Satirical news site The Onion has won the bidding to acquire the assets of Alex Jones’ Infowars, with the support of Sandy Hook families.
The site acquired Infowars after their auction bid was selected by the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee overseeing the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy proceedings. Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country, will be the exclusive launch advertiser for the site in the new venture.
The Onion’s goal in acquiring the site was “to end Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good,” the company said in a press release. Financial details of the bid were not disclosed.
The publication plans to launch the new platform in January 2025.
“The Onion has a long history of helping the American public navigate some of the most difficult moments in American life, from our historic issue after 9/11 to our groundbreaking reportage after every American mass shooting. In that tradition, we hope the Sandy Hook families will be able to marvel at the cosmic joke we will soon make of InfoWars.com,” said The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins.
The bankruptcy proceedings were the result of the defamation lawsuit filed by the families of the Sandy Hook victims against Jones. Jones had claimed that the 2012 school shooting was a “hoax” and was staged by actors. Several families successfully sued Jones for defamation and emotional damages, and in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems. Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022, leading to the selling off of his assets to pay his creditors.
“It’s fitting that a platform once used to profit off of tragedy will be a tool of education, hence our multi-year advertising commitment to this new venture,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We’re proud to be a part of what comes next, not only in terms of staunching the flow of hurtful misinformation, but also for the potential this new venture has to help Everytown reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nation’s gun violence epidemic.”
English (US) ·