lol. lmao

  • GommunismVillVin [none/use name]
    ·
    19 days ago

    The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd,

    Someone at AP is having a hard time concealing their hatred of the Onion or doesn't grasp the concept of satire

  • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    19 days ago

    You have no idea how thoroughly I scoured every aspect of the URL and contents to make sure this article wasn't coming from The Onion itself.

    • huf [he/him]
      ·
      19 days ago

      that posture has serious "so it has come to this..." energy

  • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
    ·
    19 days ago

    As a long time conspiracy theory "fan", following the absolute lowliest, worst of the worst pieces of shit on the planet, this feels a bit like a moment of respite. A relief to watch live as one of the largest peddlers of filth is shut down.

    • huf [he/him]
      ·
      19 days ago

      what's to stop alex from starting up again under another name? i'm sure elon or thiel or someone would give him the money...

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        19 days ago

        Debt and legal provisions, basically. Jones isn't a financially independent person anymore. He kept losing court cases to the Sandy Hook survivors to the point they decided to liquidate his company. He owes them an astounding amount of money for libel and damages, like in the billions.

        • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
          ·
          19 days ago

          Yeah, in the first couple of weeks after the news of his billion dollar judgement, he was already trying. He had like a "new" show that he promised was totally different and separate from IW and the judge was like yeah no.

        • huf [he/him]
          ·
          19 days ago

          from your mouth to god's ears

        • _pi@lemmy.ml
          ·
          19 days ago

          losing court cases

          It's actually a lot stupider. He kept defaulting on court cases by not showing up. If he had shown up with a mildly competent lawyer he would literally have walked away with his legal fees paid.

      • Rom [he/him]
        ·
        19 days ago

        He's already admitted he's going to do that.

        Jones had said on his show that “good guys” had been trying to bid on Infowars to keep him in place, but that even if they fail, he’ll keep broadcasting on new platforms and new social media accounts.

        https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/14/business/onion-alex-jones-infowars-auction/index.html

  • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
    ·
    19 days ago

    This is the first time on this site I've had the reddit experience of the entire front page filled up with the same headline

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    19 days ago

    I didn't know anything about the sale. A few minutes ago on Bluesky I saw hard to understand post with a screengrab of Jones doing his yelling shtick on Infowars and the text said "his Onion sale". It's weird when seemingly impossible rare events have a 50/50 chance of being true. But now in this Trump 2.0 era - such events might happen a few times a month. Yesterday it was Gaetz as Trump's AG pick. Today it's The Onion owning Infowars. Will tomorrow have crazy news too? Or will we have to wait a week or two?

  • dead [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    Here is a press statement from The Onion. It says that the Onion plans to completely transition InfoWars into a new website by January 2025. I think this is a screenshot of an email maybe. Maxwell Tani is a journalist from semafor.com, so it's definitely a legit screenshot.

    Show

    https://xcancel.com/maxwelltani/status/1857063171900514527

    Here is a joke article about the acquisition. The acquisition is real.

    https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/

    Here is a video clip of Alex Jones announcing the acquisition by The Onion.

    https://xcancel.com/JordanUhl/status/1857075969544040582

    Here is a social media post by Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. "We're planning on making a very stupid website."

    https://xcancel.com/oneunderscore__/status/1857068633127530939

  • GoodGuyWithACat [he/him]
    ·
    19 days ago

    I wanna know how much they spent on this joke. At the end of the day all they bought was a URL right?

    • glimmer_twin [he/him]
      ·
      19 days ago

      They get all the assets like the studio and the fake boner pill business

    • Grandpa_garbagio [he/him]
      ·
      19 days ago

      infowars is a trademark. the auction covers all his accounts and anything related to the brand as far as i know

    • glans [it/its]
      ·
      19 days ago

      Variety:

      The Connecticut families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting that had sued Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems LLC, backed the bid by The Onion to purchase Infowars’ intellectual property, including its website, customer lists and inventory, certain social media accounts and the production equipment used to put Jones on the air. The Connecticut families agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, “enabling its success,” according to lawyers for the families.

      So like also some cameras, contact lists, trademarks etc.

      The real thing they bought was assurance nobody else could buy it. Especially those customer lists. Lists like that built the modern Right.

    • glans [it/its]
      ·
      19 days ago

      NYT says less than $3.5M, which is really not very much.