Satirical US outlet The Onion buys conspiracy site Infowars
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A copy of The Onion, a satirical newspaper, is seen on a lamp post in downtown Washington, on Nov 14.
PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON – Satirical news outlet The Onion said on Nov 14 that it had acquired Infowars, a conspiracy-laden website whose owner made money by running stories that called one of America’s most notorious school shootings
The Onion said it prevailed in a bankruptcy auction to buy Mr Alex Jones’ Infowars site with the support of families of victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The new Infowars, starting in January, will operate as a parody of its former self, The Onion said, with an anti-gun violence non-profit founded after the 2012 shooting advertising on the site that once claimed the bloody attack was staged.
The massacre left 20 small children and six educators dead in a particularly gruesome chapter of America’s gun violence epidemic.
Families sued Mr Jones in 2018 after he spread the claim that the shooting rampage was staged with actors.
Four years later, they won a US$1.4 billion (S$1.9 billion) defamation settlement
In September, a judge in Texas said Infowars and other assets owned by Free Speech Systems could be auctioned to raise money for creditors, who include Sandy Hook families.
The Onion declined to say how much it paid for Infowars, including its production studio and a dietary supplement business.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit created after the Sandy Hook shooting, will advertise on an overhauled version of Infowars.
The non-profit said it and the Onion share the goal of ending gun violence.
Families sued Infowars owner Alex Jones in 2018 after he spread the claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School gun massacre was staged.
PHOTO: AFP
A famous headline that The Onion runs after mass shootings is “‘No way to prevent this,’ says only nation where this regularly happens.”
The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said bidding to buy Infowars was an easy decision to make, calling it an “invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses”.
“InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalising the most vulnerable members of society – values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron,” the company wrote on Nov 14 on its website.
Mr Ben Collins, the chief executive of Global Tetrahedron, said the new Infowars would make fun of internet personalities such as Mr Jones, who traffic in misinformation.
“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Mr Collins told The New York Times.
“This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.” AFP
