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The Onion buys rightwing conspiracy theory site Infowars

Thomas Veil

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OK, this isn’t April 1 is it? Because this is just too, too perfect to be true.


The satirical news outlet the Onion has purchased Infowars, the rightwing media platform run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, at a court-ordered auction.
The news was confirmed on Thursday morning in a video by Jones himself, as well as the head of the Onion’s parent company.
CEO Ben Collins confirmed this in a post on Bluesky on Thursday, writing: “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’m taking up a collection for The Daily Show to buy Fox News…
 
It makes sense, they are expanding their fake news empire.
 
Since I was speaking of xit in other threads...

Alex Jones has declared 'the cavalry is here' as attorneys for Elon Musk's X jumped in to help put a temporary pause on the sale of his controversial Infowars to The Onion.

The satirical news publication said the bid was sanctioned by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary victims who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones in 2022 over his egregious on-air insistence that the elementary school massacre was a hoax.

But a federal judge has questioned the secretive bidding process, with Jones believing it gives him a chance to reclaim his outlet.

Lawyers for the Musk-owned social media outlet filed a notice of appearance in Jones' bankruptcy case Thursday.

The filing doesn't specify why they've appeared, merely that they want to become an interested party in the case and want to receive all relevant documentation.

Jones reveled in the news in a broadcast on X Sunday evening, believing that 'the cavalry is here' to rescue Infowars.

'I was told Elon is going to be very involved in this,' Jones said, while heaping praise on Musk as a defender of freedom and free speech.

'Elon Musk understands these basic fundamentals that more people need to understand,' he said.
 
never mind. still a mess.


This reminds me. Are people appalled by the "Soros plan", appalled by the "Musk plan" as well?😀
Here’s what I love about that comparison. They claim that George Soros is secretly pulling all the strings and brainwashing everybody? With Musk and 45, they have proven themselves to be the most gullible, easily-manipulated rubes on the planet. If Soros really was conning people, they’d have been the first and easiest marks.
 
never mind. still a mess.


This reminds me. Are people appalled by the "Soros plan", appalled by the "Musk plan" as well?😀
I'm sorry, I've been trying to keep myself out of things.

Is this the plan, where Soros infiltrates the 47the administration that emo is involved in?

 
Here’s what I love about that comparison. They claim that George Soros is secretly pulling all the strings and brainwashing everybody? With Musk and 45, they have proven themselves to be the most gullible, easily-manipulated rubes on the planet. If Soros really was conning people, they’d have been the first and easiest marks.
yup.😀

musk did bring something new to capitalism though. Meme Capitalism. people who still really believe that The Market is the great aggregator of human knowledge will have to rethink this idea😀😀
 
I also hadn't seen this Jimmy Kimmel bit, which I thought I was kind of funny.



The only place I could find it readily available was at the start at this vid. It's only a minute long, then stop it, just regurgitating stuff you've already heard 100X.
 
I'm sorry, I've been trying to keep myself out of things.

Is this the plan, where Soros infiltrates the 47the administration that emo is involved in?

Yeah no, this is the plan where hints start breaking to the public that tech bros behind the curtain of Trump 2.0 don't GAF about political affiliations so long as crypto grows big wings. If we think we've seen dark money yet, we ain't seen how much free speech some really big and pretty close to anonymous dough can actually buy.

Of course just mentioning Soros is a trigger to the MAGA crowd to try to prevent that Bessent nomination from materializing. It's vaporware right now.
 
Well the Alex Jones / Infowars saved by emo story gets more weird

Does it feel like your X account belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it? That’s not true, according to a new court filing from the social media company formerly known as Twitter. It’s an argument that X is making in order to throw a wrench in The Onion’s recent purchase of InfoWars, the conspiracy theory media company run by Alex Jones. And it’s a great reminder that you don’t actually own what you think you own in the digital age.

The people behind the Onion recently won InfoWars in an auction, sold as part of a legal judgment against Jones who was found guilty of defaming the families of teachers and students who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The families won a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones and selling off InfoWars was part of the liquidation process for the conspiracy theorist’s assets in order to pay down that debt. But a company tied to Jones has challenged the validity of the Onion’s purchase. And X is trying to help stop the sale.
X’s legal filing on Monday, posted online by 404 Media, argues that all of the social media accounts in the auction can’t be transferred.

“Put simply, accounts are inherently part of X Corp.’s Services and their ‘use,'” the company said in Monday’s court filing. “A user must use X Corp.’s Services to create an account in the first instance, and to continue using the account going forward.”

X insists it wasn’t claiming ownership of the content in the accounts, and is only saying it controls the accounts themselves.
“While X Corp. takes no position as to the sale of any Content posted on the X Accounts, X Corp. is the sole owner of the Services being sold as part of the sale of the X Accounts,” the social media company wrote in its court filing. “While X Corp. has granted account holders, such as Jones and FSS, a license to use the Services, such license is non-assignable, both under the terms of the TOS and applicable non-bankruptcy law (i.e., as a personal services contract), and the Trustee cannot sell, assign, or otherwise transfer such license absent X Corp.’s consent.”

As 404 Media notes, it’s pretty standard for social media accounts to be transferred to new companies when a brand is sold. And Musk himself even threatened to reassign NPR’s X handle back in 2023 after the media outlet briefly stopped posting when the billionaire started labeling the broadcaster as state media. Oddly enough, X is essentially state media now that Musk has been named to an unofficial commission called DOGE that threatens to strip the federal budget of $2 trillion. Musk has, of course, donated millions to Donald Trump and helps boost far-right voices on the site in an effort to help the once and future president.
It’s not unexpected that Musk and his ilk would try to help a fellow far-right conspiracy theorist like Jones. But it would certainly be strange to explain this exact scenario to someone in late 2022 when Musk first bought Twitter. At the time, Musk was hesitant to allow Jones back on the social media platform after he had been banned years earlier. Musk specifically said at the time that he wouldn’t allow Jones back on Twitter because his first child died and suggested that Jones had caused too much pain to grieving parents after the Sandy Hook massacre.

“My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame,” Musk tweeted on Nov. 20, 2022, roughly a month after buying the platform.

Obviously, that changed and Musk allowed Jones back on the platform. And now he’s going so far as to throw a wrench in The Onion’s purchase of InfoWars, which was enabled with the blessing of the Sandy Hook families, who lost twenty children and six staff when a mass shooter entered the school over a decade ago. Musk, as the world’s richest person with $348 billion, has no actual principles beyond self-interest, making him a perfect fit for the MAGA agenda. And he’s going to utilize his power to keep guys like Jones from feeling any inconvenience in the name of helping Trump.

X didn’t respond to an email sent Tuesday afternoon. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.
 
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