SATIRICAL NEWS PUBLICATION The Onion has won the bidding for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars at a US bankruptcy auction.
The bid was backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims to whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
The sale price was not immediately disclosed.
Jones confirmed The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars in a social media video today and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it.
“Last broadcast now live from Infowars studios. They are in the building. Are ordering shutdown without court approval,” Jones said on the social platform X.
Jones was broadcasting live from the Infowars studio this morning and appeared distraught, putting his head in his hands at his desk.
It was not immediately clear what The Onion planned to do with the conspiracy theory platform, including its website, social media accounts, studio in Austin, Texas, trademarks and video archive.
However, it’s understood that The Onion plans to re-launch Infowars in January as a parody website.
In a satirical article following the purchase, The Onion said Infowars “distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses”.
“Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalising the most vulnerable members of society,” added the satirical article.
Sealed bids in the private auction were opened yesterday.
Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. The other bidders have not been disclosed.
The Onion, a Chicago-based satirical site, bills itself as “America’s finest news source” and jokes it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.
The New York Times reports that ‘Everytown for Gun Safety’, an organisation dedicated to ending gun violence that was founded in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, will advertise on the relaunched version of the site.
Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts that he has already set up.
He also said that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.
Relatives of many of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting sued Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control measures.
Parents and children of many of the victims gave evidence that they were traumatised by Jones’ conspiracies and threats by his followers.
The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and Texas.
Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.
-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say