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The Onion buys Infowars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#221

Post by kregasaurusrex »

nixdev wrote: post #163
kregasaurusrex wrote: post #64

There's tonnes of worthless merchandise and supplements of a dubious nature which The Onion, the least expected of all possible buyers, now has to find a use for. My first suggestion would be melting down all of the 500% marked up gold bars[0] and make a one-time-run charity auction collectible for the Sandy Hook families. Or upcycling all the paper in Alex Jones' books [1] into paper mache, and use it to make globes…

> supplements of a dubious nature They are re-labled existing products that are sold in other places, and unironically already-recognized, before being re-labled by InfoWars, as very high quality. If you're gonna criticize InfoWars you have my 100% support in your right to do so, but try not to post out of your ass. This is HackerNews, not Reddit.

There was a past disclosure where lead was found[0] within an in-house product. Buzzfeed did a story about sending some products to a lab and you're right they're safe existing products[1] only with Infowars' own exaggerated marketing labeled on.

[0] https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/prop65/notices/2017-02319.pd...

[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-a...

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#223

Post by c-linkage »

rightbyte wrote: post #72
afavour wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like the article is really gleeful. Good! It should be. Alex Jones is a ghoul making money from dead school shooting victims. Anything that embarrasses him is entitled to as much glee as it wants.

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 Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance>

A good reply I found online:

The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance not as a moral standard but as a social contract. If someone does not abide the terms of mutual tolerance, then they are not covered by the contract. By definition intolerant people do not follow the rules so they are no longer covered and should not be tolerated.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#224

Post by sgt101 »

chvid wrote: post #160
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

I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company. Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site/business under a new domain name. Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?

I think it's all the assets of the website.

I believe that the current state of play is that Jones has to pay $1.1bn damages even post bankruptcy so maybe any future successes will lead to money for the Sandyhook families. I certainly hope so.

Ironically he may live longer to earn more for them - he'll never be able to afford a cigar again.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#225

Post by bilbo0s »

chvid wrote: post #160
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

I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company. Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site/business under a new domain name. Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?

Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?

Well, we’re all talking about the onion. And I, personally, haven’t read onion content in a long, long while. So this kind of put them back on the radar for me.

But I could be one of only a few people who fell out of onion readership?

More likely is that they believe the next four years will provide them a lot of comedy fodder and they’re setting their pieces early. For them the election is likely to be pretty good for business.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#226

Post by arethuza »

rob74 wrote: post #196
arethuza wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Brexit taught me anything it was that the correct phrase is pesky unelected EU bureaucrats!

Beware the EU deep (super)state! But don't fear, it's no match for our shallow catchphrases!

"Deep supranational political and economic union" really doesn't have the same ring to it.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#227

Post by ziddoap »

nixdev wrote: post #210
afavour wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whoops, looks like you let the mask slip! I see you started this thread debating the merits of trust in the court system, I'm relieved we've finally got to the crux of it. You consume and identify with the kind of crank material Infowars publishes. Thank you for letting us know.

[flagged]

3 replies to a single comment, and you're doing this all over this thread. You're almost 10% of the comments here, and there's a lot of comments.

Might be good to take a step back for a few minutes/hours.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#228

Post by bbor »

ackbar03 wrote: post #214
plorg wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The auction included all of the InfoWars and several associated corporations' assets, including the studio and the supplements business. At one point the settlement administrator was trying to get Alex's Twitter handle. I believe he's been doing some half-ass scheming to create essentially the same company but in his parents' name, and I doubt he has a problem getting listeners back.

... Infowars had a supplements business?

Oh man, you're in for a treat. Look up some videos on youtube, the classic being John Oliver's 2017 piece; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyGq6cjcc3Q . He's adjacent to the newly mainstream right, yes, but he's been around for a long time as a more radical+fringe actor, and has all the baggage that goes along with that. A good portion (most?) of his money was made from selling vaguely anti-GMO and pro-masculinity products sold with a heavy dose of "big pharma doesn't want you to know this one trick".

They ranged from insane horse bone dust stuff to plain overpriced vitamins; https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-a...

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#229

Post by jacknews »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #110
s1artibartfast wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesnt mean it was a reasonable amount.

5'500'000'000 people on the internet, which means an average of 27 cents per user. To say that there is "no possible way" of reaching that level of emotional damages is a stretch.

This look like the same argument the record companies use for piracy.

Oh "we would have made 10 billion if everyone downloading illegally would have paid." Except of course most people wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't free.

So, how much is 1.5B, per 'victim' of some obvious crackpots' rants.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#230

Post by arethuza »

diggan wrote: post #206
tgv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonderful news. I'm glad their CEO recognizes the great value of CEOs. My only worry is that this acquisition makes Global Tetraeder so large that it attracts the attention of those pesky EU bureaucrats, who will want to split it up into multiple imperfect solids.

> My only worry is that this acquisition makes Global Tetraeder so large that it attracts the attention of those pesky EU bureaucrats, who will want to split it up into multiple imperfect solids. Based on what previous in-real-life examples is this a realistic worry? AFAIK, "EU bureaucrats" haven't broken up a single US-based company before so seems like a weird thing to be worried about.

Sorry, we're being critical of the EU - logic doesn't apply!
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