Conspiracy Theorist round-up

This last week has been pretty astounding on the topic of conspiracy theorists.

When I last wrote the newsletter, I mentioned the Fire and Fury documentary and how it had riled up those behind the Wellington protests at parliament earlier this year. And I talked about how shadowy groups such as Voices for Freedom were attempting to infiltrate the local body elections with candidates that supported their extreme positions.

Well this past week has seen the media ramp up looking at candidates around the country and those that have links to these groups, even though they may try to hide them. This is good to see - that some light is being shone on it so that the public can make informed decisions before voting. From some of the work going on behind the scenes investigating candidates, I know that there will be further revelations forthcoming.

All of this seems to have panicked Voices For Freedom a bit. I mentioned last time that they'd used the phrase “make NZ ungovernable”. They've now had to back-pedal that a bit and try to explain what they meant by it. One of VFF's leaders - Alia Bland - went on The Platform to defend the term. The Platform is a fairly new online media outlet with a distinctly far-right slant, and seemingly very keen on hosting guests with extreme views. The Platform host, former ACT party leader Rodney Hide, interviewed Bland, claiming that it meant that NZ should become more “resilient”.

Hide also put a particularly interesting slant on things, claiming that the mainstream media are painting the conspiracy theorists as “bad” because they don't agree with the government.

In my reading of the situation, I think that it's the public's right to know who they're voting for, particularly if they're going to inadvertently usher in people who deliberately work to subvert good best-evidence policy.

Last week Kelvin Alp and Hannah Spierer, who run the conspiracy theory driven Counterspin Media were arrested for allegedly distributing objectionable material - that allegedly being content related to the Christchurch Mosque attacks.

They have since appeared in court, where they had to be forcefully moved into the dock. True to their nature, they started spouting Sovereign Citizen influenced nonsense about not being subject to the law.

Upon leaving court, Alp told waiting media he resisted going into the dock because “we are not cattle. We are not a ship that needs to be, um, [pause] plundered”.

He said the charges would "take care of themselves".

It does seem that, if convicted of the crimes of which they've been accused, they're likely to face jail time (up to 10 years) and/or a hefty fine (up to $50,000). Good to see, in my opinion.

Hannah Spierer is an interesting character. From an article in Stuff this weekend, it details some interesting history - how she was once a promising potential environment activist, but fell down the rabbit hole. There's certainly a lot of gaps in her history that the article doesn't cover, and I guess we're unlikely to find out exactly what happened to her.

And last, but not least, the “judge” at the mock trial that occurred on the steps of parliament, driven by “apostle” Brain Tamaki's Freedoms and Rights Coalition has come under some heat.

The fake judge was Rick Southey. Southey works as a non-clinical national director at Whānau Ora Community Clinic, which is a community health promotion organisation. He's since been stood down for his involvement with the protest - and I'd think rightly so.