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In this age of social media it gets ever harder to be surprised by how much unhinged hatred, vileness and stupidity there is in the world.
So, hats off to the BBC’s specialist disinformation correspondent Marianna Spring, who following on from the excellent Death by Conspiracy? and War on Truth, uncovered another repulsive seam of it all at work in Britain. In Disaster Trolls (Radio 4, all week, plus BBC Sounds), Spring details the activities of lowlifes who target victims in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, denying that deaths or even the events themselves occurred, and accusing victims of lying about their injuries or being “crisis actors” employed by some fantasy deep state.
Many of us will be aware of the phenomenon via the case of Alex Jones, a money-grubbing American conspiracy theorist who for years – and to millions of online followers – claimed that the Sandy Hook school massacre, in which 26 people were murdered (20 of them children), never happened. Truth had a rare win recently when US courts ordered Jones to pay more than $1 billion to relatives of victims who sued for defamation. But that was America. Who would believe such leeches would be spreading their poison here in good old Blighty?
In Disaster Trolls (and in an accompanying Panorama report on Monday), Spring reveals in disturbing interviews with victims of the Manchester Arena and Westminster Bridge attacks, how they have been abused horrifically and routinely accused on social media of lying. She ferreted out one individual, Richard D Hall, who makes a living claiming that the Manchester Arena bombing and others were hoaxes, and who has turned up at the homes and workplaces of victims to make videos questioning their honesty and distressing them further. Spring’s efforts to turn the tables on Hall while he was peddling his wares at a stall in Wales are admirable and showed him up for the worm that he is. One can only hope some of his victims’ stated determination to hold him to account in court will succeed.