‘Misinformation’ is INN’s Word of the Year for 2022

BRIAN SOCKINGTON: Misinformation is INN’s word of the year for 2022. It seems you couldn’t get away from it wherever you looked, on screens, in print media and AI-generated content. And now the world braces itself once again ahead of the release of another dangerous misinformation show on Netflix. Ancient Apocalypse is billed as a documentary about the evidence for lost civilisations – but as the aptly named Stuart Heritage of the Guardian legacy newspaper states, it is based on ‘a truly preposterous theory that can only exist for conspiracy theorists’. We asked former INN tonight sidekick Penelope Hempsack to look into the dangerous documentary, and highlights some of the wins against misinformation that are occurring around the world.

HEMPSACK: Yah man, I love a good documentary series, you know like, Married at First Sight and the Farmer Wants a Wife. Like, you can totally switch off and like learn about people and stuff. And that why I’m upset that Netflix is airing Ancient Apocalypse you know, and like giving more airtime to some old white guy telling stories about stuff from like 10,000 years ago. I mean, what happened to lifting the voices of minorities like women and farmers and stuff? 8 episodes about how experts might be wrong about some ancient rocks?  I mean, hello? they wouldn’t be “experts” if they were wrong, right? Like, I was a bit of a hippy back in the day if you can believe it? I didn’t mind a bit of a conspiracy theory and a space cake, but that was before we knew how dangerous misinformation was, right? Like, my own son Zaphoid told me the other day that Alex Jones called out Jeffery Epstein like 15 years ago and I was like ‘Hey Zaphoid, maybe try cleaning your own room first buddy? (INTERVIEWER: Like in a Jordan Peterson way?) No, no, I don’t what him to be radicalised and become toxically masculine. I was just reminding him to stay INNformation and focus on simple, easy things, you know, leave the thinking to scientists..  

BRIAN: Luckily, there been a breakthrough in the war on misinformation, conspiracy theorist and radio show host Alex Jones being ordered by a Connecticut jury to pay over 1 billion dollars for damages ‘caused by people who repeated hoax theories about the Sandy Hook massacre from his show. The ruling came just 2 months after a Texan judge ordered Jones to pay 50 million dollars to a defamed family, despite a law prohibiting damage payments above 750,000 dollars. Californian trial lawyer Jesse Gessin was asked about the scope of the pay-outs on America’s PBS News Hour – going on to comment about the collective sentiment towards Jones being shown across mainstream media in America, showing in two points how, and perhaps why American are so inflamed about this. The cause of the inflammation remains unknown, but Jones’ lawyers have filed an appeal against the verdict, stating that the damages exceeded ‘any rational relationship to the evidence offered at trial”. Victims argued that Jones’ theories had resulted in years of threats and harassment from his fans, despite Jones’s late acknowledgement that the shooting did occur and that he was wrong. His lawyers recognised the suffering of the families involved, while pointing out that no evidence was provided that showed Jones sent people to harass and threaten the families, resulting in substantial injustice.

SANDY: And as the Californian lawyer said, we ALL hate Alex Jones anyway, so who cares, right?

BRIAN: Not me! Luckily our audience is always very well behaved, or we might have to pay 10billion dollars one day!

SANDY: Did you know it would take 950 years to count to 10 billion Brian?

BRIAN: No…

… Oh, I mean, fantastic!