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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

541–550 of 1001 posts

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#541
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no consequences." This is basically going to be the United States for the immediate future, if you're connected to the right people. Downvote all you want, but we see it with our own eyes.

When has it been otherwise? See also: Hunter Biden.

It's never 0 or 100. But it does ebb and flow, and boy is it about to flow.

Comparing one guy who was in the hot seat only because of his surname to the incoming shit storm is risible.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Repeatedly accusing the families of being actors lying about the event sounds like defamation of living people to me

The argument the lawsuit wasn't about defending the honor of the dead kids while going after the nearest deep pockets is pretty questionable. I don't condone what Jones said but it seems pretty clear to me the reason the parents wanted the money was because they felt Jones was selling a false story about their children.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#543

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.

>You know, if Elon buys it at the same levels of inflated values he did for Twitter so that the creditors get paid,

He paid $44B. He probably could have got it for less at the time, but if you think it's not worth that, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's literally where all news gets broken. All of it. And he's using it to influence global politics.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#544
post #506

The amount of folks here supporting Alex Jones is completely shocking to me. He built a business out of attacking and re-victimizing parents whose children were murdered. He's scum of the earth. That business was taken away from him, and folks think that's too much? What the actual fuck.

It shocking to me too. I can't understand how people are 'both sides-ing' this or just supporting him under some free speech argument. Free speech has limits and a court found Jones went too far and that cost him his business.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#545
post #513
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know what it is. It's an investment, it carries risks with it. That said, if I were one of the Sandy Hook families, turning Infowars into a gun safety site would hold more value than any money you could pay me. Classic case of "maximising shareholder value" not being the same as "maximising revenue".

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#546
post #456

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…

>given several chances to comply with discovery requests

The Jones side claims that these discovery requests were for documents that don't exist. The linked judgement provides no detail on what the specific discovery requests were that went unanswered.

Do you know what the discovery requests were for specifically?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Jones will create his own new brand once this is settled.

So it is more of a question to the bankruptcy court itself, as I would agree that there's no value in Infowars without Jones. So my opening bid to the court is $1.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#548
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he did was beyond mere defamation. It was heinous, it was blatant and deliberate dishonesty, and targeted vulnerable victims. Repeating the verifiable lie that the Sandy Hook incident did not happen, and promoting violence against the surviving families, despite repeated opportunities to stop without penalty, is beyond forgivable. And this penalty is because he declined to defend this behavior. Remember, it's a…

No matter how heinous you may find his speech, in America, under the First Amendment, Jones (or any nutball or even Nazi you may choose to pick) has a right to say it - even if he has a large Radio and Podcast megaphone. The First Amendment is nearly absolute, and must protect unpopular and offensive speech even more than it protects popular speech. (Don't start with the bogus "fire in a crowded theater exception" -…

I don't disagree with you.

As much as I'd personally enjoy never hearing from or about him again, I agree that 1A is an extremely important right that should be defended, even if you hate what the person is saying.

But free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. Taking away infowars does not stop him from continuing to speak his nonsense.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#549
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not discuss "proper processes" when Jones illegally hid evidence and refused to participate in our legal system to the point of getting a default judgement against him. Everything he was accused of he did - he refused the right to participate in our justice system and accepted full liability for his actions. On the point of "any award in the billions (much less trillions, as they initially demanded) is exorbita…

[flagged]

> The intent was not to get restitution, but rather to destroy the business. That seems unethical

Sometimes destruction of the business is restitution. Nothing unethical about that.

Someone saying publicly that you faked your child's death is an unforgivable insult. Money is beside the point here.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#550
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incitement means means explicitly encouraging. He was literally, as in literally, comparing the families of the victims to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. I don’t know about you, but if someone has been screaming at me for years that I need to be ready for armed conflict with “the enemy” and then points to someone screaming “that guy’s Hitler”, I would definitely take that as explicit encouragement. But obviously it’s…

[flagged]

I mean...they literally have people waving Nazi flags among their ranks and don't denounce them.
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