For decades, Alex Jones has served as the living caricature of a conspiracy theorist. He is arguably the most prominent figure in American conspiracy culture, and because of the global reach of American media, he has become an international symbol of professionalised conspiracist. Over the years, Jones has promoted falsehoods about the 9/11 attacks, the moon landing, vaccines, climate change, and Donald Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Jones’ most infamous scandal emerged from his false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He repeatedly described the tragedy as a “false flag” operation engineered by gun-control advocates, insisting, without evidence, that no children had actually been killed. These lies fuelled years of harassment against grieving families and culminated in a series of defamation lawsuits that resulted in nearly $1.5 billion in damages against him. Sandy Hook was not the only mass shooting he misrepresented; Jones also promoted similar conspiracies about the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.
Long before he became a viral internet figure, Jones built his career on talk radio, beginning in 1996. He launched his website, InfoWars, in 1999 and steadily expanded his influence across emerging digital platforms. His theatrics have made him a recurring presence in documentaries and mainstream news segments, and his rants continue to circulate widely on social media platforms such as X and TikTok. At this point, it is fair to say that most people have at least a passing awareness of who Alex Jones is.
Jones arguably pioneered the idea of the “professional conspiracy theorist.” He capitalised on the rise of blogs, podcasts, and social media to transform conspiracism into a lucrative career, unencumbered by the editorial standards that shape reputable journalism. By tapping into an expanding market for sensational, anti-establishment narratives, he became both wealthy and influential.
In doing so, he paved the way for an entire ecosystem of conspiratorial content creators. A new market for conspiracy-driven media has emerged online, and investigations into these narratives have themselves become a mainstream cultural obsession. Today, countless podcasts, documentaries, and YouTube channels are devoted to exploring, debunking, or sometimes amplifying conspiracy theories. Even traditional media outlets have embraced this content. Conspiracy has become a genre unto itself.
Some of the most familiar conspiracy theories challenge official accounts of major historical events: the September 11 attacks, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the moon landing, and alleged U.S. government interference in foreign nations. In recent years, government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including lockdowns and vaccine mandates, became fertile ground for conspiratorial thinking. Public scepticism about these measures accelerated the spread and normalisation of conspiracy theories, especially online.
Another major flashpoint has been the years-long scandal surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his death in federal custody. Epstein’s case has generated its own sprawling universe of conspiracies, amplified by endless podcasts, documentaries, and video essays that speculate about the circumstances of his death and the powerful individuals connected to him.
At the same time, declining trust in legacy media has created a vacuum increasingly filled by alternative media sources. Influencers and independent content creators now command substantial audiences, yet many operate without the ethical or editorial standards that traditionally guide journalism. Social media algorithms reward engagement above accuracy, meaning that the more provocative, sensational, or incendiary a claim is, the more the platforms amplify it. As a result, influencers are often incentivised to push boundaries, or disregard truth entirely, in pursuit of attention.
No one embodies this hunger for attention at the expense of basic decency more fully than Candace Owens. Perhaps even more so than Alex Jones, Owens has positioned herself as the most prominent professional conspiracy theorist of the moment. Her unapologetically inflammatory style has propelled her to massive notoriety, placing her podcast among the most-listened-to in the world, with clips circulating constantly across social media. This rise has been driven by a steady torrent of inflammatory claims, misinformation, and conspiratorial narratives that she promotes daily.
Owens’ conspiratorial claims span an astonishing range: from flat-earth theories and vaccine scepticism to Holocaust denial and open antisemitism. For years, she was one of the loudest voices amplifying the false claim that Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is a transgender woman. This culminated in a multipart series she released in 2025. Her relentless targeting of the French First Lady ultimately led the Macron family to file a defamation lawsuit against her, an event Owens quickly turned into even more content for her podcast and YouTube channel.
More recently, Owens has fixated on the assassination of conservative activist, and her former friend, Charlie Kirk. She has publicly questioned aspects of the investigation, suggesting without evidence that Tyler Robinson did not act alone. Owens has claimed that shadowy collaborators may have been involved, implicating U.S. government agencies, the state of Israel, and even members of Kirk’s own inner circle at Turning Point USA.
What basis does Owens offer for such extraordinary allegations? According to her, Charlie Kirk appeared to her in a dream and told her he had been betrayed. On that basis alone, she launched a sustained campaign attacking Turning Point USA in the weeks following his death. As Kirk’s family, friends, and colleagues were grieving, they were simultaneously forced to contend with a barrage of accusations from Owens. It takes a particular kind of cruelty to target mourning people in this way, but this is precisely the kind of sensationalist content that attracts millions of views on social media.
Candace Owens is not the only figure who has benefited from the growing mainstream appeal of conspiracy theories. Another major beneficiary is Tucker Carlson. Once one of Fox News’ most prominent hosts, Carlson built a long career in American media beginning in the 1990s and became a central figure in conservative political commentary through his program Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Carlson’s departure from Fox News came in the aftermath of the network’s massive legal settlement over false claims about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 U.S. presidential election. After leaving the network, he launched an independent show, one that has grown increasingly conspiratorial in tone and content. Carlson has entertained or promoted theories relating to UFOs, the September 11 attacks, Jeffrey Epstein, the Russia–Ukraine war, and the state of Israel, among others.
One of the most persistent criticisms of Carlson is his role in mainstreaming individuals who hold racist, antisemitic, and extremist views. A notable example was his interview with Darryl Cooper, a Holocaust denier, who used Carlson’s platform to promote ahistorical interpretations of World War II and to portray Winston Churchill as the “chief villain of the war.” Despite the gravity of these claims, Carlson offered little to no challenge to Cooper’s assertions.
More recently, Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes, the far-right white nationalist influencer known for explicitly racist and antisemitic rhetoric. Rather than scrutinising or debating Fuentes’ views, Carlson conducted the interview in a cordial, almost deferential tone. He offered no meaningful pushback, despite Fuentes’ well-documented record of extremist statements. It is difficult to understand how Carlson, who is fully aware of Fuentes’ history and more than capable of forcefully challenging his guests, chose instead to provide a friendly platform for such views.
The rise in prominence of Nick Fuentes is the epitome of the increasing depravity of social media algorithms. The views Nick Fuentes espouses are almost comical in how hateful and outdated they feel. Nick Fuentes holds the most archaic antisemitic views about Jews controlling the governments of Western nations, and has engaged in holocaust denial. Moreover, Fuentes has on multiple occasions spoken highly of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, praising them specifically for their authoritarian leadership, which he would like to see implemented in the United States.
One of the main messages of Nick Fuentes is white nationalism. A common complaint by Fuentes is about mass immigration to the US, which he describes as an effort by the government to replace the white population of the United States. He constantly speaks about the superiority of the white race and the importance of preserving it. It is for that reason that Fuentes has a particular hatred for JD Vance for being in an interracial marriage and for having mixed race children.
Fuentes has described Islam as being barbaric yet has praised the leadership of the Taliban and celebrated their takeover of Afghanistan from the US backed regime that had been overthrown following the withdrawal of American forces in August 2021 by the Biden administration. Similar to the religious theocracy of the Taliban, Fuentes advocates for the establishment of a Catholic dictatorship to take root in the United States. Fuentes also expressed misogynistic ideology, calling for a repeal of the 19th Amendment in the United States, which gave women the right to vote. He has claimed that rape is not a big deal, and has stated that many women actually prefer to be raped.
Despite all these abhorrent views, Fuentes has become almost a mainstream figure on social media sites. Clips of Fuentes constantly go viral, and he had quite a large audience on X. Fuentes has also featured as a guest on numerous podcasts of right wing influencers in particular. Fuentes does not exist on some hidden corner of the internet, him and his supporters are increasingly all over the internet.
While the amount of blatant racism, misogyny and antisemitism is distasteful, it does not exactly come as a shock, at least not any more. Following Elon Musk’s purchase of twitter in 2022 and the significant loosening of content moderation, this kind of content has become much more common to see. Following in Musk’s lead, we have seen social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube also announce their loosening of their content moderation as well.
The result of this has been the normalisation of hateful rhetoric all over these sites. Seeing antisemitism and racism have begun everyday occurrences on these sites, making for a more hostile user experience. While I believe there had been a time when social media censorship of certain views was a big problem, I believe it is clear there has been a significant overcorrection where we have come to a place where the most abhorrent views are the ones that have the most reach.
The reality is that we live in a world where social media plays a major role in our everyday lives. These last few years alone, we have seen multiple regimes fall in places like Madagascar, Bangladesh, and Nepal, as a result of widespread protests organised by young people on social media. The kind of things people read and watch online can have real world ramifications. In fact, social media has increasingly become the place where people primarily receive their news. If we are just constantly fed a constant stream of hateful and conspiratorial content, that will be reflected in the real world as well.
This is where taking personal responsibility over the content we watch becomes more important than ever. Social media companies are not going to change their algorithms unless they are really incentivised to do so, whether by the government or by users. And I don’t believe government involvement in tipping the scales of what social media sites put out is something that should be encouraged. It is us, the users who have to take the action to avoid allowing themselves to be consumed by this kind of content or opting out entirely from social media if that would be best. If we want a better information ecosystem, it begins with each of us choosing not to reward the voices that thrive on division.
