The Onion wins public sale to purchase Infowars

WASHINGTON — The satirical information publication The Onion was named the successful bidder for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a chapter public sale, backed by households of Sandy Hook Elementary School taking pictures victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the bloodbath a hoax.

The purchase would turn over Jones’ company, which for many years has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor web site that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. The decide in Jones’ chapter ordered a listening to for subsequent week after Jones and his attorneys raised questions on how the public sale was performed.

Within hours of the sale’s announcement Thursday, Infowars’ web site was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he stated was a brand new studio location.

“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 within the 2012 taking pictures in Connecticut, stated in a press release offered by his attorneys.

The Onion’s bid was for the conspiracy principle platform’s web site; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; emblems; and video archive for an undisclosed gross sales value.

Lawyers for Jones and an organization affiliated with Infowars that submitted a $3.5 million supply stated they’d anticipated a spherical of bidding to be held Wednesday the place potential consumers might outbid one another. They alleged that the trustee overseeing the public sale modified the method solely days earlier than and as a substitute opened solely sealed bids that had been submitted. Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston stated he had considerations. The precise day and time for the listening to haven’t but been decided.

The satirical outlet — which carries the banner of “America’s Finest News Source” on its masthead — was based within the Nineteen Eighties and for many years has skewered politics and popular culture, together with making Jones a frequent goal of mocking articles. Mass shootings in the U.S., such because the Sandy Hook attack, are sometimes adopted by The Onion publishing barely up to date variations of one in every of its most well-known recurring items: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

“No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds,” The Onion stated in a satirical put up in regards to the sale. “And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.”

On his reside broadcast, Jones was indignant and defiant, vowing to problem the sale in court docket and calling it “a total attack on free speech.” He later introduced his present was being shut down. Jones, who had informed listeners for days that he had a brand new studio arrange close by, then resumed his broadcast from the brand new location, carrying them reside on his accounts on X.

The Onion, primarily based in Chicago, consulted on the bidding with a number of the Sandy Hook households that sued Jones for defamation and emotional misery in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, attorneys for the households stated.

“Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale,” stated Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the households.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s mother or father firm, Global Tetrahedron, informed The Associated Press in a video interview that it’ll relaunch the Infowars web site in January with satire aimed toward conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, in addition to academic details about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins wouldn’t disclose the sale value.

“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 stated. “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.”

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, stated the group would be the unique advertiser on the brand new Infowars web site.

“When you think about the unmitigated harm that Alex Jones and Infowars brought to Sandy Hook families, it’s just poetic justice that now Everytown and The Onion together will open a new chapter on Infowars and a chapter that is devoted to the issue of gun safety,” he informed the AP.

Jones didn’t lose his private X account, which has greater than 3 million followers, within the public sale. But the chapter decide is deciding whether or not his private accounts might be offered off on the trustee’s request.

Sandy Hook households sued Jones and his firm for repeatedly saying on his present that the taking pictures that killed 20 kids and 6 educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by disaster actors to spur extra gun management. Parents and kids of most of the victims testified that they had been traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and threats by his followers. Jones has since acknowledged the taking pictures was “100% real.”

The Onion payments itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion day by day readers. Recent headlines have included, “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings,” “Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb” and “Man Forgetting Difference Between Meteoroid, Meteorite Struggles To Describe What Just Killed His Dog.”

Sealed bids for the personal public sale had been opened Wednesday. The chapter trustee named First United American Companies, which is affiliated with one in every of Jones’ product-selling websites, because the backup bid ought to the sale to The Onion fall via.

Associated Press author Ken Miller contributed from Oklahoma City.