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The Onion buys Infowars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#281

Post by imiric »

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…

> We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website.

Isn't it that already?

And how would The Onion know what funny actually is? Their content hasn't been that for well over a decade now.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#282

Post by randomdata »

jacknews wrote: post #249
duxup wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no possible way that someone ranting on the internet can cause 1.5 billion of emotional damage I'd like to see someone quantify what a reasonable number would be and how they came to it. I served on a jury where we had to award similar damages. "Anyone got any ideas how to account for this?" I asked .... nobody had any good ones.

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.

> You cannot quantify it.

You can, within some reasonable margin, quantify the opportunity cost, though, which is what such reparations are intended to compensate.

Best I can find was that there were 15 plaintiffs, each representing a family. If we assume an average family of four, let's say there are 60 beneficiaries, or $25 million per person. That's about an order of magnitude more than the typical person would expect to make in their lifetime.

There should be something to suggest that they had an income trend or other demonstration of similar potential to have otherwise earned that much if Infowars/Alex Jones had not done what they did. I wonder what showed that?

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#283

Post by johannes1234321 »

lucianbr wrote: post #200
maeln wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. It does make sense in a lot of cas…

> You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people? I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everythin…

> Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives?

In many countries that is done based on laws describing career progression process.

In Germany most administration workers are "career" folks, who study at the university of administration and then have a career paths, where levels at are relatively clearly described. Only heads of different authorities are "political" positions, which are nominated by ministers and can be fired/retired relatively easily but even those in most cases stay across administrations. Only ministers and their direct staff change.

In some ministries there sometimes is the saying "we don't care who is minoster below us" but if a some minister with an agenda is appointed they still can be very effective.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#284

Post by seanw444 »

chairmansteve wrote: post #193
pipeline_peak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter/X Why not call it one or the other?

Call it Twitter. Everyone knows what you mean, and it annoys Elon.

I'm not even your average Elon hater, and I still think X is a stupid name. Dude should've just kept the name and brand that everyone knows already.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#285

Post by ceejayoz »

loopdoend wrote: post #272
jsheard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd better think twice as long as Ted Kaczynski remains on The Onions editorial board[1], he also knows a few things about splitting things into multiple solids. [1] https://i.imgur.com/iNDpZt2.png

Didn't he die in jail last year?

I rather suspect that won't matter to The Onion.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#286

Post by shagie »

bmitc wrote: post #237
bilbo0s wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

While their stuff is brilliant at times, I don't actively seek it out because it leaves me pretty depressed and anxious. The parodies are almost indistinguishable from real events these days.

Alas, "Onion Now: Focus" https://youtu.be/Bex5LyzbbBE

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#287

Post by shadowgovt »

loopdoend wrote: post #272
jsheard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd better think twice as long as Ted Kaczynski remains on The Onions editorial board[1], he also knows a few things about splitting things into multiple solids. [1] https://i.imgur.com/iNDpZt2.png

Didn't he die in jail last year?

That's what they want us to think... Is what I'm pretty sure InfoWars would tell me.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#288

Post by TeeMassive »

pyrale wrote: post #267
TeeMassive wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that the SH families will receive the kind of money they could have had if they accepted Jones' original offer. Their lawyers made it clear they were in it not for their clients' interest but for their own political agenda.

Maybe the families were more interested in fixing the issue than in receiving some blood money in exchange for continued harm.

Well they asked for money, not "fixing the issue", which is not enforceable anyway without violating the 1st so that's not even a power the court has. Alex Jones will still be able to speak and profit from it, just not under the Infowars brand.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#289

Post by Taters91 »

nixdev wrote: post #118
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]

Do you think that I think his friends and colleagues were on the jury?

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#290

Post by barryrandall »

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?

On the internet, telling people what they want to hear will always attract an audience. If the audience is larger than a thousand or so people, then you can make money by leveraging your audience's trust in you to sell them supplements, cash for gold schemes, boxed mattresses, meal delivery kits, or VPNs.
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