It is actually true! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;14&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;alex-jones-infowars-the-onion.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;14&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;alex-jones...</a>

Reading the article didn&#x27;t give me any confidence it&#x27;s actually real&#x2F;true. Which could be seen as a compliment.

If Brexit taught me anything it was that the correct phrase is pesky unelected EU bureaucrats!

They&#x27;d better think twice as long as Ted Kaczynski remains on The Onions editorial board[1], he also knows a few things about splitting things into multiple solids.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;iNDpZt2.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;iNDpZt2.png</a>

&gt; My only worry is that this acquisition makes Global Tetraeder so large that it attracts the attention of those pesky EU bureaucrats, who will want to split it up into multiple imperfect solids.Based on what previous in-real-life examples is this a realistic worry? AFAIK, &quot;EU bureaucrats&quot; haven&#x27;t broken up a single US-based company before so seems like a weird thing to be worried about.

The actual CEO, Ben Collins, has been running The Onion for a short while and his background was as a reporter for NBC. He covered a lot of internet topics very, very well (IMO).

dont get it twisted. this is a business move lol.

Well a tetrahedron can be split into four tetrahedra and an octahedron...

Wonderful news. I&#x27;m glad their CEO recognizes the great value of CEOs. My only worry is that this acquisition makes Global Tetraeder so large that it attracts the attention of those pesky EU bureaucrats, who will want to split it up into multiple imperfect solids.

&gt; Seems like the article is really gleeful.Good! It should be. Alex Jones is a ghoul making money from dead school shooting victims. Anything that embarrasses him is entitled to as much glee as it wants.

Not likely. Satire is protected under the First Amendment.

&gt; Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits.Unlikely.It&#x27;s worth remembering that Jones was never actually tried for defamation. He instead received a default judgment. In the US, both sides of a civil case have the right to a fair and speedy trial. If there&#x27;s delays, you had better have a good reason for them and they need to fit the rules of procedure.Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, more-or-less refused to participate in the trial. The Knowledge Fight podcast has some episodes dealing with the discovery and deposition process for the suits, with actual deposition audio. I&#x27;m not a lawyer but it was absolutely brutal to listen to how ill-prepared Jones, his employees, and his representatives were. They were submitting Wikipedia articles about false flags as evidence, had a comprehensive background check on one of the parents that was in FSS records that no one could seem to explain the presence of, and generally didn&#x27;t comply with other discovery requests.The end result of this is that his life&#x27;s work has been reduced to a satire and he is likely financially hobbled for the rest of his life.For The Onion to have the same fate, they would have to basically disregard every single common-sense rule regarding what you should do when you&#x27;re sued.

You have to step extremely far over the line to be brought down by such a lawsuit, particularly if you have money to spend on legal defense (as Jones did previously, or the Onion does today). Jones went over that line one time too many, in a country where a lot of people strongly dislike him. It&#x27;s like being Martin Shkreli, the system* is going to keep targeting you and eventually get you (entirely warranted) on one of your legal infractions. The more you&#x27;re a jerk and stick your head up prominently, the more you&#x27;re going to draw counter attacks to your behavior by the varied masses.* the system referring to the vast combination of peoples: politicians, legal, monied interests, lobbyists, news media, corporations, journalists, agitators, whatever, et al

it absolutely can not, satire is protected under the first amendment and there are piles of precedence

Great point! When The Onion starts making threats against survivors and relatives of school shootings, they should also face defamation lawsuits.

The Onion was not telling the parents of dead children they were crisis actors and were lyingDon&#x27;t want to be sued by defamation don&#x27;t make BS about people in a fragile position. It&#x27;s that simple

Can&#x27;t tell if this is satire or not, that&#x27;s the real irony here.

I’m glad that you didn’t waste effort saying “I am not a lawyer” here, because it’s very very apparent that you aren’t.

Er... the Onion is satire. Satire is not defamation because no one with any sense thinks it&#x27;s true. InfoWars was not satire. Rather, it constantly lied.

Seems like the article is really gleeful. Somewhat ironic since The Onion could be brought down in the same way by defamation lawsuits.

I hadn&#x27;t realized how hilarious this is until now

&gt; Twitter&#x2F;XWhy not call it one or the other?

Of course, Tim Onion is primarily on Bluesky, other than to occasionally rile up Musk

Alex Jones using Twitter&#x2F;X is on-brand.

Part of the MO of these outrage merchants is that they simultaneously claim that the government perpetrate the most vile acts (killing children, poisoning the water, false flag attacks) while also acting outraged and surprised that they&#x27;d do something as mundane as ignore a procedure.

It&#x27;s a grifting method. Provoke outrage among the less informed and watch the money roll in

they are shutting us down even without a court order this morningHe seems surprised. I guess losing a multi-year court case, being fined $1,500,000,000.00 by a jury, and going through bankruptcy court wasn&#x27;t enough of a warning?

The auction included all of the InfoWars and several associated corporations&#x27; assets, including the studio and the supplements business. At one point the settlement administrator was trying to get Alex&#x27;s Twitter handle.I believe he&#x27;s been doing some half-ass scheming to create essentially the same company but in his parents&#x27; name, and I doubt he has a problem getting listeners back.

Hmm NBC seems to imply that they purchased &quot;Free Speech Systems&quot;, which is the parent company for the entire operation. Of course, who knows what they&#x27;ll actually get other than the domain and copyrights -- Jones will just move all the physical assets into a storage unit&#x2F;another office and dare them to complain, Guliani-style. Also, who knows if any of these stands for long, anyway; the cases are in state court (Connecticut and Texas) but what&#x27;s stopping the president from issuing an executive order clearing them? Laws?Re: &quot;who gets the most promotion&quot;, IDK I think it&#x27;s definitely the new owner of the Onion. Personally speaking, I think we&#x27;re past the &quot;don&#x27;t give them attention&quot; stage of fascism, and &quot;they were bought by a satire company&quot; isn&#x27;t exactly a better rallying cry than Jones has already been spouting during the entire litigation. Plus, I trust them;<pre><code> The anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety said it will be the exclusive advertiser in The Onion’s new venture as part of a multiyear agreement. John Feinblatt, the group’s president, said in a statement that he hopes to “reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nation’s gun violence epidemic.”
</code></pre>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;onion-wins-alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-auction-rcna179936" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;onion-wins-alex-jones-i...</a>

I think it&#x27;s all the assets of the website.I believe that the current state of play is that Jones has to pay $1.1bn damages even post bankruptcy so maybe any future successes will lead to money for the Sandyhook families. I certainly hope so.Ironically he may live longer to earn more for them - he&#x27;ll never be able to afford a cigar again.

Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?Well, we’re all talking about the onion. And I, personally, haven’t read onion content in a long, long while. So this kind of put them back on the radar for me.But I could be one of only a few people who fell out of onion readership?More likely is that they believe the next four years will provide them a lot of comedy fodder and they’re setting their pieces early. For them the election is likely to be pretty good for business.

&gt; Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site&#x2F;business under a new domain name.Maybe but the judgement was for 1B USD. So any profits would probably be garnished away.Basically, lawfare was used to censor Alex Jones. I wonder if this is a case for the Supreme Court and First Amendment rights?

&gt; Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?I think the idea is the US’ terrible gun situation

I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company.Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site&#x2F;business under a new domain name.Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?

This seems like an incredible opportunity to see if it&#x27;s possible to reprogram InfoWars readers away from the hate and the conspiracy theories.It would be a massive undertaking but wouldn&#x27;t it be funny if the savior of modern media turned out to be a student newspaper from Madison, Wisconsin?

Are you trying to tell us that Infowars wasn&#x27;t already outsourcing its content creation to Onion writers before the sale? Big, if true.

On a whim, I decided to peek at the InfoWars homepage. At this moment, I cannot determine which of the headlines are genuine InfoWars content and which are the product of Onion writers. (I assume it&#x27;s genuine due to the recency of the sale closing?)

He has for some time been telling his listeners to buy supplements from a new company set up in his father&#x27;s name that is a thin cutout for the one ostensibly run by himself. It seems likely a good lawyer could pierce that corporate veil and go after the new company, but I don&#x27;t know if that has happened.

That and the defiance, conspiracies, deep state, freedom-fighter verbal diarrhea until the bitter end. You almost get the feeling that he actually believes it all.

I like how he still tries to sell his merchandise until the very last moment.

I like the twitter comments. They&#x27;re already baking how it&#x27;s part of the secret globalist plot.See also <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;QAnonCasualties&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;QAnonCasualties&#x2F;</a> if you haven&#x27;t yet.

That part hurt a little bit, recently had to start looking at family just like this.

&quot;Much like family members, our brands are abstract nodes of wealth, interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market. And just like family members, our brands regard one another with mutual suspicion and malice.&quot;Glorious.

&quot;They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.&quot;

That is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time.

They&#x27;re all &quot;verified&quot; (paid) accounts too, which is why Twitter is such a cesspool. They sort paid accounts to the top.

right, I was reading their comments, I cannot believe it. But hey, if you view the world like that, guys like Alex will always prosper and have a crowd.

Wow, crazy to watch all the bootlickers and nutters in his feed who are angry about this.

Truly a great piece of satirical writing on The Onion. Just one example:&gt; With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal.

I saw the onion post and didnt really believe it.

I&#x27;m hoping that Department Head Rawlings and Jim Anchower will return as contributors. When did T. Herman Zweibel pass the reins to Bryce P. Tetraeder?

How can Jones respond this way when families are backing that. Does this qualify as insanity or more like bottomless greed ?

There was an emergency hearing to challenge the sale to the onion.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zerohedge.com&#x2F;political&#x2F;not-funny-onion-buys-infowars-bankruptcy-auction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zerohedge.com&#x2F;political&#x2F;not-funny-onion-buys-inf...</a>

This has been halted due a judge deciding it was a private sale masquerading as an auction: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857290045536780334" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857290045536780334</a>

Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic “panic” and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.Perfect

I hope Mr. Tetraheder remembers to make any accounts permanent regardless of the wishes of the members - nothing like a permanent asset.

The announcement by America&#x27;s Finest News Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars&#x2F;</a>Alex Jones response: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857058831135645739" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857058831135645739</a>

When they do I hope it&#x27;s Infowars that first reports the deal.

why would they buy something that no longer exists? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;new-york-times-to-cease-publication&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;new-york-times-to-cease-publication&#x2F;</a>

NBC is reporting it too. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;onion-wins-alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-auction-rcna179936" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;onion-wins-alex-jones-i...</a>, reported on HN by elsewhen at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42136327">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42136327</a>.So... I guess it&#x27;s real? Still feels surreal...

Infowars itself confirms it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowars.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;watch-live-last-infowars-transmission-ever-you-are-the-resistance" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowars.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;watch-live-last-infowars-tran...</a>

Not sure if this is true or just another Onion article.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Thanks, Tim Onion.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law23rslrk26" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law23r...</a>

Everytown isn&#x27;t an educational organization and they have no gun safety programs. It&#x27;s Michael Bloomberg&#x27;s gun control advocacy group.

The first time I heard about it was from an Onion headline about it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars&#x2F;</a>

This sounds like an Onion headline.And to add extra spice, they&#x27;re actually doing it for a good cause, educating about gun safety in cooperation with nonprofits and the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre.Obligatory fuck Alex Jones with a bat with rusty barbed wire. He profited off the misery of murdered kids, this is beyond low.

Good news for you: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;membership.theonion.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;membership.theonion.com</a>

All I can do now is hope and prey that this ends up being the literal dictionary definition of “Poe’s Law”. #goodspeed

Beautiful.The poet they sent couldn&#x27;t have done better.

One option for the onion is to end being an entertaining opinion journal with very nuanced and layered (intended) points of view. They already are almost there, what place do they have where so many in the media are parodies of themselves ?

It&#x27;s like the conundrum that the writers of South Park had, reality became worse than the worst they could think of. To the point where they really struggled when Trump actually won in 2016.

You think the world has gotten dumber? By the numbers it’s smarter even if it’s unevenly distributed and less smart than people’s vain sense of cultural identity leads them to believe.For example; ~15% in the US have earned more than a bachelor’s. While public polls show people believe close to 50% have a PhD. Close to 50% have a bachelors.So the majority misunderstand ground truth but understand how to abstractly find the answer.Seems better to have people know how to count their way out of a bag and miss some inane specific than everyone being actually uneducated.

If life could stop imitating art now, I&#x27;d appreciate it very much.

I think it’s more that the world is now the onion.

They started distributing hard copies again to folks who sign up.The lack of copies on street corners has a lot more to do with the collapse in print advertising revenues than it does the jokes printed inside.

You can buy hard copies again if you subscribe. They used to give it away free in the 1990s because the world wasn&#x27;t as hyper-capitalistic and it was practical to publish a free paper and put metal boxes on the street to distribute it while making a modest profit with advertising.

Kids these days will never know how funny the onion used to be
They used to distribute hard copies in big cities because people actually read it

Oh come on now.  The world wasn&#x27;t just sent to live with it&#x27;s auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.  The distressed sullen worldview might be new to you, but people certainly had it back when I found the Onion regularly quite enjoyable too.

I think the problem is that American politics has become so polarized, that humor anywhere is more likely to be partisan political and written directly in reaction to that week’s events. The development has been observed for late-night television, and it’s not a new thing with The Onion either: already over a decade ago, friends who had grown up on classic 1990s Onion were bemoaning this shift. Sure, The Onion had used political figures in jokes before (“Congress Debates Rush”, “Clinton Declares Self President For Life”) but those politicians could have stood for anything; there was very little reference to specific policies or controversies.

The Onion youtube vids of the late 2000&#x27;s were phenomenal. It was all downhill from there imo. Take a look at this recent video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2niC4ACCp20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2niC4ACCp20</a>. I don&#x27;t like Taylor Swift but this is just not funny. I don&#x27;t see what the point of it is is.Compare to this celebrity satire of the golden era: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=F9QisdRPwEM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=F9QisdRPwEM</a>.

Nah, my dude. 90&#x27;s Onion was peak, todays Onion is weak.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;Jhk4CPq" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;Jhk4CPq</a>

I think the Onion is as good as it ever was. The issue now is that the real news is so wild and unhinged the Onion doesn&#x27;t have that segment cornered anymore.

Did you read the link? Top notch comedy writing.

I opened Babylon Bee and all I saw was mockery of already marginalized people. I guess that&#x27;s funny if you hate them.

The Babylon Bee occasionally takes a good swipe at liberals and democrats.The Onion will go down in history as one of the most influential satire projects of all time, and is filled with genuinely talented writers and comedians. Even their early Youtube work was prescient and brilliant.They aren&#x27;t even playing the same game.

Honest question: how so? The Onion has always billed itself as a &quot;news&quot; source, and parodied both form and content of traditional newspapers and TV news. The Babylon Bee seems to just put out jokes, without much of a unifying thematic framework.

Babylon Bee notoriously punches down and is the epitome of the &quot;one joke&quot; trope.They&#x27;re an uninspired impersonation of The Onion, with a clear political purpose.

i disagree, they try to be a more right-wing version of the onion but they lack the surrealism of the onion.comparing both instagram pages, BB posts mostly political content and they&#x27;re all critical of democrats&#x2F;liberals. the onion&#x27;s page has much more variety<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;8wHMaJ6AtNs?feature=shared&amp;t=8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;8wHMaJ6AtNs?feature=shared&amp;t=8</a>

Browsing their site I found an article that is making light of the suppression of women voters by using sexist tropes.&gt; Hundreds of thousands of women across America were left standing utterly clueless as to what to do at a voting booth after their husbands failed to tell them who to vote for.&gt; Voting at several polling stations ground to a halt after all of the booths became occupied by bewildered women. &quot;This is a disaster,&quot; said poll worker John Bingham. &quot;We&#x27;ve had thirty women taking up every booth for the past three hours, just staring like deer in headlights. We offered to bring them lunch while they made their choice, but they couldn&#x27;t decide on a restaurant.&quot;&gt; At publishing time, voting stations had been forced to designate one voting booth for men only to allow voting to continue.Given the history of women&#x27;s right to vote, current laws causing women to needlessly die, and that many women today are undoubtedly being coerced by spouses to vote a certain way, calling this simply tone deaf would be extremely charitable. It is only truly funny if you have &quot;women, am I right&quot; as one of your shibboleths. Without that, it is clear misogyny.All this to say I don&#x27;t think a site promoting sexist views is a good alternative for a site that has made a master-class punchline out of trying to take a terrorist bigot off the air.

The Babylon Bee has gotten better, but it&#x27;s still pretty amateurish compared to the best of The Onion. It&#x27;s nice to have a satirical publication that leans the other way for balance.

I think the Babylon Bee has been a good replacement.

I&#x27;ve been reading it for 20 years and it&#x27;s as good as it&#x27;s ever been<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;biden-trump-die-2-minutes-apart-holding-hands-1850282375&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;biden-trump-die-2-minutes-apart-holding...</a>

It&#x27;s been on the upswing ever since it was purchased this year. It&#x27;s time to come back.

I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s changed that much. There&#x27;s so much more comedy and parody content out there these days that our collective standards have changed. The onion&#x27;s heyday was when the internet was a lot smaller.

Funny concept.  Shame that The Onion&#x27;s writing these days so mid.

I actually almost fainted laughing when I read this and then some of the coping responses on X. I needed this today. What a good move.

&gt; I really can’t imagine a better steward.You&#x27;re probably right. But here&#x27;s my alternates list:- The Simpsons writing team- Jimmy Kimmel (maybe)- Conan O&#x27;Brien- Stephen Colbert- a deep fake of Alex Jones, scripted by a bunch of giggling 6th grade boys

I really can’t imagine a better steward.  Truly amazing.  I doubt there’s any way to undo all the damage that has been done, but at least we’ll get some cathartic  laughs out of it all.

Financial Ruin and Mockery seem appropriate for the peddlers of vitriolic clickbait.

Is that enough to tank the market with a fire sale? Probably not.

I&#x27;d chip in just to have that shit destroyed and see them selling onions instead.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Being funny is great, but for years people will continue to go to the website not knowing what has transpired.

keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound.Sounds like that&#x27;s sort of what&#x27;s happening:&quot;The publication plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in an interview.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;14&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;alex-jones-infowars-the-onion.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;14&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;alex-jones...</a>

Yep. Insert little-known stories that are documented conspiracies that aren&#x27;t hypotheticals similar to the fine content of DamnInteresting. Be sure to use lots of graphics and editoralizing&#x2F;clickbait headlines.- Radium girls- Eugenics experiments- Forced sterilization- ~600 Tennessee sober &quot;drunk driving&quot; arrests

&gt; The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes!What a deranged fantasy this is and yet how often it shows up. The audience will notice. Those who don&#x27;t and eventually discover your duplicity will never forgive you for it. What you propose is disgusting and amoral, as it has no value, and is designed to mollify yourself by bulling people you clearly perceive as being beneath you.

The receptive audience would notice and then find other venues, I suspect. Especially with the warning of the former webmaster.Crazy bullshit is only tempting if it&#x27;s part of your engrieved group. A clever roleplay won&#x27;t have the spiritual depravtivy needed.

I think this is called &quot;Black Propaganda&quot;.

The funniest thing would be to keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound.  The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes!

they are fueled by clickbait, and they&#x27;ve promoted the practice.it&#x27;s probably the first site I&#x27;ve manually added to my dns blacklist.

The Onion is truly a national treasure.

Can you elaborate? What was the offer? They won a judgement over $1B.Also, I don’t think their agenda is political, it is personal.

Maybe the families were more interested in fixing the issue than in receiving some blood money in exchange for continued harm.

Did the original offer include shutting down Infowars? Of not I expect many of them feel they got plenty more that whatever cash Jones was offering. There is more to this life than money.

I don&#x27;t think the families wanted money. They wanted to ruin his life.

I doubt that the SH families will receive the kind of money they could have had if they accepted Jones&#x27; original offer. Their lawyers made it clear they were in it not for their clients&#x27; interest but for their own political agenda.

Interesting. They should.. but Bksy is bouncing between 15 to 133 new users per second at the moment, and they are on bare metal. There is major service degradation at the moment. Pour one out for their team.

Those links don’t work for me. But these do:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;did:plc:x4qyokjtdzgl7gmqhsw4ajqj&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law22gmbfk26" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;did:plc:x4qyokjtdzgl7gmqhsw4ajqj&#x2F;po...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;did:plc:x4qyokjtdzgl7gmqhsw4ajqj&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law23rslrk26" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;did:plc:x4qyokjtdzgl7gmqhsw4ajqj&#x2F;po...</a>

Yeah, my first thought was &quot;the Sandy Hook parents chipped in for you to leave it as it is?&quot;

They don&#x27;t have to do much, it&#x27;s already very funny and very stupid.

&gt; We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website.Isn&#x27;t it that already?And how would The Onion know what funny actually is? Their content hasn&#x27;t been that for well over a decade now.

Please note that Bsky servers appear to be suffering under the load of 15 new users per second, with bursts as high 133 new users per second!

&gt; Dude tried a career in journalism.&gt; Had a crazy theory that a school shooting was fake.This is absolutely not what happened. Jones is a grifter, and was never a journalist. He had no journalistic aspirations, and peddled exclusively in inane conspiracy theories either crafted personally or adopted selectively to inspire a constant state of fear and paranoia in a particular type of vulnerable person while aggressively channeling their anxieties into purchases of his prepper gear and phony health supplement business. This is a rare case of such a fraudster managing to accrue enough ire and attention that legal charges stuck and sunk him for the harm caused by one of his many careless lies. There are many like him who continue on with much the same strategy, some of whom have gained enough power and influence through their actions that they are now effectively untouchable by the legal system.

Absolutely poetic.Dude tried a career in journalism.Had a crazy theory that a school shooting was fake.School shooting wasn&#x27;t fake.Dude doesn&#x27;t say &quot;I&#x27;m sorry, my bad, I&#x27;m retiring from journalism&quot;, but goes down fighting.Looks good to me.

Tim Onion&#x27;s (Ben Collins) statement on Bluesky: [0]&gt; Hi everyone.&gt; The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars.&gt; We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website.&gt; We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off.&gt; I can&#x27;t wait to show you what we have cooked up.Next post: [1]&gt; Does anybody need millions of dollars worth of supplements?[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law22gmbfk26" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law22g...</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law23rslrk26" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;bencollins.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3law23r...</a>

That doesnt mean it was a reasonable amount.

It&#x27;s not that simple though. The initial guilty verdict was not even the decision of a jury, but the result of a fairly abnormal procedural decision by the judge. There was then a follow-on hearing to determine the amount in damages, where Jones&#x27; lawyer &quot;accidentally&quot; sent loads of evidence, not required by discovery, directly to the prosecution. The entire suit against Jones is filled with interested parties and corruption. It is definitely not a good example of better arguments prevailing.

no, it wasn&#x27;t a civil case.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;AlexJonesMW3&#x2F;status&#x2F;1856495252850229386" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;AlexJonesMW3&#x2F;status&#x2F;1856495252850229386</a>its so frustrating that the only reason i am able to post this is because of X... because searching for this guys name or &quot;poject veritas nudge&quot; does not produce the result that it obviously should anywhere except for X. this is the tactic that is so often used by people like you. state something that is factually correct but completely incorrect and misleading when the full context is taken into account. even if this were an actual civil case brought on in the normal way it would still be the undeniable truth that one billion is silly and that this is political.

It was a civil case, so no government&#x2F;prosecutor, and the jury awarded much more than plaintiffs asked for.EDIT: Also you can disagree with the amount, but the award is literally the jury saying that the plaintiffs “prevailed with better arguments”

&gt; If you play fair against monsters, monsters win.If you become a monster to fight the monster, the monster always wins!

Better arguments prevail only works when participants argue in good faith grounded in curiously, evidence and reason. The guy who flips the table isn&#x27;t proposing a novel gaming  strategy, you just kick him out of board game club.

The ends justify the means, in some circumstances. If you play fair against monsters, monsters win.&gt; but the tools and methods used were entirely inappropriate to a liberal democracy, where you prevail with better arguments.I strongly disagree this is our operating environment, based on the evidence.

You cannot quantify it. IMHO emotional damage is not a thing, at least in terms of people merely saying things about you. Have you not heard &#x27;sticks and stones...&#x27;?If someone claims false facts about you, and is credible, and that then has a material impact on you, then sure, that might be something for the law.Otherwise we&#x27;d be prosecuting every gossip.

&gt;There is no possible way that someone ranting on the internet can cause 1.5 billion of emotional damageI&#x27;d like to see someone quantify what a reasonable number would be and how they came to it.I served on a jury where we had to award similar damages. &quot;Anyone got any ideas how to account for this?&quot; I asked .... nobody had any good ones.

This isn&#x27;t the 18th century anymore where the dissemination of arguments barely traveled outside of the immediate vicinity, this is the globally networked firehose of disinformation blasted right in your face 24-hours a day. Relying on better arguments to win hearts and minds in this environment is hopelessly naive.

&gt; where you prevail with better argumentsWhat is your argument? It sounds like you aren&#x27;t very familiar with the case (&quot;whatever the claim was&quot;), and I don&#x27;t think just declaring that something is ridiculous is a very good argument.

&gt;I mean, good riddance to Alex Jones, but the tools and methods used were entirely inappropriate to a liberal democracy, where you prevail with better arguments.The tools and methods used were &quot;a trial by a jury of his peers,&quot; in which better arguments did prevail. That seems entirely appropriate to a liberal democracy.

I&#x27;m not aware of him suggesting people harass anybody. There&#x27;s a wide line between saying crazy things and calling people to take specific action against specific people.

He knowingly rallied his supporters to harass the victims and their families. That&#x27;s a bit more than &quot;someone ranting on the internet&quot;.

They did prevail with better arguments… in front of a judge and jury.

There were 2 issues. The first is that he made money off of it. The 2nd (and likely bigger issue) was that he repeatedly violated court orders (e.g. not complying with discovery, repeatedly lying under oath, threatening the jury on his show while the trial was going on, etc). Judges and juries generally really don&#x27;t like it when one of the parties is lying their ass off and ignoring the judge&#x27;s orders.

He made 100s millions specifically from libeling the SH families?Or his entire lifetime earnings were 100s millions?The point is the law has been used (imho totally disproportionately) to bankrupt someone for things they said, and therefore censor them.The same as with Thiel and Gawker.Whether or not you agree with what they say, they should be able to say it.

The number seems to be based on the fact that he made money of it. And if that was in the 100s of million, the fine should obviously be higher to ward of other people doing so (and not just have it as a cost of doing business). Kind of like the german movie piracy thing where the convicts had to give up thousands of bitcoin, which the state sold for more than 2 billion.(Beside the fact that in other liberal democracies, he would be in prison now)

The USA has an adversarial legal system. Jones and his lawyers didn&#x27;t do anything that they could have done to prevent this.My understanding is that the suit against Jones was pretty standard in what damages it asked for, and that defendants (Jones in this case) are giving every opportunity to negotiate and legally lessen the damages. Jones&#x27; lawyers did not do this, apparently at his direction. Jones also refused to produce evidence that is always traded between parties in suits like this. There was a &quot;Perry Mason&quot; moment when Jones was on the stand testifying that revealed (due to an incredible screw up by his lawyers) that Jones had apparently withheld info he should have disclosed during discovery.Basically, he directed his lawyers to do nothing, and they did so. The size of the judgement is statutory. It&#x27;s not that there was a governmental thumb on the scale, it&#x27;s that Jones and his lawyers didn&#x27;t do anything to scale it down, or even do much to contradict the plaintiff&#x27;s claims.

a liberal democracy, where you prevail with better argumentsThis is only true when everyone argues in good faith, and is committed to accepting the possibility of being proven wrong. Sociopaths and other kinds of assholes exist and can corrupt any system if allowed to do so.

I&#x27;m very much not a fan of Q-anon and related subcultures, but the sandy-hook award of $1.5 billion is obviously ridiculous, and is clearly just a government&#x2F;institutional exercise in dictatorial&#x2F;systemic power.There is no possible way that someone ranting on the internet can cause 1.5 billion of emotional damage or whatever the claim was.In particular, the libel (and it should be libel, making claims that are not true, rather than &#x27;defamation&#x27; which is merely slurring them), should be from a credible source. Alex Jones is obviously not a credible source in this, or any case, and is unlikely to have caused any material harm (loss of jobs etc) to the &#x27;victims&#x27;.I mean, good riddance to Alex Jones, but the tools and methods used were entirely inappropriate to a liberal democracy, where you prevail with better arguments.

I bet they sell fewer fraudulent merchandise than Bezos too

definitely printing fewer lies in the newspaper than Bezos

He seems to be doing a better job running a newspaper than Bezos.

heh, I&#x27;ve been using neom online for over 20 years, when they announced the city people I knew from the early 2000s emailed me ha. mine is from my original irc name neomonk.

how did it feel when Saudi Arabia stole your handle? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Neom" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Neom</a>

Jeff Lawson the founder of Twilio owns The Onion, glad he&#x27;s growing his quality retirement project.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;pxmqX" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;pxmqX</a>

Haven&#x27;t you seen the DOGE department yet?

Well it also wasn&#x27;t founded on whatever the hell we were doing before either

It&#x27;s effective at disorientation and disbelief.

I don’t think effective government is founded on the basis of lolz.

If you wanted your comment to hit a bit better, you might have considered, e.g., Lavrov.

He is owned by another foreign government.

&gt; It&#x27;s hard to imagine anyone that could be more effective at achieving that than Jones.Asking as a non-American: how disturbing would it be if he appointed Putin?

Both left and right are assemblages of compromises flying in loose formation.

Vivek ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard and usha Vance and Marco Rubio.... Kkk has become very diverse lately &#x2F;s.Okay, but really... If you&#x27;re going to criticize, can we at least make valid analogies?

The KKK hasn&#x27;t been relevant since Jerry Springer dredged them up for his show in the 90s, you may need to update your roster of Boogeymen.

The current speculation by the right-o-sphere that Alex Jones is about to be appointed the Trump press secretary is apt for the moment where Trump seems to have made his nominations on the basis of how much they will disturb the left. It&#x27;s hard to imagine anyone that could be more effective at achieving that than Jones.

Gotta be the onion. Infowars publishes higher quality conspiracy theories that is fit to print.

I&#x27;ll take the bait: Is that from Infowars or from The Onion?

I hope that they can keep the spirit of the infowars conspiracy genre alive.&gt; “US seeks to destabilize Canada into a war with Mexico to solve the border crisis “

potentially hilarious. can&#x27;t wait to see what they launch.

Inside a lot of humor is some deep seated truth.It&#x27;s encouraging that an org based on humor &#x2F; even a little truth here ultimately buys and will discard an empire of hateful lies.

The Onion already did that joke: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;sale-of-bet-to-white-supremacist-group-results-in-no-ch-1819595187&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;sale-of-bet-to-white-supremacist-group-...</a>

Sources: Hackers Vandalized Drudge Report For Last 15 Years<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;sources-hackers-vandalized-drudge-report-for-last-15-y-1819574601&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theonion.com&#x2F;sources-hackers-vandalized-drudge-repor...</a>

Anthony Fauci is a big reason for the hate against people like Anthony Fauci.

Idk I think the global events of 2020 to 2022 had a bigger effect on public opinion than fringe lunatics like Alex Jones.

Not a good idea, Alex Jones is a big reason for the hate against people like Anthony Fauci.

The onion should just keep Alex Jones without any filters but put the onion logo on every page. The joke is already good enough, just keep it going.

Funny, for sure, but does not explain what they will be doing in reality.

&gt; As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.*

They&#x27;ve got $1.5billion.No, they&#x27;ve got a judgement on paper for $1.5 billion. This is part of the process of actually getting that money.

I had the goldbugs and silver bugs in mind- they&#x27;d be more than willing to pay exorbitant markup, with the feel-good ennui of it going towards a good cause. These were $100 for a 1&#x2F;10 gram at the time of writing and now are sold out. Coincidence???

They have a claim for $1.5B, they are going after all Alex Jones assets which are much less than $1.5B.

&gt;&gt; make a one-time-run charity auction collectible for the Sandy Hook familiesThey&#x27;ve got $1.5billion. Probably don&#x27;t need the gold as well. There might be equally valid causes with less funds.

Can you give an example of these high-quality supplements? Otherwise folks just have to take you at your word that they exist.

There was a past disclosure where lead was found[0] within an in-house product. Buzzfeed did a story about sending some products to a lab and you&#x27;re right they&#x27;re safe existing products[1] only with Infowars&#x27; own exaggerated marketing labeled on.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oag.ca.gov&#x2F;system&#x2F;files&#x2F;prop65&#x2F;notices&#x2F;2017-02319.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oag.ca.gov&#x2F;system&#x2F;files&#x2F;prop65&#x2F;notices&#x2F;2017-02319.pd...</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;charliewarzel&#x2F;we-sent-alex-jones-infowars-supplements-to-a-lab-heres" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;charliewarzel&#x2F;we-sent-a...</a>

&gt; supplements of a dubious natureThey are re-labled existing products that are sold in other places, and unironically already-recognized, before being re-labled by InfoWars, as very high quality.If you&#x27;re gonna criticize InfoWars you have my 100% support in your right to do so, but try not to post out of your ass. This is HackerNews, not Reddit.

&gt; melting down all of the 500% marked up gold bars[0] and make a one-time-run charity auction collectible for the Sandy Hook familiesOr a monument &#x2F; memorial to the deceased, in the hopes that the truth would outlive Jones&#x27;s lies.

InfoWars only shilled for gold sellers. Their business was entirely Vitamins&#x2F;Supplement, Merch, and crazy AFAIK they never sold gold directly.

And pocket the money from the gold bars? Probably better to donate them anyway, better yet to give it back to victims involved in his lies

I don&#x27;t know man, it&#x27;s not like the dude caused the Sandy Hook massacre, just take this win and let the victims rest in peace. Let the Onion do it&#x27;s things and cut ties.

There&#x27;s tonnes of worthless merchandise and supplements of a dubious nature which The Onion, the least expected of all possible buyers, now has to find a use for. My first suggestion would be melting down all of the 500% marked up gold bars[0] and make a one-time-run charity auction collectible for the Sandy Hook families. Or upcycling all the paper in Alex Jones&#x27; books [1] into paper mache, and use it to make globes, to really stick it to the globalists![0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowarsstore.com&#x2F;24-karat-999-pure-gold-collectible" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowarsstore.com&#x2F;24-karat-999-pure-gold-collect...</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowarsstore.com&#x2F;infowars-media&#x2F;books&#x2F;the-great-awakening-alex-jones" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infowarsstore.com&#x2F;infowars-media&#x2F;books&#x2F;the-great...</a>

I&#x27;d be surprised if there weren&#x27;t any safeguards to prevent Infowars from posting hate ever again.

are the families the seller or just the beneficiary?

A buyer is not always required to select the bid of the highest monetary value; sounds like the Onion had a proposal that was &quot;a reasonable sum of money, and also we help lead a healthy way to find a path to redemption for this website and make it a kinder place than before&quot;

Part of the sale is that Onion InfoWars will run pro-gun safety ads from Everytown USA. That and the obvious goal of humiliating Jones is probably why the Sandy Hook parents sold it to the Onion.Can&#x27;t say I&#x27;m not happy. Jones is an evil man who has richly earned this indignity and worse. His campaign of harassment against people whose children were murdered was so bad, some parents brought private security guards to testify at his trial [0]. They described death threats, strangers confronting them in their homes and shooting at their cars.[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apnews.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;shootings-texas-school-connecticut-538914ccd342aad854bbb717966eb177" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apnews.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;shootings-texas-school-connecticu...</a>

&gt; Meanwhile, Alex Jones is calling a hearing next week to accuse the bid process of being rigged <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857223561754059168" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857223561754059168</a>Alex Jones is not a reliable source

I wondered how the structure worked too. Technically the Sandy Hook Victims can buy Infowars. All the money they bid would just all come right back to themselves anyway. This article calls it a &quot;joint bid&quot;.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2024-11-14&#x2F;the-onion-says-it-s-purchased-infowars-out-of-bankruptcy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2024-11-14&#x2F;the-onion...</a>Meanwhile, Alex Jones is calling a hearing next week to accuse the bid process of being rigged <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857223561754059168" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RealAlexJones&#x2F;status&#x2F;1857223561754059168</a>

Really curious what the bidding was like or who else made an offer, since it seems that the Sandy Hook Victims (who own all of the debt?) wanted the sale to The Onion specifically

No, but I imagine it&#x27;ll pop up somewhere given everyone who records and shares his stuff. I was going to clip it at the time but my screen capture software decided to spontaneously update and demand money for the upgrade.

You&#x27;re assuming that would be one person and one organization, the way it is now.I think that&#x27;s the most likely outcome, but it isn&#x27;t a safe bet by any means.In any case I hope it&#x27;s a good long time before we have to find out, since I wish Linus long life and good health.

And I believe he is wrong in this case. Linus is absolutely a lynchpin for Linux control. He can be replaced, but whoever replaces him then becomes that lynchpin. He&#x27;s the benevolent dictator for life after all.

He was clutching at straws. He&#x27;s famous for random tangents and non sequiturs. He was comparing himself to Colonel Travis at the Battle of the Alamo in the next breath. I just thought it was funny&#x2F;weird that Linux, of all things, jumped into his mind as an example to use during his rant.

I remember a claim that the wokies were trying to take down Linus Torvalds doing the rounds at some point. E.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.breitbart.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;04&#x2F;feminists-are-trying-to-frame-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-claims-open-source-industry-veteran&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.breitbart.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;04&#x2F;feminists-are-tryi...</a>

Linus Torvalds political opinions, to the extent I&#x27;ve seen him express them, are hardly in line with Alex Jones.  So this feels odd.

I&#x27;m watching his stream just to see how the drama goes down and a silly tech-adjacent bit popped up when he started ranting about Linux and how if &quot;they&quot; were trying to take Linus Torvalds down, they still couldn&#x27;t ever own Linux!

The Onion buys Infowars