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The Onion has agreed to accumulate Infowars, the far-right website created by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in a deal backed by households of victims of the mass capturing at Sandy Hook Elementary College.
The US satirical web site on Thursday mentioned that it had gained the chapter public sale for the media enterprise managed by Jones, the controversial right-wing media influencer. No value was disclosed.
Infowars had been auctioned to pay settlements to the households of the Sandy Hook capturing victims. Jones was ordered to pay them virtually $1.5bn in damages in defamation verdicts after calling the 2012 bloodbath in Connecticut a hoax.
The Onion mentioned its aim was to finish Infowars’ “relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of promoting dietary supplements and substitute it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good”.
“The Onion is proud to accumulate InfoWars, and we look ahead to persevering with its storied custom of scaring the positioning’s customers with lies till they fork over their chilly, onerous money,” chief government Ben Collins mentioned. “Or bitcoin. We may even settle for bitcoin.”
Jones was pressured to file for chapter in 2022 after the Sandy Hook households efficiently sued the media host for his repeated false claims in regards to the bloodbath wherein 20 youngsters and 6 academics have been killed.
The households have agreed to “forgo a portion of their restoration to extend the general worth of The Onion’s bid, enabling its success”, they mentioned in a press release.
As a part of the deal, The Onion has acquired Free Speech Methods, the mother or father firm of Infowars, with its web site, buyer lists, social media accounts, manufacturing tools and Texas studio, emblems and video archive.
The Onion is owned by World Tetrahedron, the media group backed by Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson. It mentioned that gun management group Everytown for Gun Security could be the “unique launch advertiser” for a relaunched Infowars web site subsequent yr, which is anticipated to hold satirical content material.
The Onion, which carries the tagline “America’s Best Information Supply”, has lampooned the types of content material carried by Jones’ Infowars prior to now, with a sequence of tales following shootings within the US over the previous few years carrying the identical headline: “‘No Option to Stop This,’ Says Solely Nation The place This Frequently Occurs.”
Jones confirmed on X on Thursday that Infowars was being shut down “with no court docket order this morning . . . The Connecticut Democrats with The Onion newspaper purchased us”.
Jones has promised a authorized problem to the deal, and in addition mentioned that he’ll proceed to broadcast over a unique platform.
Chris Mattei, lawyer for the households and companion at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, mentioned the households had “rejected Jones’ hole presents for allegedly extra money if they’d solely let him keep on the air as a result of doing so would have put different households in hurt’s approach”.
Regardless of social media platforms together with Fb and YouTube blocking content material from InfoWars, the positioning continues to draw an viewers. InfoWars.com drew 6.6mn visits in October, in response to Similarweb.
The Onion plans to relaunch the positioning in January.