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

311–320 of 1001 posts

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#311

Post by burkaman »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #240
pohuing wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but it dispels the opening statement of gp about supposed dictatorial power.

I didnt see anything about a dictatorial power, just a complaint about incompatibility with liberal democracy, and I tend to agree. That can come from broken systems as easily as a dictator. It is hard for me to imagine what would support 150 million per plaintiff. That is and order of magnitude more civil damages than are often awarded for cold blooded murder. Everyone hates Alex Jones, and I don't like him either,…

> clearly just a government/institutional exercise in dictatorial/systemic power

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#312

Post by sofixa »

tightbookkeeper wrote: post #280
paddy_m wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a claim for $1.5B, they are going after all Alex Jones assets which are much less than $1.5B.

Don’t forget their many other successful lawsuits: - school administration - rifle manufacturer - the shooters mother (home insurance) - other journalists who wrote about the event I don’t know exactly what compensation they should get, but this does not seem like a healthy or sustainable way for our society to deal with tragedy.

> I don’t know exactly what compensation they should get, but this does not seem like a healthy or sustainable way for our society to deal with tragedy.

I don't know if it's healthy or sustainable, but it definitely sounds healthier than ignoring the tragedy altogether.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#313

Post by avgDev »

zenethian wrote: post #142

What's wild is that if I go to the Infowars website I can't actually tell if The Onion is controlling it yet or not. It all looks like satire already, full of absolutely ridiculous headlines.

Imagine there are humans who read those headlines and think to themselves that it is real.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#314

Post by sofixa »

dmix wrote: post #191
reaperducer wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

> It is a private entity that will operate outside the government, and influence the president. What could possibly go wrong? National Science Board is an external advisory board to the US gov. There's tons of examples of this sort of thing, especially in education and science.

Pretty sure the National Science Board isn't co-chaired by a CEO and part owner multibillionaire with direct personal interests around government funded science projects though.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#315

Post by shadowgovt »

nixdev wrote: post #116
Taters91 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court system worked very well in this case. A set of parents brought a civil lawsuit against a well-known man who was spreading what they thought were lies and inflicting emotional distress. Jones had plenty of time to respond, and he decided not to. Therefore, the case was decided in default, as is the way all civil cases would have been. Then, a jury of his peers was brought in to decide on the size of the pena…

[flagged]

The court records show that he claimed he could not find documents that were then turned over, inadvertently, to the plaintiffs' attorney in an unrelated filing. This seriously raises the question of whether he is actually that inept at finding documents when compelled by law or intentionally tried to hide them.

It turns out juries don't like feeling they were deceived. And he did himself no favors calling the whole situation a "Perry Mason moment."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/alex-jones-may-have-lied-co...

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#316

Post by recipe_man_ »

nixdev wrote: post #116
Taters91 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court system worked very well in this case. A set of parents brought a civil lawsuit against a well-known man who was spreading what they thought were lies and inflicting emotional distress. Jones had plenty of time to respond, and he decided not to. Therefore, the case was decided in default, as is the way all civil cases would have been. Then, a jury of his peers was brought in to decide on the size of the pena…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#317

Post by Evidlo »

petercooper wrote: post #99

I'm watching his stream just to see how the drama goes down and a silly tech-adjacent bit popped up when he started ranting about Linux and how if "they" were trying to take Linus Torvalds down, they still couldn't ever own Linux!

Is there a recording of this?

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#318

Post by mooreds »

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

"Much like family members, our brands are abstract nodes of wealth, interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market. And just like family members, our brands regard one another with mutual suspicion and malice."

Glorious.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#319

Post by [deleted] »

Larrikin wrote: post #273
jacknews wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot quantify it. IMHO emotional damage is not a thing, at least in terms of people merely saying things about you. Have you not heard 'sticks and stones...'? If someone claims false facts about you, and is credible, and that then has a material impact on you, then sure, that might be something for the law. Otherwise we'd be prosecuting every gossip.

Your feelings that it is not a thing have no bearing on the actual law. I'm sure you and Alex Jones both agree, but luckily the victims, the jury, and the law don't.

[deleted]

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#320

Post by talldayo »

ziddoap wrote: post #132
dmvdoug wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I w…

Funny, for sure, but does not explain what they will be doing in reality.

That, or you didn't take them seriously enough. Bring me the candy bar!
Post reply on HN