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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

#381

Post by usrusr »

bluGill wrote: post #232
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.

Will the losing bidders drop out, or not? In a sealed bid you have to guess what others will bid - you want to bid $1 more than your competitors (or if you will lose the bid make your competitor pay as much as possible). The judge is saying because the bids were seals losing bidders had no clue what their correct bid is and some are likely to have bid less than they would have in open bidding. Who is right I don't kn…

Uncertainty makes bids go up. Introducing the possibility that perhaps there might be a second round after a bid turned out to be too low reduces uncertainty.

Imagine game theory dynamics in poker if an unhappy player could say "well, come to think of it, I guess I did not really want to see, I'd rather fold"

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#382

Post by rbanffy »

cess11 wrote: post #60
wakawaka28 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

He can't pay his debts. What alternative to bankruptcy do you propose?

Some societies in the past would suggest indentured servitude. In this case, I'd find it rather amusing.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#383

Post by netbioserror »

Sparkle-san wrote: post #377
netbioserror wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How about having people threatening to rape and murder your family because they're convinced your lying and know where you live so you constantly have to move and try to hide your whereabouts. https://apnews.com/article/shootings-school-connecticut-alex...

[flagged]

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#384

Post by bigtex88 »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #51
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.…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#385

Post by bigtex88 »

nemo44x wrote: post #318
gklitz wrote: 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]

No it's not, but thank you for this insightful comment.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#387

Post by busterarm »

preciousoo wrote: post #271
impossiblefork wrote: post #249

I really don't understand how a judgement this large can be reasonable in a case where nobody has had his house burned down. A billion dollars is ten billion crowns, that's 10 000 million crowns, or around 5 000 apartments. I don't understand how 5 000 apartments can be a judgement handed out to an individual over something he says. It doesn't really matter what he says, when it's this kind of huge amounts. One can't…

How about in a case where libel was relentlessly thrown at families over the course of years, on one of the internets largest and most engaged audiences, leading to harassment, threats, and assault? What should the judgment be for that?

The same way that big media organizations get away with this in court.

"This content is entertainment and there's no way that any reasonable person could construe this information as facts." If MSNBC, CNN and Fox News can get away with this argument every time they are sued, I don't see how InfoWars doesn't.

But then again, court cases aren't about facts or truth.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#389

Post by JumpCrisscross »

HWR_14 wrote: post #315
rtkwe wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reasoning by the judge seemed to be that a single round sealed bid process is unlikely to maximize the sale price which on it's surface seems pretty accurate. So long as the families forgoing parts of their judgements is allowed to be part of the bids though any competing bids seem doomed, it's a big war chest they can throw around that's essentially meaningless because they'll never be able to collect it an…

I thought the other reason was that some creditors were trying to use their debt forgiveness as a credit to purchase inforwars. Which obviously doesn't make sense in a bankruptcy, since the whole point is the creditors are not going to get paid back 100%.

> Which obviously doesn't make sense in a bankruptcy, since the whole point is the creditors are not going to get paid back 100%

The creditors already own the asset. The estate is selling, not Alex Jones.

If you asked every creditor which bid they preferred, which do you think they'd choose? The creditors forgoing their claims obviously prefer one. As for the rest, they'll choose the one that pays them more: The Onion's bid.

This isn't how bankruptcy works in practice, but it's a good shorthand for what the correct answer should be.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#390

Post by rtkwe »

jillyboel wrote: post #371
rtkwe wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reasoning by the judge seemed to be that a single round sealed bid process is unlikely to maximize the sale price which on it's surface seems pretty accurate. So long as the families forgoing parts of their judgements is allowed to be part of the bids though any competing bids seem doomed, it's a big war chest they can throw around that's essentially meaningless because they'll never be able to collect it an…

Why does the judge care about maximizing the value for a convicted criminal?

It's the value that goes to the creditors in the bankruptcy and is the legal requirement for the bankruptcy process. Jones gets none of this money he doesn't own InfoWars since he entered the bankruptcy process.
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