Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Onion buys Infowars

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#181

Post by hiddencost »

ben_w wrote: post #60
delichon wrote: post #26

The current speculation by the right-o-sphere that Alex Jones is about to be appointed the Trump press secretary is apt for the moment where Trump seems to have made his nominations on the basis of how much they will disturb the left. It's hard to imagine anyone that could be more effective at achieving that than Jones.

> It's hard to imagine anyone that could be more effective at achieving that than Jones. Asking as a non-American: how disturbing would it be if he appointed Putin?

If you wanted your comment to hit a bit better, you might have considered, e.g., Lavrov.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#182

Post by larrywright »

fireflash38 wrote: post #141
rightbyte wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I didn't know it was a walkover in the end. And it is not really surprising there was no sane defence. I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem. And it has escalated lately. I fear that they will be used as excuses for getting at others.

> I believe Info Wars etc becoming big is pretty much a symptom rather than the problem I believe the problem is how incredibly easy it is to both disseminate and consume utter bullshit. You're no longer that weird loner in town. You go online and can find hundreds and thousands of people who agree with you. Why would you go find people that challenge your views, when you can get those dopamine highs from people who…

> I believe the problem is how incredibly easy it is to both disseminate and consume utter bullshit.

But more importantly, how easy it is to make a lot of money disseminating it.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#183

Post by reaperducer »

josefresco wrote: post #87
consumer451 wrote: post #18

Tim Onion's (Ben Collins) statement on Bluesky: [0] > Hi everyone. > The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. > We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. > We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. > I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up. Next post: [1] > Does anybody need millions of dollars worth of…

The funniest thing would be to keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound. The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes!

keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound.

Sounds like that's sort of what's happening:

"The publication plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in an interview."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/business/media/alex-jones...

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#184

Post by larrywright »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #125
rightbyte wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and he profits from fooling mentally ill people. Selling homeopatic pills and whatever. But I think the right to be wrong is way more important than getting at Alexander Jones. The precedent is bad.

The right to be wrong is important. The right to deliberately lie in ways that harm people is not a "right" that we want to uphold.

And profit off of the lies.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#187

Post by Maken »

reaperducer wrote: post #173
Maken wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you seen the DOGE department yet?

Haven't you seen the DOGE department yet? How do you make government smaller? Step 1: Make government bigger by inventing a new department! (Strictly speaking, it's not a government department. It is a private entity that will operate outside the government, and influence the president. What could possibly go wrong?)

Whatever it is, it for sure has the lolzs as its basis.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#189

Post by Macha »

sed_zeppelin wrote: post #166
jsheard wrote: post #2

The announcement by America's Finest News Source: https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/ Alex Jones response: https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1857058831135645739

On a whim, I decided to peek at the InfoWars homepage. At this moment, I cannot determine which of the headlines are genuine InfoWars content and which are the product of Onion writers. (I assume it's genuine due to the recency of the sale closing?)

It looks like it's down now?

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#190

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #173
Maken wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you seen the DOGE department yet?

Haven't you seen the DOGE department yet? How do you make government smaller? Step 1: Make government bigger by inventing a new department! (Strictly speaking, it's not a government department. It is a private entity that will operate outside the government, and influence the president. What could possibly go wrong?)

[deleted]
Post reply on HN