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The Onion bought InfoWars in the fire sale of Alex Jones’ bankruptcy and there’s a rush on tiny violins

Oonagh Keating. Updated November 15th, 2024

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars – the fake news site and outlet for spurious products – spent years tormenting the families of the 20 children and six adults murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, in 2012.

He repeatedly told his millions of viewers that the massacre had been staged to make an argument for tighter gun control, and many of those viewers went on to hound the bereaved loved ones of the victims, forcing some of them to leave their homes due to death threats.

Following a series of defamation suits against Jones, he was left owing close to $1.5 billion in damages, for which he was this year ordered to sell everything.

This has all led to a story that could, ironically, have been a headline on the satirical news site The Onion.

The Onion thought it would be funny, and having seen Alex Jones raging over it, we wholeheartedly agree. Their CEO Ben Collins explained, via Bluesky.

Also, part of the reason we did bought InfoWars is because people on Bluesky told us it would be funny to buy InfoWars. And those people were right. This is the funniest thing that has ever happened.

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) November 14, 2024 at 2:35 PM

The Sandy Hook families graciously agreed to take a smaller portion of the recovery, rather than take more money and allow Jones to hold onto the means of broadcasting.

Robbie Parker, father of six-year-old Sandy Hook victim Emilie, stated via the families’ lawyer –

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for.”

There can only ever be cold comfort for all of them, but they have played a major part in making it much more difficult for Jones to spread his criminally damaging bile.

The Onion shared their plans for the new acquisition in their typical satirical fashion. Bryce P. Tetraeder, CEO of The Onion’s parent company Global Tetrahedron, wrote –

“The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.”

A more likely hint at InfoWars’ future came from Ben Collins.

Hi everyone.

The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars.

We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website.

We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off.

I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up.

[image or embed]

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) November 14, 2024 at 2:09 PM

The Onionesque news story had the internet enthralled.

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