Yesterday, satirical news outlet The Onion emerged as the winning bidder for Alex Jones' Infowars, following an auction prompted by the conspiracy theorist's bankruptcy. Jones, 50, gained fame as a far-right commentator who disseminated fake news and conspiracy theories through his radio shows since the 90s. Founded in 1999, Infowars became Jones' flagship platform, achieving a peak annual turnover of nearly $80 million (€75 million). On Infowars, Jones was known for promoting far-right theories and his own outlandish claims. Notably, he once proclaimed that the Obama administration was adding chemicals to the water to 'turn the friggin' frogs gay.'
Jones' baseless claims caught up with him after he propagated the conspiracy theory that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax orchestrated by the US government to expand gun control. He referred to the parents of slain children as 'crisis actors' and described the shooting as 'phoney as a three-dollar bill.' Following separate defamation lawsuits filed by family members of victims in Connecticut and Texas, Jones admitted in 2022 that the shooting was '100% real' and that it was 'absolutely irresponsible' to label it a hoax. The families who sued Jones claimed they endured years of torment, threats, and abuse from people who believed the lies spread on his show. Courts in Texas and Connecticut found Jones liable for defamation and awarded the families nearly $1.5 billion (€1.4 billion) in damages.
As a result of these legal battles and the awarded damages, Jones filed for bankruptcy and had to liquidate many of his assets to settle the judgment. This led to the auction of Infowars, enabling The Onion to make a bid. This immediate transition from the conspiracy theorist founder to the satirical news company, known for its fictional parodies of current events, raised concerns from the judge overseeing Jones' bankruptcy case. The judge ordered a hearing for next week after complaints from lawyers representing Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that submitted a $3.5 million (€3.3 million) bid.
'The dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the demise of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,' said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, in a statement provided by his lawyers. On his live broadcast, Jones was defiant, calling the sale 'a total attack on free speech.' He later announced the shutdown of his show. Jones resumed broadcasting from a new studio nearby and continued live on his accounts on X.
After the hearing, Jones claimed on his show that he believed the auction was unfairly rigged and expressed hope that the judge would void the sale. He repeatedly told his listeners that if his supporters won the bidding, he could remain on the Infowars platforms but had set up a new studio, websites, and social media accounts as a contingency. 'This was an auction that didn’t happen, with a bid that was lower, with money that wasn’t real,' he said.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion's parent company, Global Tetrahedron, stated that they plan to relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, along with educational content about gun violence prevention from Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins declined to disclose the bid amount. 'We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we've ever told,' Collins said. 'The (Sandy Hook) families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he's done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.'
Source link: https://www.euronews.com
