By Dietrich Knauth and Katie Paul
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Like a headline from the Onion, parody news website Infowars is buying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones at a bankruptcy auction.
The Onion said in a statement Thursday that it aims to replace Infowars’ “relentless barrage of disinformation” with The Onion’s “noticeably less hateful disinformation.”
“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing the storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they demand their cold, hard cash,” said Ben Collins, CEO from Onion, in a statement.
Financial terms were not disclosed and are subject to future approval by a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Houston. Infowars’ website was shut down on Thursday and the Onion said it planned to relaunch the platform in January.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, who is overseeing Infowars’ bankruptcy, said during a hearing late Thursday that he had some concerns about the transparency of the auction.
“Personally, I don’t care who wins the auction,” Lopez said. “I just care about the process.”
The purchase marks a sharp turn for Infowars, one of the most notorious purveyors of right-wing conspiracy content and misleadingly marketed nutritional supplements on the Internet.
Founded in 1999, it became a prime example of how online media platforms could exploit tech companies’ hands-off approach to moderating content and spreading evidence-free claims to a mass audience.
These include false claims that the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, were staged.
Several families of Sandy Hook shooting victims supported the Onion’s bid, led by a CEO who spent years covering online disinformation and extremism as a reporter for NBC News.
The Onion will acquire Infowars’ intellectual property, including its website, customer lists and inventory, certain social media accounts and production equipment, the families said.
Jones filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 after a court ordered him to pay $1.5 billion for defaming the families of 20 students and six staff members killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
Unable to pay these legal judgments, Jones was forced to auction off his assets, including Infowars, into bankruptcy.
Families of eight victims of the Connecticut school shooting supported the Onion’s bid, saying it would “end the disinformation machine” Jones operated.
Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest U.S. gun violence prevention organization, said it will serve as the exclusive advertiser for the new Infowars.
FAMILIES SUPPORTED ONION BID
A court-supervised auction concluded on Wednesday. The Connecticut families said they agreed to forgo part of the defamation judgment payments to boost the Onion’s bid and prevent other right-wing content creators from continuing to air conspiracy theories about Infowars.
“The world needs to understand that having a platform doesn’t mean you’re above responsibility,” said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. “The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long waited and fought for.”
The second-highest bid was submitted by First United American Companies, which has ties to Jones, court documents show.
“They’re closing us down,” Jones said on social media site X. “I’m going to stay here until they come in here and turn off the lights.”
First United American Companies, which offered $3.5 million in cash for Infowars, objected to the way the auction was handled, saying it had no chance to beat the Onion’s winning bid.
The lawyer, Walter Cicack, said at Thursday’s hearing in Houston that it did not even know how much Onion paid for Infowars’ assets.
Lopez said he would schedule a further hearing, likely next week, to consider approving the sale.
Jones said he would continue to broadcast on other platforms and resist what he said were politically motivated attempts to silence him, although his options outside of X are limited.
Most mainstream social media companies and podcast distributors, including Apple (NASDAQ:), Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s YouTube and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:)’ Facebook, banned Jones and Infowars about five years ago, saying they violated the rules . the rules of the services.
X was one of them at the time, but owner Elon Musk reinstated Jones last year after taking over the company.
Jones claimed for years that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, staged with actors as part of a government plot to confiscate Americans’ guns. He has since acknowledged the shooting happened, but the families, who say Jones has made money off his lies for years, have sued him for defamation.
Courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that Jones deliberately defamed the families. Lopez previously ruled that these judgments could not be legally enforced in bankruptcy, meaning Jones remains on the hook for most of the judgments even after Infowars was sold.
