Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said during a court hearing Tuesday that he will approve the auctions that start in November. But he said he first must change a previous order to make it clear that the trustee overseeing Jones’ personal bankruptcy case controls all the assets of Infowars parent company Free Speech Systems, which is owned 100% by Jones.

Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones vows to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in their home city of Austin, Texas.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “We’re going to auction off this poison, so then other people will own that poison. The new owner will be the type of person very motivated to spend a significant amount of money on poison.”

    I get that the money is needed for restitution, but some things just need to be encased in concrete and blasted into the earth’s core. They need to go get Disney’s IP lawyers so that they can keep the brand alive forever, only to never be used again by anyone.

    • Catma@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Look i just need Dan and Jordan to get the desk and maybe that skull he had on the desk for a while. After that it can all burn but those guys deserve those things for all they do in putting together Knowledge Fight.

    • bookcrawler@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If I had the money I’d want to try staffing it with cult deprogramming specialists. It would be an interesting experiment to track.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      I’m kinda tempted to buy something for the lulz. I used to like Jones a long time ago, and the proceeds will go towards Sandy Hook victims anyways.

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      Not sure how you did that, the judgment against Alex Jones was in 2022.

      Then they had to decide whether Jones could work off his debt or whether he would be forced to sell off his company. The families offered to go with an annual payment, Jones started haggling over the amount, and this year the families said forget it and went with liquidation.

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    3 months ago

    I hope the domain gets sold to someone who puts up a site dedicated to ridiculing all the losers who have been there.

    • TotesIllegit@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Personally, I think redirecting to Knowledge Fights’ site would be a good move; though I mostly hope it doesn’t wind up under ownership of some other grifter.

  • brutalbeard@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    How’s this? Buy it, build voice and image models from the many hours of footage you now own, about a “persona” and then use that to spread mis-misinformation. Like an ai version of the Alex Jones character explaining that climate change is caused by humans, and other true things

    PS: he argued somewhere along the way about the character he plays isn’t him, he doesn’t think that the sandy hook families are lying blah blah… I just play an evil bastard on tv

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    3 months ago

    Why has this taken THIS LONG to get this far? Anybody else would have been rendered penniless within a year, tops.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Most people don’t have multimillion dollars in assets with complex ownership schemes. But I also would challenge the assumption that it would ever go quickly. The legal system is very, very slow.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Anybody else would have been rendered penniless within a year, tops.

      Nobody else has ever been ordered to pay that much, much less in a suit for speech. Wrongful death lawsuits are awarded less than this.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I have a terrible feeling, that Elon Musk will buy it, then hire Alex Jones as its host, with the condition it needs to be exclusive to Xitter.

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      Musk wasting money to support fellow inhumane people is a given, if what you said happens the only delta with normalcy is the victims of alt-right trash finally will get compensated

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      that’s as good as dead. tucker carlson was the most influential host on fox news. went to twitter. he’s literally irrelevant now. no one watches twitter, it’s not a thing.

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    3 months ago

    I know you’ve all been missing him, but he needed a break to let all the spit leak out from all the tromboning of late.

      • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        He’s depending on his fans to buy it and keep it all going for him.

        TFA:

        He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in their home city of Austin, Texas.

        “It’s very cut and dry that the assets of Free Speech Systems, the website, the equipment, the shopping cart, all that, can be sold,” Jones said on a recent show. “And they know full well that there are a bunch of patriot buyers, and then the operation can ease on.”

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I saw a billboard that read “I’m a former Trump voter and a patriot and I’m voting for Harris” and I realized that I now view the notion of someone being a patriot as them being less intelligent.

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                3 months ago

                Either way, the notion that Democrats should “reclaim patriotism” is fighting against a long-honed visceral reaction against it amongst the folks on the left.

                I don’t know how anyone who has any knowledge of US history could possibly be a patriot. Calling yourself just makes you sound ignorant or psycho. “FUCK YEAH! I LOVE A COUNTRY BUILT ON SLAVERY AND GENOCIDE! WOO!”

                • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  Honestly patriotism is recognizing those aspects and trying to improve it for the better, it aint blind nationalism. To use an analogy for me the USA is like a drug addict cousin who I am attemlting to help get clean.

            • EatYourOrach@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              One thing the “alt right” did is get so many of us to see the difference between a patriot and a nationalist. They might claim the p-word, but they also claim to be pro-choice when it suits them so their definitions mean dick all. They’re flags-on-clothes “MY country, not yours, right or wrong” nationalists.

              From what I’ve seen, a patriot wants to work to fix what’s hurtful in their country and to protect social and legal advancements already accomplished for the common good.

              But absolutely, they’ve fouled that word up with how often and loudly they claim it.

              • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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                From what I’ve seen, a patriot wants to work to fix what’s hurtful in their country and to protect social and legal advancements already accomplished for the common good.

                This does not agree with what I’ve seen of patriots for the entire history of the country.

          • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            It is kind of funny to think of a bunch of rich nazis all striving to outbid each other to bail this asshole out, thereby making a bigger and bigger pile of reparations for the Sandy Hook families.

        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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          They’re honestly probably the only ones who would buy it. Without Jones’ “celebrity” propping it up it’s basically just a scam dick-pills company which are a dime a dozen. Who’s going to invest in that?

          • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            He has lots of professional equipment that could be better used elsewhere tho. If you can get some of the media equipment for cheap then it’s worth looking at the auction for sure

          • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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            I’d normally be interested in a job lot of discount media production gear from a fire sale, but I don’t need to taint my home with the bad karma or stale grifter breath surely trapped in those particular microphones.

            • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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              That was my exact thought. Discount sound production gear is my jam but damn, anything I created with it would be forever stained.

              • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                Not necessarily. Kinda like how blood money could sorta be emotionally redeemed if you just donated it all, the equipment could be redeemed if it was used to produce something useful and beneficial instead of manufacturing fear.

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                Idk I’d love leftist content that begins every episode with “coming to you from Alex Jones’s recording equipment”. It’s an act of purification by bathing it in truth

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          This is why critical thinking is so vital (and why conservatives do everything they can to prevent people from learning the skill)… You become such an easy mark for grifters and conmen.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        If the proceeds go to the sandy hook families, it would make sense to drive up the price as much as possible.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        Probably why he’s been sucking up to Elon so hard recently. Hoping Elon will buy it out then continue to let Alex spout his bullshit.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      Do we even know that there is an Alex Jones and he’s not just a government psyop?

      I’m just asking questions.

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        3 months ago

        Funny enough, there is a “Bill Hicks’ death was faked so he could come back as Alex Jones” conspiracy theory. Alex Jones denies it, but of course he would.

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            The weird part is that they are somehow connected. For some reason, Alex Jones accepted a posthumous award to Bill Hicks, which I think was the whole springboard for the conspiracy theory (which I mostly like because it’s funny to see it turned back on him). It doesn’t help his case that Alex Jones’ public persona is a character he does with a fake voice and all that.

            It was also more plausible before Jones took that hard turn to the right. He used to be more apolitical (in a “both parties are fake and corrupt” and “here’s a list of issues but I’m not going to offer any concrete solutions other than ‘stay tuned for more’” kind of way), so it was once more believable that he was an extreme version of Hicks.

            Though even back then, a part of the conspiracy theory was that he was compromised by the elites, so it wasn’t a “Bill Hicks is trying to save us as Alex Jones” but more of a, “they got to Bill Hicks and made him fake his death and come back as a liar who leads people who start to see the truth down some stupid lizard people or aliens path so they don’t hurt the status quo”.

          • Zink@programming.dev
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            3 months ago

            Bill Hicks taking on a new identity where he makes his money from advertising. Could you imagine?

      • teamevil@lemmy.world
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        Alex Jones is really Bill Hicks, who did not die and turned heel for the lolz. It’s crazy but an actual conspiracy theory