Disaster trolls and conspiracy theories: is legislation the answer?

Survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing are taking a so-called “disaster troll” to court after he claimed the attack was faked.

Martin and Eve Hibbert were left with severe disabilities following the 2017 attack in which 22 people were killed at an Ariana Grande concert.

The father and daughter are suing conspiracy theorist Richard D. Hall for defamation and harassment – “the first time such action has been launched in the UK against a conspiracy theorist”, said the BBC.

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Hall was the subject of a Radio 4 and BBC Panorama investigation last year, in which he admitted that he spied on Eve, who was left severely disabled by the blast, from a parked vehicle outside her home. Hall has released a book and a number of videos claiming the Manchester Arena bombing was faked.

Now the family are seeking damages and an injunction to prevent him from making further allegations, with questions also being raised about how the government’s recently revised Online Safety Bill could help tackle the issue.

‘One of UK’s most brazen conspiracy theorists’

Hall is one of the UK’s most “brazen” conspiracy theorists, and his videos have generated 16 million views online, said The Times. Starting as a “UFO fancier”, he soon “moved into more sinister areas”, said the paper. As well as spying on Eve Hibbert, Hall also “turned up unannounced at the workplace of another Manchester bombing victim, Lisa Bridgett, posing as a customer to assess if she was lying about her injuries”, the paper added.

The conspiracy theorist has also falsely claimed that the murder of MP Jo Cox – who was shot and stabbed to death by far-right extremist Thomas Mair in 2016 – was a “state-sponsored plot” planned by two police detectives.

The case being brought against Hall echoes the one brought against US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was ordered to pay almost $1.5bn (£1.22bn) by a US court to families of the Sandy Hook school shooting after he falsely claimed the 2012 attack was faked.

Martin Hibbert told the BBC that he hopes the action he is taking against Hall will set a precedent in UK law that will help protect others who survive disasters only to be the victim of online trolls and conspiracy theorists.

“It does sometimes feel like a bit of a weight, so it would be nice to be able to put it to bed and just be able to move on with our lives,” he told the broadcaster.

‘A Frankenstein bill’

Following the BBC's investigation, Hall’s YouTube channel, with more than 80,000 followers, was removed. The government has recently revised the Online Safety Bill, which aims to hold tech giants accountable for harmful content such as Hall’s, shared on their platforms. The initial version of the bill placed a “duty of care” on these large platforms to address harmful but not illegal content.

But this “alarmed free speech advocates on the Conservative backbenches and elsewhere”, said The Guardian, and so the clause was removed.

One of those backbenchers, John Hayes, a former security minister, told The Telegraph: “It is very important in the proper effort to control the excesses of the internet that we don’t allow free speech to be inhibited by woke prejudices about what views are acceptable.”

“Repeated changes in government policy”, driven in part by “four prime ministers and five digital ministers since the proposals were first published in 2019”, have created “a Frankenstein bill aimed at pleasing everyone”. But it has left “few, if anyone, satisfied with how the legislation is shaping up”, said Politico.