The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.
“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 on Thursday provided by his lawyers.
The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive.
The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organisation Everytown for Gun Safety.
The Infowars website appeared to be down on Thursday morning. Jones was angry and defiant on his live broadcast before announcing that his show was being shut down and signing off.
Jones vowed to challenge the sale and auction process in court and said he would resume his broadcasts from a new studio using websites and social media accounts he said were already set up.
“The journey has just begun. Thank you,” Jones concluded.
The Onion, a Chicago-based satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, confirmed the sale in a column on its website.
“No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds,” said the satirical post.
“And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.”
The Onion bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.
Recent headlines have included, “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings,” “Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb” and “Man Forgetting Difference Between Meteoroid, Meteorite Struggles To Describe What Just Killed His Dog.”
The publication consulted on the bidding with some of the Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, lawyers for the families said.
“Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale,” said Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families.
Everytown for Gun Safety said it will use the Infowars platforms to raise awareness about gun violence.
Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatised by Jones’ conspiracies and threats by his followers.
Oldest complete tablet of the Ten Commandments up for sale
Before he signed off on Thursday, Jones repeatedly told listeners that the bankruptcy trustee and others were in the building and threatening to shut down the show at any moment.
Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars.
Jones had told listeners that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.
The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, a company affiliated with one of Jones’ product-selling sites, as the “backup bid”, in case The Onion purchase falls through.
