Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, in move that would end his ownership of Infowars

Got_Bent@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 809 points –
Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, in move that would end his ownership of Infowars | CNN Business
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Poor guy just wanted to spread vicious lies about people whose children were murdered. Who amongst us hasn't done that?

My grandma who died in the hospital was a false flag operation.

Please buy my dick pills!

His 93-year-old grandmother died of breast cancer, and he chalked it up to her getting the Polio vaccine 60 years earlier, so this is pretty accurate.

I think Jones's story is kinda sad, honestly.

I think he's a genuinely low IQ individual who is passionate about digging around where he shouldn't dig, and trying to make sense of things. He flew too close to the sun by actually doing some decent investigative journalism and getting due praise when he was way younger and less of a deranged alcoholic. And that success got to his tiny brain, and then alcohol and drugs... And now he's a deranged lunatic who... Basically wants to spread lies about people whose children were murdered. And he's so lost in this "truth seeker" identity that has so clearly deteriorated to insanity, that he's not only willing to, but he is ultimately going to die on this hill.

Not saying he hasn't earned that, but I guess I'm saying I'd still be interested to know the results of a lengthy psychiatric eval on him.

I'm pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing. He's a unscrupulous grifter that was in it for the money from day one. Low IQ is no excuse for being a scumbag.

He's a unscrupulous grifter that was in it for the money from day one

Yeah, the Sandy hook story was bringing in millions of dollars. He knew very well what he was doing and he kept at it because he only cared for his personal gain. He's a huge piece of shit.

i honestly don't care what his intentions were. he created suffering with his actions. in order to prevent that from happening again, he needs to be held up as an example of what happens to people that work against humanity.

Jones is on record that he has untreated sleep apnea. He's also an alcoholic. The dude has full on brain damage. I'm guessing he's dead by mid 60s from early onset alzheimers.

Kinda what I mean. Like yeah he's been milking an evil cow to rake in millions.. but honestly, I think his other option is to live out of a van until he has a heart attack. Not saying it isn't befitting... Just saying. It's sad.

If you listen to his show, dude really likes movies, especially sci-fi . In another life, he could have been someone with a sci-fi movie themed podcast that I would have listened to religiously. But instead he chose to profit off spreading lies about elections, the climate, COVID, school shootings, etc. Unfortunately, he was born into the John Birch Society and so the poor kid had no chance of growing up decent.

I look at Alex Jones the same way I look at Trump. Both are terrible people who had shit parents and obviously that doesn't excuse their behavior now, it's just... sad.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Jones doesn't seem like someone trying to sell a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories which he doesn't believe himself. He seems like he's just genuinely batshit crazy.

My mom was a big fan of his and I grew up in the 90s hearing him everyday. For what little this is worth I think he was at one point sincere. He saw humans as sheep with wolves lurking around that he alone could save us from. I do believe that about the man.

But yeah whatever he once was has no relationship to what he became.

Agreed. His fake tears really moved me and my family. Where can we donate?

Good, leave this piece of shit broke and living under a bridge. He deserves FAR more than he's gotten thus far. Fuck him!

What’s wild is that this skid mark on the underpants of society will probably always somehow have enough of a following to keep himself comfortable. What a world we live in.

The liquidation of Jones’ assets does not mean that Infowars will cease to exist. Several outcomes are possible. The court-appointed trustee could sell the business to another owner, for instance.

Don’t celebrate too soon. Some shadowy investors are going to bail him out.

The families are not super money motivated. They could just accept the company in the same way OJ Simpson lost his book rights.

Accept the company as payment and put up a youtube video of the set getting burned in the parking lot. After all infowars become a wikipage debunking every single lie told on the program.

The most devastating insult they could accomplish, if they’re simply handed his assets relatively untouched, is to turn it into a reputable, top-tier news organization. Now that would be delightfully karmic.

But the brands value is in the personality. Killing info wars only creates an opportunity for him to create Schminfo Schwarz with little hiccup. Buying sets and whatnot with business partners is trivial. People make podcasts in their closets at home.

That is always going to happen but losing the infowars brand is really bad and the cost of reestablishing a recognizable brand from basically scratch is very expensive and difficult. I would argue that losing the brand is worse for him than any other asset he has.

The brand means nothing. It literally just means Alex Jones to everyone. If Alex Jones isnt on info wars then infowars dies. Wherever Jones goes he'll do the same thing and have the same audience.

People keep saying that but every time a chud gets deplatformed their numbers gets decimated. A lot follows you but not everyone and growth takes a massive hit because all the boomers finding the show on Facebook will try to go to infowars because that's where the 2 year old video is telling you to go.

Video backlog is fucked, SEO is fucked. They can go ahead and search for Alex Jones but you only get results of him getting fucked but not where to go because the new website doesn't have good standing yet with Google because nobody is linking to your new page.

He hasn't been deplatformed. He lost a brand name that is synonymous with himself. He can add a 2 to his web addresses and be right back where he is in a few days. Frankly all this attention he's getting from the media will probably just help him accomplish that. His listeners are total morons, but they are also addicted to his bullshit. Addicts find their shit, Even the dumb ones.

Losing your brand and website is being deplattfomed. People act like it's a binary thing where deplattforming either needs to wipe you off the face of the earth or it was pointless. The disruption will cost him viewers because while he sets up a new base his viewers will get bored and go to watch other things.

Not everyone will get bored, but enough people will move on for it to be a real concern for Alex Jones.

Ask any creator on the internet how bad a disruption in viewership is.

Alex Jones is a hydra and Infowars is but one of his heads.

Infowars, itself, means nothing. Killing it will do no good.

He is the brand. And what's worse, his followers live for bad press.

Losing your brand and website is being deplattfomed. People act like it's a binary thing where deplattforming either needs to wipe you off the face of the earth or it was pointless

Sorry but words have meanings and he's lost no access to any platform as a result of this.

The disruption will cost him viewers because while he sets up a new base his viewers will get bored and go to watch other things.

I hope if this ever actually happens you'll come back and rub it in my face. I'm not going to bother taking a note because it isn't going to happen and you won't. In reality, every trump voter that didn't listen to Alex Jones already is going to watch the news and start regardless of whether it's on Infowars or Infowars. 2.

Ask any creator on the internet how bad a disruption in viewership is.

That's your job brother. You go ask some and come back and prove your point with their answers. It's not my job to try to beat my own point. I'm sure they don't like it but I also don't give a s***. Andrew Callaghan seems to have bounced back just fine.

And frankly, it's just silly for you to compare Alex Jones to YouTubers or whatever you are considering content creators to be.

Lemmy really is just reddit with more tedious people.

Don't call yourself that. You'll learn to look up what words mean someday. I'd be happy to help you finish 5th grade unlike those meanies on that website.

The brand means nothing. It literally just means Alex Jones to everyone. If Alex Jones isnt on info wars then infowars dies

Yep. Pop-quiz for anyone (not you, Knowledge Fight wonks!):

Can you name literally any other host who has a show on InfoWars, without looking up their names?

I'm a knowledge fight wonk but if I wasn't I'd say "that guy that failed to marry Christina Ricci"

He's been telling his listeners not to buy from his store, but to buy directly from his dad's website (who is a sponsor on his show and sells their "health" products though the show).

For those who don’t get it: If they buy from the Infowars store, those assets can be seized. If they buy from his dad, the assets are protected because his dad wasn’t the one who got sued. It’s a very blatant asset-hiding scheme.

Imagine if the owner of a big brand were going bankrupt and had to sell off all of their assets, (including the holdings for the store.) So instead, they start telling people to buy from their dad’s store, which is virtually identical in every way and the only difference is that the money ends up in your dad’s account instead of yours. It’s intentionally poisoning the asset seizure, by refusing to continue operating as a shop prior to your bankruptcy.

I think it's more likely that someone else buys it for the audience it already has, not for Alex, and uses that for good or ill. It could end up as more of the same, or it could get much better or worse.

The sandy hook families do have a say in this process (they turned down a "let jones use his ad revenue to pay them back" plan)

Of course, there are many billionaires in the US who would spend what for them is nothing but small change to bail Jones out and setup a new operation for him. Musk, the Kochs, the Mercers, the list goes on.

They should turn infowars into a conspiracy debunking site.

Ok or I could multiply my eggs before they hatch by hoping Soros or some other right wing boogie man buys it haha

Well, this past weekend, he talked as if it was his last show, that they were "gonna put the padlocks on the building and close us down" and that he knew they were going to do that because his powers told him so, powers from God. They even did a greatest hits with guests like Roger stone, Steve bannon, and Nick Fuentes and best of all, Flat Earth Dave (not really best of all but it was a hell of a segment). They also had actual clips of past times Alex has been, well, Alex. He also pretty clearly got drunk during the show. But this isn't the end for him. He'll just go work for his dad doing the exact same thing. As Alex has frequently said, his dad is basically his only sponsor now. So whatever happens to infowars, this isn't the end of Alex Jones. Even if it should be.

As I understand it, civil judgements are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Even if Alex sells everything he owns, that won't be enough to pay off his share of the judgement and so any income he makes post-Infowars will be subject to garnishment.

So yeah. He'll continue making the right-wing circles, and he'll be hawking his dad's boner pills, but at least the Sandy Hook families will start getting what he owes them.

Unfortunately there are still a million ways for him to live in luxury and not have any "official" income.

Yes, but the families can keep going after him for failing to pay.

Which is probably his goal, since his entire legal strategy so far has been to delay: hope the families and/or their lawyers stop going after him due to the massive amount of time and money it would cost to keep taking him to court.

You're missing the point - they can only go after his money or his company's money. He has people around him who he could work as a minimum wage employee for (on paper), while living on "their" money.

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Remember folks, if it can happen to him, it can happen to you!

Don’t let the gay frogs win, buy your male enhancement supplements asap!

I can’t help but imagine a world ruled by gay frogs. The devastation of bug stocks, the rising water levels, the overpopulation. Glad we’re in charge.

Who is this and what did he do with the real Alex Jo - never mind, I don’t actually care what happened to Alex Jones

My dear friend the great fact checker disinformation expert journalist Brooke Binkowski, former editor of Snopes helped take him down. I am proud to know her.

https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2-Sept-10-2018-Lewis-Declaration-of-Binkowski.pdf

You made her title so convoluted I am now unsure if she is expert fact checker who combats disinformation or expert on spreading disinformation while pretending to be a fact checker. 🤔

So infowars is likely to be sold. To whom? I'm hoping comedy central picks it up and turns out into a recurring segment on the daily show

Or HBO. Last Infowars with John Oliver sounds awesome.

It'll probably get picked up by the worst people, some Conservative Corp or rich asshole, or else it'll be auctioned off for pennies on the dollar and being buried or turned into an anti-conservative landing site.

Infowars is too good of a propaganda outlet for Putin and other oligarchs to let slip away. Entertainment for idiots is also too good a grift.

Oh don't worry, I'm absolutely certain it will return with a new host. Just because Jones isn't allowed on it anymore doesn't mean they have to throw out the entire propaganda outlet. Like you said, it's too valuable, and him making money by liquidating/selling it means that someone, somewhere, is buying it.

Poor Alex… what a nice guy who got caught up on the deep state.

/s

Fuck ‘em. I hope he rots.

People acting like this is some big victory. But he's going to be on joe rogan next week.

I've never met anyone that admitted to being a joe Rogan fan/regular listener.

I met someone at a bar a while back and was hitting it off nicely… and then she was like “haha and there’s this podcast I’ve started listening to, it’s hilarious and funny and smart! You heard of Joe Rogan?” And the expression my face made completely autonomically killed the vibe right quick. I wasn’t really upset tbh lol.

The Russian front money being laundered through Trush Social is suddenly going to pick up, and then they'll have money to buy this. Fucking shell game.

I am laughing at the mental image of IRS agents having to run Infowars in the interim

It'd actually be pretty dope if the IRS did an actual investigation into who, exactly, is paying for the lobbying to prevent America from having automatic tax filing.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday moved to liquidate his personal assets, agreeing to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages over his lies about the 2012 school massacre.

The seismic move paves the way for a future in which Jones no longer owns Infowars, the influential conspiracy empire he founded in the late 1990s.

Over the years, Jones has not only used the media company to poison the public discourse with vile lies and conspiracy theories, but also to enrich himself to the tune of millions of dollars.

But facing mounting legal pressure, he reversed course and caved to the demands of the Sandy Hook families, who have still not seen a penny from Jones since juries in Connecticut and Texas found him liable in 2022 for defamation and emotional distress.

The legal maneuver ultimately “means [Jones’] ownership in Free Speech Systems is going to get sold,” Avi Moshenberg, an attorney who represents some of the Sandy Hook families, told CNN on Thursday night, referencing the parent company of Infowars.

But regardless of what happens in that case, Thursday’s legal move sets the stage for a court-appointed trustee to liquidate Jones’ personal assets, which includes his stake in Infowars.


The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 48%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

He’s just going to relaunch as WarInfo or some such bullshit.

Let's hope whoever buys it does so with the intention of shutting it down instead of to just keep it going.

Or better still, completely flips it to an anti-Trump, pro-science platform, where they take all his talking points and debunk them.

Same as with Trump, what happens to Alex Jones doesn’t really matter. We have to go after his fans. They’re the ones who give him relevancy.

If they own infowars, they’ll come into possession of a lot of information about the fans, won’t they? Mail them targeted deprogramming material.

Oh sweet summer child, is what Leslie Knope would call you. The only deprogramming that would help die-hard Infowars fans is to