Paul Joseph Watson | |
|---|---|
 Watson outside the2013 Bilderberg Conference | |
| Born | (1982-05-24)24 May 1982 (age 43)[1] |
| Other names |
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| Occupations |
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| YouTube information | |
| Channel | |
| Years active | 2011–present |
| Genres | |
| Subscribers | 2.06 million |
| Views | 757 million |
| Last updated: 25 September 2025 | |
| Website | modernity |
Paul Joseph Watson (born 24 May 1982)[1] is a BritishYouTuber, radio host andconspiracy theorist.[6] In 2002, he began working at the American radio hostAlex Jones's websiteInfoWars,[7] where Watson promoted and advocated for9/11,chemtrail andNew World Order conspiracy theories.[1] He would later promotefake news stories likePizzagate.[8] He later shifted his focus to criticisms offeminism,Islam andleft-wing politics.[9] Watson also contributes toInfoWars's talk radio programmeThe Alex Jones Show, which he occasionally hosts or co-hosts.[10]
Since 2011, Watson has hosted his ownYouTube page,prisonplanetlive, on which he expresses his views on topics such as contemporary society, politics and modernliberalism in an often mocking manner. His YouTube channel criticises and mocks the "woke mob",social justice warriors, feminism andanti-racist movements.[11] Until July 2016 he embraced the label "alt-right", but he now identifies as part of theNew Right.[12] In May 2019Facebook andInstagram permanently banned him for violation of theirhate speech policies.[13] As at October 2025 his YouTube page has over 2.06 million subscribers.[14]
Paul Joseph Watson was born on 24 May 1982 atJessop Hospital inSheffield, South Yorkshire, England, to Philip and Hazel Watson. In a 2016 interview for a student newspaper in Sheffield, Watson said he grew up on acouncil estate with few financial resources, and that by 18 he wasteetotal and exercising three hours per day.[15] However, a 2018 article forThe Daily Beast said his birth certificate indicated the family lived in a house inGrenoside, a suburban district in the north of the city;Sheffield City Council stated that the house had never been in public ownership. According toThe Daily Beast, "the Watson family would live in a series of similar communities that run along the leafy northwest suburbs of Sheffield, separating the city from the picturesquePeak District National Park" over the next twenty years. From just before the age of ten, Watson and his family lived inLoxley, another area of Sheffield.[1]
Watson described his formative moment as being when, at the age of 18, he watchedThe Secret Rulers of the World, a documentary in which the journalistJon Ronson accompaniedAlex Jones in infiltratingBohemian Grove inCalifornia, a place where some conspiracy theorists believe global elites plot theNew World Order. He has described the British conspiracy theoristDavid Icke, whom he first read as a teenager, as the person who woke him up. According to Watson, he was initially invited to contribute by Alex Jones in 2002, and rapidly gained substantial compensation for his work on InfoWars, as stated by the former spouse of the site's founder.[1]
Watson, along with Jones andInfoWars as a whole, originally covered conspiracy theories such aschemtrails, theNew World Order and theIlluminati. By the mid-2010s their coverage increasingly shifted to criticisingfeminism,Islam andleft-wing politics.[9] Watson has been described as a member of "the new far-right" byThe New York Times, which wrote in August 2017 that his "videos are straightforwardnativist polemics, with a particular focus on Europe" and convey his opposition tomodernist architecture andmodern art.[16] Iman Abou Atta, director of the anti-Islamophobia groupTell MAMA, has said that Watson "has become 'the' nexus for anti-Muslim accounts that we have mapped... He has become an influencer in promoting information—much of it bizarre and untrue—which has been regurgitated by anti-Muslim and anti-migrant accounts time and time again."[17]
Watson previously described himself as alibertarian and supportedRon Paul in the2012 United States presidential election. In a 2016tweet he said he no longer considered himself a libertarian because the American politicianGary Johnson "made the term an embarrassment."[18] Watson has also called himself aconservative and considers modern-day conservatism acountercultural movement.[8] In a November 2016Facebook post he differentiated between theNew Right and thealt-right. He claimed that the alt-right "likes to fester in dark corners ofsubreddits and obsess aboutJews, racial superiority andAdolf Hitler."[12] He andMike Cernovich have feuded with figures such asRichard B. Spencer andDavid Duke, who seewhite nationalism as necessary for the alt-right.[19][20]
Although he endorsedDonald Trump in the2016 United States presidential election, Watson declared in a tweet on 6 April 2017 that he was "officially OFF the Trump train" after Trump's decision tolaunch missile strikes on Syria in response to aKhan Shaykhun chemical attack several days earlier, believing Trump had reneged on his promise not to intervene in Syria. He said Trump was "just another deep state/Neo-con puppet".[21] After a decrease in Twitter followers occurred, he denied he had "turned on Trump", saying he was only "off the Trump train in terms of Syria" and blaming the media for "fake news".[22] He declared in a separate tweet he would shift his focus to ensuring the French presidential candidateMarine Le Pen of theNational Front would be elected in the2017 presidential election, which she lost.[23]Donald Trump Jr retweeted Watson's reference to French celebrities leaving France if Le Pen were elected and referred dismissively to similar reputed claims in the US before Trump was elected.[24]
On 16 June 2018 Watson announced that he had joined theUK Independence Party (UKIP) along with the YouTubersMark Meechan andCarl Benjamin.[25][26]
In 2016 Watson was an early proponent ofallegations that the American politicianHillary Clinton suffers from numerous serious medical conditions, though he was unable to provide any evidence.[27] Watson's part in the manufacture and dissemination of the rumour was taken up by theNational Enquirer[27] and mentioned in the mainstream media as part of a discussion of the role of rumour and conspiracy theory in the 2016 US presidential election.[28][2][29]
In February 2017 Watson tweeted an offer to pay for a journalist to visit Sweden and stay in the "crime ridden migrant suburbs" ofMalmö, if they think it would be safe.[30] Many journalists took him up on the offer,[30][31] and Watson chose the American journalist and videographerTim Pool, who was already planning a similar investigation.[32] Watson gave Pool US$2,000 for the trip.[30][32] Pool's findings contradicted Watson's claims.[33]
At a press briefing at theWhite House in November 2018, persistent questioning of Trump led an intern to attempt to take a microphone from the hand ofCNN'sJim Acosta.[34][35] Acosta's White House press credentials were subsequently revoked, allegedly for having "put his hands" on the intern.[36][37] Watson uploaded an edited version of the original footage in support of this claim. In this version, zoom and frame rate changes create the misleading impression that Acosta had behaved aggressively towards the intern.[36]
Watson confirmed that he had applied a zoom and denied making any other alterations, though expert analysis confirmed that "the clip repeats several frames that do not appear in the original footage" and that it had been sped up.[38][37] The video has generally been described as doctored, though some experts concluded that the changes do not necessarily represent deliberate manipulation but could be artefacts of accidental degradation during processing.[38][39] White House Press SecretarySarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to the video that Watson posted as clearly documenting Acosta's "inappropriate behaviour".The White House was criticised for sharing a doctored video and thereby spreading "actual fake news" rather than using the original footage.[40] A subsequent court ruling found that the action against Acosta was unconstitutional on due process grounds.[41]
On 2 May 2019 Watson and several other people considered to be extremists, including theNation of Islam leaderLouis Farrakhan, Jones and the right-wing commentatorMilo Yiannopoulos, were permanently banned from Facebook, which called them "dangerous".[42] "We've always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology", a Facebook spokesperson said. "The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today."[43] Watson tweeted that he had broken "none of their rules" and complained of "an authoritarian society controlled by a handful ofSilicon Valley giants" in which "all dissent must be purged."[13] Trump retweeted Watson, mocking the "dangerous" epithet.[44]
Watson isanti-immigration.[45][1] He has claimed[46] that "Malmö is known as 'Sweden'sChicago'" due to mass immigration into the country.[47] According to a study published inCritical Studies in Media Communication, this claim is false.[48]
In 2022 Watson criticised French presidentEmmanuel Macron and France's African migrant communities following the murder of a Jewish man in Paris.[11]
Watson isopposed to Islam.[45][49][50] He has labelledMuslim culture "horrific" and declared that it producesmass rape, "Islamic ghettos" and the destruction ofWestern culture.[1] Watson has said that the western world needs "Islam control" rather than gun control. In anInfoWars article, Watson wrote, "Muslims living in both the Middle East and the west show alarmingly high levels of support for violent jihad"[51] and that there is "violent oppression of gays and Christians in the Middle East".[52] In August 2017 he said that YouTube had blockedmonetisation on all his videos about Islam as part of the website's policies dealing with hate speech, and on other subjects includingmodern art.[53]
Watson has criticised perceived racialtokenism.[54] In 2017 he criticised theBBC for "portrayingRoman Britain as ethnically diverse" after the broadcaster included a blackRoman centurion in an educational cartoon. His criticism was contradicted byMary Beard and theFaculty of Classics at theUniversity of Cambridge, saying there was overwhelming evidence that Roman Britain was a multi-ethnic society.[55]
In May 2022Byline Times and theSouthern Poverty Law Center published an account of a recording apparently of Watson at a party saying: "I really think you should press the button to wipe Jews off the face of the Earth" and making other homophobic and racist comments, such as saying: "I care about white people and notsand niggerPaki Jewfaggot coons". The recording has been confirmed by three secondary sources. In response, Joe Mulhall ofHope not Hate said that while Watson was careful to follow social media platform moderation policy, it was not surprising that he would express such views in private.[56][11]
British conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson
London-based Paul Watson, described as "editor, staff writer" for the conspiracy website InfoWars ... is named as a central disseminator of the conspiracy theory concerning Hillary Clinton having debilitating health issues ... During a series of unashamedly conspiratorial videos that were viewed millions of times, Watson, originally from Sheffield, suggested Clinton might have had syphilis, brain damage and Parkinson's disease as well as alleging she was a drug abuser.
For the alt-right and its allies ... the speech helped elevate a fringe. In videos, Jones and his colleagues at InfoWars portrayed her as a sickly, doddering figure of desperation. ... InfoWars contributor Paul Joseph Watson...
Paul Joseph Watson, the UK-based editor of far-right conspiracy website InfoWars
Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones's British mini-me, has followed the same broad path that the rest of the organization has. He was never on the left, of course, but over time his commentary has focused less and less on the Illuminati and chemtrails, and more and more on pushing a stridently anti-Muslim, anti-feminist and anti-left message.
