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Satirical website The Onion has acquired far-right conspiracy platform Infowars at a bankruptcy auction with the support of the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
The American far-right conspiracy theorist website Infowars has been purchased by satirical news publication The Onion, according to court documents filed on Thursday.
The Onion won the bidding for the fake news platform at a bankruptcy auction with support from the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who reportedly waived part of the $1 billion owed to them in compensation by Infowars founder and host Alex Jones after he called the massacre a hoax.
The defamation case brought by the Sandy Hook families led Jones to file for bankruptcy in 2022 and auction his assets, including the Infowars website, social media accounts, video archive, trademarks and recording studio in Austin, Texas.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
The Onion, a popular satirical online newspaper that publishes clearly absurd stories in such a style as to make them appear believable, said it aimed to replace “Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation” with its own “relentless barrage of humor.”
“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” said CEO Ben Collins. “Or Bitcoin. We will also accept Bitcoin.”
In its famed style, The Onion published a story claiming to be written by Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO, explaining why he had bought Infowars.
“They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon,” the fictional CEO wrote.
