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Notes -
The public benefit is that having people like Alex Jones active in media space makes it harder for the government (or private entities for that matter) to state fake tragedies. I can sleep easy knowing that Sandy Hook was real, because if there was good evidence it was fake Alex Jones would have found it.
This is an interesting argument. But what I wonder is can there be "professional conspiracy theorists" in the ilk of Alex Jones who would perform due diligence in finding potential fake tragedies if they didn't have to publish these egregiously false reports. In this case, Alex Jones did some level of research on the topic (how much real research I have no idea), but then reported obviously false claims and really did do massive harm to the victims of an already grieving family.
In an attempt to have the cake of your argument and eat it too. Alex (or others of his kind) would need to do this verification research, but not publish unless they find real evidence. But my understanding is that these Alex-like people get most of their income by being loud and boisterous, so idk if they could substantiate good evidence without parading around the falsities like Alex did in this case.
And moreover, I'm curious if you (or anyone else here) can think of an example where a conspiracy theorist in this modern internet age has actually uncovered a real faked tragedy before. Cause if Alex and his ilk are 0/n on cases. It doesn't really prove their track record, and the cost of their proceeding wouldn't be worth the peace of mind that your outlining here.
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