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The Onion buys Infowars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#941

Post by lupusreal »

netsharc wrote: post #755
barryrandall wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people wonder what the point is of flat-earthers arguing with everyone about their "alternative science". The answer is so they can identify the fools who they can scam with their various schemes...

Most flat earthers are just trolls who are baiting people who can't help but bite when somebody is wrong on the internet.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#942

Post by peppers-ghost »

GuB-42 wrote: post #882
SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope for the opposite, Jones has so much video and audio content available cloning him digitally and shoving an AI generated fist, ahem, somewhere, and using his likeness as the satire would be cathartic. Better yet he himself argued in court that the person live on Info Wars is a character inseparable from the brand.

Isn't that illegal? If it isn't, it may become so in the near future as many legislations are working on it. Satire is protected in the US and many other countries, but "cloning" a person using AI implies that it makes difficult to distinguish between the real person and the clone. I guess it can pass if it is obvious that it is indeed satire, but that would be risky. Maybe it could be remediated by having him wear a…

I don't think it would be in this case. It's possible his likeness will be included in the sale due to him claiming he played a character on infowars.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#943

Post by darkarmani »

rs999gti wrote: post #509
qingcharles wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawfare? This is literally how defamation works. If someone said on the Internet said that rs999gti was a "tax-evading, pyramid-scheming, mullet-wearing, karaoke-ruining, ferret-hoarding, snake-oil-selling, cereal-with-water-eating, grammar-mangling, table-manner-less, engagement-ring-pawning, salad-dodging, traffic-cone-stealing, apology-dodger," and it wasn’t true, I think you’d probably like to sue them and take t…

> Lawfare? Yes the court's judgment is so high, 1B USD, that he cannot make money without it being garnished. How does he get back to work? I personally do not think anyone should lose their livelihood over speech, NOTE: I did not say free speech. What he did is reprehensible but not enough that he is basically black balled from making a living. Penalties yes, loss of livelihood no.

> Yes the court's judgment is so high, 1B USD, that he cannot make money without it being garnished. How does he get back to work? I personally do not think anyone should lose their livelihood over speech

He was harassing parents of dead children in order to personally enrich himself. Why do you think he shouldn't have to forgo his ill begotten gains? It's only 1B USD, because he refused to stop doing it. And then he decided not to really show up for court and accept the summary judgement of 1B USD.

Most of his penalty has nothing to do with speech. He can keep on speaking all he wants. He might suffer consequences, but he is free to say whatever he wants to.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#944

Post by cogman10 »

linuxftw wrote: post #932
cogman10 wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fake news. The onion did indeed win the auction. What remains to be seen is if the sandyhook parents are allowed to forego some of their claim against Jones to secure the purchase, which frankly I can't see why they couldn't. The auction is there to settle Jones' debts and some of his largest debtors are willing to release some of his nondischargeable debt for Infowars. He owes some of the family's 100 milli…

The onion did not win the auction. The trustee selected the onion's offer despite it not being the highest. The judge is going to toss that out. Jone's people are also saying the auction (other than selecting the winner) wasn't conducted in accordance with the judge's order. Most likely the sale will be awarded to the Jones-friendly high bidder.

> The trustee selected the onion's offer despite it not being the highest.

We do not know what the onion's bid was. We only have what Jones says it was. Until the actual hearing happens the exact details of what the onion offered are unknown. We do know they worked with the sandy hook parents and it stands to reason that they are leveraging their outstanding debts against jones to fund the purchase.

The ONLY source of the "it was a lower bid" is known liar Alex Jones. Who also spent the entire day yesterday talking about how the democrats were going to storm his building to evict him. Only to later meekly walk out of the building when he realized that wasn't going to happen.

> The judge is going to toss that out.

Maybe, depends on what is found in the evidentiary hearing. Sort of the point of such a hearing, to get everyone in the room and crack open what happened and why.

But I have 2 bits of cold water for the Jones narrative of "the deep state democrats" treating him unfairly.

1. The trustee is a professional receiver court appointed. Meaning they are unlikely to have tried to "fuck" over Jones (That'd screw them out of future receiverships).

2. The company that ran the auction does it professionally. They are unlikely to have to have done the deep state's bidding just to screw over Jones. That would impact their ability to run future auctions. Further, the auctioneers earn money based on the final sale price which would doubly hurt them in the case that the trustee ended up accepting a lower bid.

> Jone's people are also saying the auction (other than selecting the winner) wasn't conducted in accordance with the judge's order.

I got news for you, Jones says that about every single court case or action against him that doesn't go his way. It's always a secret enemy that's out to screw him or silence him. That's because that narrative allows him to sell more sea algae.

> Most likely the sale will be awarded to the Jones-friendly high bidder.

If it's found that there were major problems with the auction, the most likely outcome is the auction will simply be reran with a new auction house and a new trustee. If there were such major problems with the way things were done, it's highly unlikely that just letting the results of the last auction stand will be good enough. After all, were their other bidders excluded by the auction house? Was there really a transparency issue? If an auction was ran counter to a court order, you throw out the results and redo.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#946

Post by highcountess »

zdw wrote: post #395

What really should have happened in this case, like the the Parkland killer, was for the people who sued to also take his Name and Likeness. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/families-settle-court-b... This would hopefully avoid letting him just rebuild another slime empire.

You are quite the tyrant. Think about what you are proposing. You should be ashamed

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#948

Post by jfengel »

Rendello wrote: post #940
jfengel wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to design a system to encourage such multidimensional parties. A two-party system seems like an inevitable consequence of the fact that there is exactly 1 winner in any election. Even when a system nominally has more than two parties, there are usually two dominant parties. Other parties either align with one or the other, or are sidelined. People associated with losing parties never seem to be pleas…

It's not all or nothing, as the leader of a country doesn't rule alone. Even if a system encourages two dominant parties, the smaller parties can have a big effect. In Canada, the two big (Federal) parties are the Liberals and the Conservatives, and they always win federally. But it's still not all-or-nothing. For example, the Liberal party often adopts NDP positions if they're gaining popular support. And when the b…

It's my belief that it's Canadians that make Canada a lot less prone to political extremism.

But watch out: America tends to be on the forefront of things. Political extremism persists because it's politically successful. Extremists are enthusiastic, and moderates often follow them because it gets them what they want.

I hope Canadian's cultural adversion to the kind of behavior Americans display will save you for a long time to come. But the fact is that extremism works, and many people will prefer to win against their principles than lose with them.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#949

Post by EvanAnderson »

peppers-ghost wrote: post #942
GuB-42 wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that illegal? If it isn't, it may become so in the near future as many legislations are working on it. Satire is protected in the US and many other countries, but "cloning" a person using AI implies that it makes difficult to distinguish between the real person and the clone. I guess it can pass if it is obvious that it is indeed satire, but that would be risky. Maybe it could be remediated by having him wear a…

I don't think it would be in this case. It's possible his likeness will be included in the sale due to him claiming he played a character on infowars.

I love the idea that the character and likeness would be Infowars' IP and went with the sale. That claim he made during the custody proceedings, about playing a character, should definitely come back to bite him in the ass.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#950

Post by lynndotpy »

mportela wrote: post #875
lynndotpy wrote: post #585

At the time the news of the Sandy Hook shooting broke, I was a highschooler in a vo-tech school in Connecticut. Friday in late December are usually unserious days in K-12! People had their sights set on winter break and work was thin. But I remember that day had a lot of commotion, a lot of seriousness, and then a lot of silence. Being a vo-tech school, we had students from all over the state. Some kids left or were…

> I saw my mom gradually become a Sandy Hook "truther" as she fell deep down Facebook rabbitholes. It was bad. Although she eventually came around (...) Mind sharing how she came around? My dad fell a similar hole but I haven't been able to rescue him yet.

She spends almost all of her time on Facebook, and I'm just guessing her feed changed eventually.

I remember her being convinced that the parents weren't reacting like she'd expect a grieving parent to. She was deep in Sandy Hook Truther groups.

I wish I could say it was arguments and logic and reasoning, or the pain being borne by the community around her. But I think she just believes everything she sees on Facebook, and Facebook stopped showing her Sandy Hook Truther stuff.

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