In an outcome beyond parody, a bankruptcy judge puts The Onion’s Infowars purchase on hold

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When reality becomes stranger than satire, maybe the satirists can teach us something. Or, maybe the last laugh will be on them after all. The Onion said on Thursday that its parent company bought Infowars, the disgraced purveyor of Sandy Hook misinformation and vendor of pseudoscience supplements. The Onion posted on Bluesky that it plans to transform the rebooted Infowars into “a very funny, very stupid website.” However, the Texas judge overseeing the bankruptcy sale temporarily halted the takeover, citing concerns about the auction process. A review hearing will be scheduled for next week.

The Onion said it received the blessing of the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to scoop up Infowars in a bankruptcy auction. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit founded in the massacre’s aftermath, reportedly plans to advertise on the rebooted site if the sale is finalized.

Infowars founder Alex Jones was found liable in 2022 for nearly $1.5 billion in damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six adult staffers.

After The Onion’s triumphant announcement on Thursday, the AP reported that US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez called for an evidentiary hearing to review the auction that led to the takeover. Christopher Murray, the trustee overseeing the auction, reportedly said in court that The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, didn’t offer the highest bid in cash. However, the sale price included a clause where some Sandy Hook families would forego their portion of the proceeds to pay Jones’ other creditors. Murray said Global Tetrahedron’s bid was the best despite having a lower (undisclosed) cash amount due to that agreement.

The only other bidder was First United American Companies, which runs a website using Jones’ name to sell his supplements. The company reportedly placed a $3.5 million bid that, based on cash alone, would have won the secret auction. First United’s attorney reportedly told the judge on Thursday that the trustee changed the auction process days before, omitting a final round on Wednesday that would have given the parties a chance to outbid each other.

The trustee only chose from the sealed bids submitted last week. However, he said his decision followed Judge Lopez’s auction rules in September, describing the final round as optional.

Lopez struck a disapproving tone in court, throwing the sale into question. “We’re all going to an evidentiary hearing, and I’m going to figure out exactly what happened,” the judge reportedly said. “No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.”

Elon Musk allowed Jones back on X (Twitter) last year after the platform “permanently” banned him in 2018 under its previous ownership.

As America’s chief satire publication (at least of those doing so consciously), The Onion’s (perhaps premature) announcement of the purchase stayed on brand. Its tone, hinting at what’s to come, resembled The Colbert Report on steroids — or maybe Jones’ “Survival Shield X-2” pills.

“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic ‘panic’ and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses,” The Onion wrote in a truth-meets-fiction announcement. “With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.”

If the sale still ends up in its hands, The Onion plans to rebrand Infowars as a parody of itself (more than it already was), poking fun at “weird internet personalities” like Jones, according to The New York Times. Ben Collins, the CEO of Global Tetrahedron, hasn’t said how much it paid to transform Infowars’ destructive self-parody into constructive satire. (Collins reported extensively on Infowars when covering misinformation at NBC News.) He plans to launch the rebooted site in January.

Update, November 15, 2024, 1:47PM ET: This story has been updated to reflect the sale’s finality being thrown into limbo at a court hearing after the announcement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/in-an-outcome-beyond-parody-the-onion-has-bought-infowars-171701601.html?src=rss 

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