple of more hearings. How are they feeling moving forward . I hesitate to characterize or subscribe anyone feeling to the entire group and or even to speak to them. They are absolutely determined to hold alex jones and the other conspiracy heiress who supplied the content and harass their families to account. [applause] when i started as a conspiracy is a big part of the country for more than 200 years. Brendans took started to did it years ago and my want to quote something from this book and i will give it to brendan. Right conspiracy rumors can be a collective response to psychological threats which is defined as an attack by an outsider on the groups identity values politics. S. It seems to be the common denominator from 200 years ago to today. What started it . Conspiracy theories run back to the rain of elizabeth i and before that and so you have the kind of belief that somehow people either believe their rights or their liberties are being infringed on in their group is being threatened and there have been a different context in which that has occurred that its something thats deeply ingrained in angloamerican political social thought that somehow liberty or personal autonomy or Group Identity is always a threat by those inre power. Thats a very common theme in angloamerican political thinking from the time of elizabeth i and the beginning of the late 16th and early 17th century until today. Does it seem the common denominator of fear is whats being weaponized to move these theories forward whether its fear or religion or misinformation . Well asks about subthirteen because its a lot to say about this book. And cases were people feel as you say they feel something is threatened and im not surprised in the sense of what elizabeth has written about that the issue of the 2nd amendment issue was one of the central figures in that fear runs back to the revolutionary generation. That fear of a Standing Army fear of an overreaching government fear that the government is going to somehow and french your rights or infringe on your personal autonomy and that has run back deeply in society and a major issue in the revolutionary generation and thats why it ultimately leads to the 2nd amendment and continues to be an issue and has continued to be an issue sense. One of the things you talk about elizabeth in your book at the second run and freedom of speech. Where is the line there and when is it freedom of speech and when is it you are inciting a room or aura bass Conspiracy Theory . During the trial the lawyers for the sandy hook families had a great parade saying that should be permanent tshirt that says speech is free about lies you pay for. When you are spreading lies that harmful marble people or any people and are patently false andtl have ended up countless times there is a penalty for that in our law. Protectech does not that although conspiracy theorists generally tend to claim that it does. Attacks on people knowing that they are absolved is prohibitive. The first amendmentt does not protect that. How did they deal with a 200 years ago . In other words in a sense the revolution mobilized on the belief that the conspiracy had the british monarchy and the British Ministry and the British Government and the revolution was mobilized on a lead. Once the revolutionary regime began to take shape than there were people who believed that regime had been so it works in the sense both ways. Both the regime and their people who come to oppose the regime both argue what we would consider conspiratorial language because they believe the dispensation of power was controlled by groups of individual or groups of individuals who wanted to gather as much as that power to themselves and evenn Something Like the fear that the 2nd amendment meant would be a theres a fear that you are going to lose that and thats why the revolution was mobilized and resistance in the sense. See me so much has changed since the revolutionary war and became the factor of media when it comes to reporting whats happening. You wrote about this very well elizabeth. How does bad reporting contribute to bad theories . What happens in the chaos after a major event or a mass tragedy is a course in the rush to report to americans what happened mistakes are made. I saw after a recent mass shooting this idea of theres rarely a second shooter but that is something that often crops up. So theres always this balance to be struck between getting the information to people quickly and making sure that its accurate and what conspiracy here is a the after these events tend to do is to point to anomalies in the reporting and say that these are proof of the fact that it didnt 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 are reporting on these tragedies. Although that is not really possible in many cases because you were getting information from authorities who themselves are trying to piece a it togeth. As reporter its a very competitive media market and people tend to report whatever sells and have things changed in newsrooms to make sure misinformation doesnt go out there thaton can be weaponized later . I see hopeful developments in reporting after these mass tragedies in particular in here want to give a shoutout to my colleagues at the Texas Tribune here in the audience and his staff reported after uvalde. You could see the attention being. Not only to making sure that details are correct, questioning and that was very important after uvalde because the Police Narrative was false and protect this and that distilled teen 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. Aside from Mainstream Media the one big medium thats been used as social media whether Twitter Facebook or youtube. How did these entities make things for the families of sandy hook . In reporting on the offense or the conspiracy theories . Actually both. Okay. Again you have people who seize on the initial reporting to sort of say you know this detail was wrong soor therefore this part f the narrative or the entirety narrative is incorrect or is being manufactured or concocted by the federal government in particular. Social media and general is what gives a megaphone to people who questioned his offense in these official reports. And so that is something you know conspiracy theorist and brendan can speak to this are often isolated or in earlier times they had to rely on wordofmouth or. Social media allows and lie to really feed around the world and gain adherents not just in a handful numbers but in the millions and that happens within minutes. Lets get back to you brendan. Twitter has how did people get together . Its a interesting the revolutionary generation was living to the expansion of the means of communication in the same way thatan we are. Newspapers, pamphlets speeches sermons, so information got out as quickly as the revolution mobilized in 1774 in 1775 b. The opportunity to spread information increase geometrically and thats why you get this kind of uncontrolled situation in some respects about the way information isis happenn what amounts to the struggle over what information is accurate in what is not accurate in one of the things that i have thought about inng her own time and what elizabeth writes about is where engaged in a lateral experiment in the democratization of the spread of knowledge or massive market of information and its very hard for people to store that information and come to an understanding of even basic things. You have the legacy media and social media. Theres a tremendous l step up amplification of whats available and there is an amplification of anything if theres a decline in what factor in what is not. It went on with the revolutionary generation is wellpaid one of the big fears and the revolutionary generatioa is that fear of protestantism is somehow being in their mind by hidden catholics in the upper end of the British Government. Including the king himself but it takes hold even though its completely false that belief. There was no catholic conspiracy in the British Ministry that they believe there was in the catholics were trying to seize control of the british empire. Mp nowadays social media can really amplify this and with that said maybe a lack of information about things to . In many respects what happens is there a of control of information and what happened in the revolutionary generation is too new institutions appear committees of safety and committees of correspondence. They have a kind of agenda and their behavior and they communicate inin certain ways ad a lot of people are either leftt out or they have an incomplete sense of what going on so they are left to sort things out themselves. Of course its not that different from people trying to sort through which web site is valid in which one isnt in one that doesnt know anything about the situation. Because of the sum of the families of sandy hook they triggered or started a domino effect of how social media was regulating what information is put out there. When we speak about the dramatic uptake and social media so in the book i talked to a woman named lori hobbes whose daughter was injured in the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and i asked her in the aftermath lori became very act with in the gun control movement. She was out there a lot and she wasou demonstrating in speaking before state legislatures and pushing for new Gun Legislation so she was very visible. Hastert did anybody come up to you or contact you on social media and call you a or someone who was part of a government plot and she actually went through her Facebook Page and she said i really dont see anything but the thing was that was 2007. Sandy hook shooting occurred in 2012. Ined those five years, in 2007 there were maybe 5 million tweets sent out a day. In 2012 there were 5 million every second. On facebook when lori was not winding 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 the speed and the virology that happens when theories are put out and what brendan said the impossibility of betting which of these Facebook Accounts is accurate, which ones are based on facts and which ones are just malicious . The father took action. Making sure these internet were held accountable. What method did he use to make sure twitter and facebook did the right thing . Lenny posner who is the father of noah pozner tujunga sandy hook victim had a that round so he could see that sandy hook was not just a oneoff theory is a real of this realistic result from this tragedy but he knew a foundational story for how false narratives have spread in our society and was it hard that pure warnings bellwether for where we are today in a post january 6 environment and the kind of world on line. He began by trying to appeal to the social Media Companies. There were thousands of these videos out here calling us and sayingng that this is false. Facebook and can you take some of this material down and less so twitter because it was a smaller platform. He got nothing. He described it as shouting to a locked open door open up. He never got anything relating to her response. He got out of messages and things like that we started to use his power as a grieving father to call attention to what was going on here. So he did offense and newspapers and he got interviews. Powerful interviews on the radio the bbc and he called out these companies and chained them and he also called out the names of individual conspiracy theorist who were generating so much and miss jurists that his family was being threatened and harassed and being forced to move because people kept publishing their home address on line. He started to talk about the secondary trauma that was being inflicted onic them and the actl that they were in because these lies and if theres anything the social Media Companies respond to its public shaming and thats what he was doing. He began doing that and he continues to do that. He is a true hero in this story and the final thing that hee 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 sandyer hook families whole array of people who are being tormented on line. The numbers you are sharing earlier about how social media has progressed. Since Virginia Tech, its staggering. From the revolutionary war to the Virginia Tech time or just september 11 conspiracy theorist sound like they were on the french and i to say it but they become a little more mainstream now. Why do you think it was better controlled 200 years ago . It wasnt always better controlled. When society is in crisis and when theres a sense of disorder these kinds of things moved to the center. This can move to the center of the discussion when society has more stability there is less chance for that. One thing what elizabeth said you have a fast velocity and scale of information in this fast change for this happened in the revolutionary generation as well. It took them 40 years to stabilize the amesnt fully stabilize until the Second Party System emerges in the 1820s which is years after the revolution in theres an explosion in culture. We are just the beginning of this explosion of social media and to see how we can stabilize society with as much information moving so quickly and the people struggling to make sense of that information and how fast it moves in what people say and people can tweet and say i think its this way and it breaks down the surety of understanding. What is scary if history repeats itself. The story in your book you can see the parallels with what happened with the governor of michigan. In both cases i think a strong parallel my son so you have a group of people who feel like the governor the of the state they are in is a threat and involved in some kind of broader action against them and in the case i break they are products of religion against their port traditional practices so they ultimately move into position where they think we are not only going to kill governor garth carolina but the entire elite of North Carolina amid a diversionaryry uprising which ty are going to start. So you get something and in michigan in the sense that you have a group a the real parallel is the people who were and wanted to kidnap the governor of michigan o and the people who hd this assassination plot in 1777 they were an extreme manifestation but she broader beliefs that were carried out in their extreme and way in the fears they had a North Carolina that the governor didnt share their religious beliefs which were true. Nonetheless they cared it out that they were going to kill the entire governing elite in North Carolina. Similarly the idea that somehow kidnapping the governor of michigan, where did that go . Its a strange solution to a problem of chico i dont like the government of michigan and maybe ill vote for the other candidate instead. The strange response but i can both serve somebody else and i dont have to kidnap the governor. We will be taking questions shortly. There are two microphones in the aisle. Get their okay button talking. At have a question, reading your book your research and your reporting are both outstanding. It doess leave you feeling a little hopeless i should say. I want to read one passage from your book. And i mean that as a compliment by the way. You mean it in the best possible way. You write you not only to false claims around sandy hook persist they have metastasized to virtually every mass shooting sense. It feels like since sandy hook which is hard to believe which was 10 years ago and more Mass Shootings have progressed in the next 10 years after that. The rumors and the theories just got. The how do you think we can get ahold of all of this . It is true that now one fifth of americans after every highprofile mass shooting is about the belief that shooting was staged. Icthats the shocking statistic and it doesnt point, they think its really important to say this it doesnt poin to politics or ideology as much as it does psychology. People find a sense of social belongingse in adhering to these conspiracy theories. They find a community on line. They are often lonely and often have trauma in their background. They are looking for something and they are looking obviously in the wrong places butoo it is the reason that once you try to get someone to disavow these conspiracy theories they are extremely resistant. They often reinvent themselves and they say its developed an entirely new identity. Someone i interviewed a woman io the book who had a housecleaning is ms. In tulsa oklahoma. Being one of the most pernicious conspiracy theorists around sandy hook allowed her to reinvent herself as a researcher and an investigative journalist. This is really important for people. There has been a lot of research and trying to p get people to be suspicious of these theories in use that natural suspicion in their nature and that skepticism and apply it to when they see this material on line. There has been a lot of very hopeful success and break success and break these in that area. The other hopeful thing is just the fact im so impressed that so many people are here. It really says that people aref recognizing the message that the sandy hook familiess have senty talking with me and every day. These lawsuits and that is that this is a problem. We are steeped in a world of lies thats affecting not only us as individuals. Our democracy and that is huge. [applause] so that is hopeful. People are paying attention and people who are in a position to do something about this whether its for social Media Companies tightening up on their policies whether c its congress lookingt new forms of legislation in this by the way is a bipartisan effort and the big thinkers out there looking at the psychology behind this and trying to figure this out those are all very hopeful. Brendan what can we learn from history moving forward . We i think going back to what elizabeth said its the ability as we become as in the revolutionary generation people begin to come to an understanding of how boy sword information that seems rational to me and i think that is where we are and as i said in my earlier comments it takes time. The social media things are new. 10 years seems like a long time but its not that long given the nature and the way that they have insinuated themselves. How many people in our audience have sat in bed looking at social media looking at tweets in facebook they have insinuated themselves into every corner of dark systems. So well take a long time. If you look back earlier societies who went through a similart, although much less dramatic and rapid. Paralleling they do find a path forward in the sense of creating a more stable order in their society. Thats really the hopeful thing. And its also an issue of education. If you understand people shooting a 7yearold child its hard for me to believe that anyone could believe that but its a question of education and looking at society. We have a lot of people lined up for questions so well start with this gentleman right here. Thank you both for coming out. I have a question how sandy hook is in general and specifically. He has made money on his web site but to what extent do you think he sincerely believes what he talks about versus how much these weapon i think the act of railing other people out . Thank you. Its a great question. As one of the individuals i interview for the book who used to work for ample wars told me it doesnt matter if he believes it and by the way he knows it happened. People in this audience tens of millions many of them believe lithe lyme disease spreading abt it. His Business Model is ingenious but he sells models to people who distrust Traditional Medicine established science the federal government and many of our institutions so they are doomsday preppers buying dry food and shelter and supplements which is an enormous business for him and people who trust Traditional Medicine. He has definitely built an empire around his lies and you can see him a trace it to the book that traffic to his web site searches when he spokee about sandy hook so it resonates with people and that leads to sales. Its a very and ingenious as this model that is pursued and its not based on any genuine decision around the event itself. We will go here to my left. Misinformation conspiracies can affect anyone but a belief its a problem that doesnt directly impact is particularly on the confined rommel socialon media. When misinformation takes root in our personal lives we are caught off guard. How would you recommend we navigate a conversation about the dangers of misinformation and damaging our interpersonal relationships . Brendan do want to take back . I won 05 a recommendation for that. One of the challenges we are we are facing it really is ultimately up to each individual to weigh what they are doing to weigh their exposure to social media and technology. It threatens their conception of information but its important if you are looking at something as tragic an important Something Like sandy hook that you come to an a understanding that i need o have an understanding of the history in and the background to what happened. Before you go off. The person that tweeted out must be right. They have all the inside information about how this was. Its clear that anyone can mount almost anything on the internet. There is a variable check on it right now and you have to have the ability and that calls on theat citizen to develop their n citizenship knowledge of the things around them and reading the papers and broadening your understanding and seeing what you are learning and what you are finding on the internet how it can be measured and understood. I dont think that solves the problem. Hello. I have a general question. In a world where theres a lot more awareness and immediate reporting on these events that may involve or surround conspiracy theories especially major tragedies do you have any thoughts on how anyone who is a journalist is a the common persn and taking in this information can handle these concepts in the immediate aftermath of the reporting without bringing further harm or attention to it . Its a good question. It is important and this is something i have struggled with in the book and we struggle with every day in media, how do you debunk these conspiracy theories without drawing more adherence to them. I try to focus and they do this in the book religiously on the victims of those theories rather than the substance of them. And i sometimes see that you can tell the conspiracy theorists like it because it glamorizes what they are doing and what they are saying. I try to focus just on the impact. We didnt really talk about that here. Justis briefly it is like people who have had to move like the posners had to move a dozen times in the 10 years since the shooting because their addresses being put on line and people were coming to their home. People digging through their trash threatening their lives calling their phones and defacing memorials to the dead, all of these things. I try to focuss on this because that stirs the people who are good people to try to push for a solution. Elizabeth d note any other families of Mass Shootings have been treated the same way or have other families move 10 times so they wont be treated the same way as these families . I would say the number of moves that noahs family has had to go through this special case in sheer numbers because they took a very forward roll so they were instantly identifiable with the battle against them. They wereta targeted specificaly for that. Yes unfortunately the survivors of Mass Shootings. People after the Las Vegas Shooting still in their hospital were logging onto facebook took post themselves as safe and seeing people calling them while they were still being hospitalized. So it does happen after every shooting. The sandy hook family for kind of the first. Thank you. Good afternoon. Earlier you talked about conspiracy theories is having a long tradition. Having. Time in the middle east i know the world and conspiracy on this anybody especially from the human condition that exists in places where they secrets are being kept from them from various people just like it exists in many of the World Governments and im sure in other places as well. The real origin of these conspiracies when somebody perceives rightly or wrongly that some fact is being hidden fromhi them thats the that ment like Alex Jones Live in because they prey on leaves and to that extent i hear this a lot you shouldnt talk about the shooters name or anything like that but does not feed into the idea that somebody somewhere out there is hiding something from me and therefore i need to go somewhere else to an alternate real truthind the and then these hucksters come in to sweep up that information . First my understanding is from people who lived in the world and people from the world as there is indeed common there. At the heart of all conspiracy theories in my view is its the belief that whatever is happening somebody is benefiting from that because its a discernible movement of the hidden group of people who will benefit from this. They want something t whether te two abolish the 2nd amendment or to do with it ever do is to do. When you have that what you really have is just a belief that everything you are seeing is the result of a conscious action by certain actors who cth think they will benefit from this or get something they wantt from it great when you have that belief you can read it into everything. Literally everything so it becomes common and hard to dissuade people that look for examples sandy hook happened or the holocaust denier. If you want to believe that its hard to dissuade people but its the belief that somehow somebody is benefiting and they are in control of defense in a way that you are not in control in its being hidden from you. Hi good afternoon. I just had a quick question about journalism. On one hand as a journalist you are an employee of a company anu you have responsibility toward shareholders and beneficiaries of the company which may include publishing something that would generate internet traffic like a conspiracy mongering article so how do you reconcile that is being a journalist and having that responsibility to society e if that makes sense . I think the earlier question looks at the similar issue how do you draw attention to the existence of this climate of disinformation that we are living in without glamorizing it for horrifying the bad act your glorifying the bad act there. D when you talk about generating traffic or when i write about 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. I think people recognize that this battle is expansive and the right way to cover it is to talk about its o impact. Thank you. Yes, announcer . It seems clear changes in Communications Technology especially with the internet ann social media areth driving a revolution similar to what we have seen with a median looking back at the past eventually people figure out how to do with new forms of media. Sometimes it can be a rough road for things like religion or even world war ii. Standing where wero are today ad we see just how rocky of a road is ahead of us as we figure out how to deal with different forms of media and these changes are so much greater in magnitude from the past that we have no idea where its going to go. How rocky of a road are you asking . Boulders. Its not going to be easy because we have certain, it we want to have a free and open society and in that society one of the risks is that you are going to have some issues that people come in other words youre going to have in this case freedom of information and you have to learn. I see a boulderish word worldth ahead where we struggled to come to terms with thiso amount think we are anywhere near the end of that road right now. Technologyyw is changing and society is changing quickly. One thing thats important to note and in brendans book the brethren i was reassured that we have these spasms in history and its not wholly unprecedented and the parallel between the plot to kidnap and assassinate the leadership of North Carolina in 1977 of governor wit are in michigan that tells you something that bad in itself is hopeful because you can see that this is a feature of our society of our e country and our development ad these spasms can be gotten over. Hi. Thank you for coming today. My question is doo you feel harmful conspiracy theories will lessen or contain to go after the alex jones trial . I think the absolute victory the families have achieved in bringing these lawsuits and now confronting him in court and by the way they are two more trials for damages ahead against alex jones including a big one in a couple of weeks in connecticut with the families of eight victims. Its highlighting this phenomenon showing the human impacts of it and absolutely devastating effects it can have on people who are already traumatized. I think it makes other wouldbe conspiracy purveyors think twice about what they are going to do. Not everybody has the resources alexev jones does to absorb thee kinds of judgments in verdicts. Thats my hope. I was going to ask you now i feel like alex jones has been put aside is there another alex jones type on the horizon that may be free the formula that he did . Im going to punt this to brendan because of the historical nature here. Yes there are many and that is partly because it is in our National Character to question official narratives. Question official merits be suspicious of authority and i would say in answer to your question we are at the end of this pandemic and there is a lot of Political Division and we are in the shadow of two long contentious wars so it depends on what the course of events is going forward. If there isin it. Of relative stability i think the opportunity for this hardcore alexpo jones type conspiracy theorist to spread something will diminish. It wont go away. Its never going away but it will diminish. If society remains at the level of dislocation and turmoil and atomization that we are at right now because of these, challenges he remains very for it. Thats a fair way to think about it historically. Its time for one quick question. Thank you offer coming. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for the audience how come you more critically evaluate the information we see on social media and how can we verify that information and check its city. Its a great question. And its a longer answer than we have time for. But the trustworthy sources of information have been changed and im not saying one shouldnt question other Mainstream Media accounts. I think one of the keys is for people to get out of that mode we have so much media out there in so many choices that people tend to choose the one that closely corresponds with their political beliefs and that may not. Its not necessarily stating falsehoods but its definitely covering the world and in a way that makes them comfortable. We consume an array of media and we know that in full the infowars of the worldar arent trustworthy sources and a new that is one step. To more efficiently argue with them. The groupthink of algorithm. Is importantthat if you look at the sources of the information books, old media new media of visual television or other things in other words going across platforms and the type of information we get that helps you get a better grip of how to weigh which you are hearing into come to rational conclusion about it. Importance not just one source on platforms to look for different kinds of information about problems people and given issues and events. I think thats important. Thank you to the two of you. We appreciate it so much. [applause] they will sign your book shortly. Thank you all for coming