Satirical US web site The Onion buys Infowars with the backing of Sandy Hook victims’ households – Cyber Tech

Satirical information outlet The Onion stated Thursday, November 14, it had acquired Infowars, a conspiracy-laden web site whose proprietor made cash by operating tales that referred to as one in every of America’s most infamous college shootings a hoax. The Onion stated it prevailed in a chapter public sale to purchase Alex Jones’ Infowars web site with the assist of households of victims of the mass capturing at Sandy Hook Elementary College in Newtown, Connecticut.

The brand new Infowars, beginning in January, will function as a parody of its former self, The Onion stated, with a anti-gun violence nonprofit based after the 2012 capturing promoting on the location that when claimed the bloody assault was staged. The bloodbath left 20 young children and 6 educators useless in a very grotesque chapter of America’s gun violence epidemic.

Households sued Jones in 2018 after he unfold the declare that the capturing rampage was staged with actors. 4 years later they gained a $1.4 billion defamation settlement in opposition to Jones, who declared chapter, and his firm Free Speech Programs.

In September a choose in Texas stated Infowars and different property owned by Free Speech Programs might be auctioned to boost cash for collectors who embody Sandy Hook households. The Onion declined to say how a lot it paid for Infowars, together with its manufacturing studio and a dietary complement enterprise.

Everytown for Gun Security, a nonprofit created after the Sandy Hook capturing, will promote on an overhauled model of Infowars. The nonprofit stated it and the Onion share the aim of ending gun violence. A well-known headline that The Onion runs after mass shootings is, “‘No Means To Stop This,’ Says Solely Nation The place This Often Occurs.”

The Onion’s dad or mum firm, International Tetrahedron, stated bidding to purchase Infowars was a straightforward choice to make, calling it an “invaluable software for brainwashing and controlling the lots.” “InfoWars has proven an dependable dedication to manufacturing anger and radicalizing essentially the most susceptible members of society – values that resonate deeply with all of us at International Tetrahedron,” the corporate wrote Thursday on its web site.

Ben Collins, the chief government of International Tetrahedron, stated the brand new Infowars would make enjoyable of web personalities like Jones who visitors in misinformation. “We thought this might be a hilarious joke,” Collins instructed The New York Instances. “That is going to be our reply to this no-guardrails world the place there aren’t any gatekeepers and the whole lot’s form of insane.”