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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

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Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#511

Post by randomfool »

ajb wrote: post #206
jmward01 wrote: post #42

It is clear that Jones and his relatives have moved money and assets around in order to shield them from the verdict. Now, money that should have been already given to the victims is being used to steal back the megaphone that caused harmed in the first place. The end effect will probably be even more subscribers and money for Jones which he will use with even less restraint since he knows there are no consequences.…

That's not what this judgement says. It actually says the sale did not generate enough money for the creditors and the process should be run again. I think the Judge maybe naive in thinking that re-running an auction will generate more money (normally it will generate less, as the losing bidders will drop out) but he did not agree with Jones' claims.

The actual issue is that the winning bid was $7m- $1.75m cash + $5.25m in debt forgiveness. The question is whether that bid is higher than the competing $3.5m all-cash bid.

That $5.25m debt forgiveness would have to be valued at $1.75m or more for the winning bid to actually be higher, but if other creditors are assuming that they will have losses of higher than 66% then the $3.5m all-cash bid would actually be better for other creditors.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#512

Post by busterarm »

skulk wrote: post #456
busterarm wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true either though. The default judgment was for not complying with the discovery process to the satisfaction of the court. Other options like perjury charges were available to the court, but the court chose the nuclear option to default against Jones. Also in many cases courts will allow you to walk back from the circumstances that ended up with a person in default and to proceed with a fair trial. I even…

I'm not going to dig up the transcripts, but I was following this pretty closely when it happened. If memory serves right, Jones was given several chances to comply with discovery requests and was constantly attempting to misdirect and otherwise disrupt the proceedings. It's not like the court balked at the first weird thing the defense did and immediately entered into a default judgement. I believe the default judge…

Wanted a separate post for this comment --

I have never, ever seen a judge use contempt or a default judgment (against someone represented in court) without directly threatening to use that power first.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#513

Post by vasco »

pdpi wrote: post #288
goodluckchuck wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what the internet says, it didn’t go to the highest bidder.

Put simply, the internet is wrong. FUAC's offer was all cash. The Onion offered less cash, but offered other incentives (AIUI, a share of whatever revenue they make from Infowars in the future). Saying that The Onion's bid was lower requires you to put a dollar value on those other incentives. The fact that the two creditors (read: victims' families) that would benefit from those incentives were willing to sacrifice…

> a share of whatever revenue they make from Infowars in the future

What is that realistically? They said they will turn it into gun safety information. How does a gun safety information site make money out of an audience of people expecting a guy shouting about conspiracy theories?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#514

Post by peterfirefly »

mrguyorama wrote: post #478
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A worked example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_(Italy)

A better example in the US is the thousands of innocent black men who have been hanged from a tree because "everyone knows they did it"

[flagged]

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#515

Post by booleandilemma »

impossiblefork wrote: post #276
enraged_camel wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As has been noted in other threads on this page: free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without consequence. It specifically does NOT mean you cannot get sued for saying something that demonstrably causes immense harm to someone.

But a billion dollars. The order of magnitude isn't 'immense stress to an individual', it's on the order of burning down tens or hundreds of houses.

They know Alex Jones has money. They're coming after his money. I think it's as simple as that. And I wouldn't be surprised if the judge simply doesn't like the guy.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#516

Post by ipaddr »

ceejayoz wrote: post #234
coding123 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And killing the infowars brand means little in the short/long run. The real brand is Alex's name. It's not like his audience will suddenly not follow him to a new show with a new name. This is absolutely true. Other media people that lost their job or channel, handle on various platforms, typically refresh to the same number of followers within a year or two.

> The real brand is Alex's name. It's not like his audience will suddenly not follow him to a new show with a new name. They get to garnish those profits, too.

No bankruptcy resolves the debt. Otherwise there would be no point in a bankruptcy process.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#517

Post by lupusreal »

pdpi wrote: post #474
sidewndr46 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Global Tetrahedron would generate revenue from InfoWars is a farce. Jones is InfoWars. Any market value assigned to InfoWars without Jones explicitly involvement is a farce. Even a non bankruptcy sale of InfoWars would require him to participate in the business for an extended period of time. Even then, it'd just be some investor bankrolling Jones.

That might or might not be true. If Infowars is _that_ worthless without Jones, then _any_ offer is a farce and the whole auction is pointless.

> If Infowars is _that_ worthless without Jones, then _any_ offer is a farce

That doesn't make sense. A genuine offer for an unprofitable thing could be made. That's not farcical, just a bad investment.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#518

Post by stuaxo »

devops99 wrote: post #413
ethbr1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mere defamation I think what Alex Jones did is more than mere defamation. Repeatedly lying about the reality of a school mass shooting, over years, in such a way that he caused threats to be made against the families of victims? Incitement to credible threats of violence, and especially continuing to do so even after you're aware that's what your listeners are doing, deserves severe consequences.

> in such a way that he caused threats In such a way that somebody else decided on their own do something...

I don't know about the US, but incitement to violence is a crime in other countries.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#519

Post by paulpauper »

dylan604 wrote: post #484
flatline wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the comment I was looking for. He said he was going to intervene and something to the effect of “fix it.” This seems like a logical outcome of that statement.

You know, if Elon buys it at the same levels of inflated values he did for Twitter so that the creditors get paid, I'm kind of okay with that. Just kind of. His fix will not go to Jones. Jones is not going away however this ends. Just the brand. He can create a new brand.

without jones then what good is the brand?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#520

Post by paulpauper »

mountainriver wrote: post #244
ajb wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what this judgement says. It actually says the sale did not generate enough money for the creditors and the process should be run again. I think the Judge maybe naive in thinking that re-running an auction will generate more money (normally it will generate less, as the losing bidders will drop out) but he did not agree with Jones' claims.

Yep so that Elon can step in and buy it

I doubt elon will want it
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