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I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company. Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan
by chvid 2y ago
I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company.
Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site/business under a new domain name.
Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?
- plorg 2y agoThe auction included all of the InfoWars and several associated corporations' assets, including the studio and the supplements business. At one point the settlement administrator was trying to get Alex's Twitter handle. I believe he's been doing some half-ass scheming to create essentially the same company but in his parents' name, and I doubt he has a problem getting listeners back.
- ackbar03 2y ago... Infowars had a supplements business?
- bbor 2y agoOh man, you're in for a treat. Look up some videos on youtube, the classic being John Oliver's 2017 piece; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyGq6cjcc3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyGq6cjcc3Q . He's adjacent to the newly mainstream right, yes, but he's been around for a long time as a more radical+fringe actor, and has all the baggage that goes along with that. A good portion (most?) of his money was made from selling vaguely anti-GMO and pro-masculinity products sold with a heavy dose of "big pharma doesn't want you to know this one trick". They ranged from insane horse bone dust stuff to plain overpriced vitamins; https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-infowars-supplements-to-a-lab-heres https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/we-sent-a...
- Hikikomori 2y agoAnd the Knowledge Fight podcast if you really, really wanna get into it. Almost 1000 episodes now. https://knowledgefight.com https://knowledgefight.com Behind the bastards also has a few that are good summaries if you want something shorter, with the Knowledge Fight guys as guests.
- kristopolous 2y agoWhatever episode they're making right now is going to be great.
- Hikikomori 2y agoIts how they made most of their money.
- frankhorrigan 2y agoInfowars is a supplements business. It’s grifts all the way down.
- seanp2k2 2y agoAnyone ever wonder why there are very few far-right comedians?
- cogman10 2y agoIt's because they all identify as comedians. (Yes, this is the one rightwing joke).
- ben_w 2y agoWhat do you mean, is Washington DC not a comedy circuit? /jk
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoYou need to be self-reflective enough to laugh at your own BS. Monomaniacs spouting out their grievances don't make for the best laughs.
- labster 2y agoThey exist, though few in number. They’re the ones loudly complaining that you can’t tell a (racist) “joke” any more.
- lupusreal 2y agoSeinfeld is right wing, TIL.
- netsharc 2y agoHey, come on, carrying a sink and saying "Let that sink in" is god damn hilarious... /s
- guappa 2y agoBecause their idea of comedy is something like: "foreigners, am I right?" *shaking head
- renewiltord 2y agoMost of these things are DTC operations and usually for supplements since they are relatively unregulated. Turning viewership into money is usually done through ads but these guys are fairly toxic to most advertisers. Supplements are a good alternative for podcasters. They’re like merch is for musicians etc. but usually run as a recurring revenue stream. Scratch the surface of any of these people and you’ll find they are like this: huberman, Bryan Johnson, they’ll all have a DTC business.
- jameshart 2y agoThere is a reason the archetypal scam artist is referred to as a ‘snake oil salesman’.
- Hamuko 2y agoInfowars is basically only a vehicle to sell supplements and other various crap.
- philjohn 2y agoThat allegedly had elevated levels of lead. Which, you know what, tracks.
- seanp2k2 2y agoNot dissimilar to Fox News or any other media company where the main purpose of the content is to get people to stay for the ads. Turns out rage-baiting works extremely well for driving engagement among certain groups.
- cogman10 2y agoThe trick that Jones has perfected is the ad pivot. When you watch most media, the line between content and ad is generally pretty clear. With jones, it was often very blurry. Like, he does do regular ads, but he'll also be ranting about globalists for 10 minutes and then drop in something like "They want to destroy your mind which is why you need our deep earth iodine crystals and sea algae which is proven to stop globalist mind control." He does it pretty much out of habit. He literally did an ad pivot while on the stand in his court cases.
- Applejinx 2y agoThe literal only way the Onion could mock this man was with… reality.
- autoexec 2y agoFox news is pushing an agenda first and foremost. The ad money was just a bonus. Rupert Murdoch didn't need the ad money. Just like with Sky News he was more interested in the "reasons of prestige and politics for keeping it" than the profits.
- yincrash 2y agoFrom the statement - | As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.
- barryrandall 2y agoOn 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.
- grahamj 2y agonfts, crypto, low poly trucks etc.
- netsharc 2y agoSome 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...
- lupusreal 2y agoMost flat earthers are just trolls who are baiting people who can't help but bite when somebody is wrong on the internet.
- sofixa 2y agoOf course, it's random nonsense peddling, how else would it fund itself other than via a obvious grift? If you're gullible enough to watch Alex Jones and believe him, you're gullible enough to buy snake oil to increase your penis.
- grahamj 2y agoSnake oil will increase my penis? Where do I sign up?!
- moomin 2y agoInfoWars was a supplements business. The political stuff was just a funnel to sell the supplements, where the real money was made.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y agoInfowars was a supplements business. their business model was to brainwash people with conspiracy theories and sell supplements that solve the problems they made up
- spacechild1 2y agoI didn't know that either. That's absolutely hilarious! This could be straight out of a South Park episode.
- ptek 2y ago>... Infowars had a supplements business? Yeah check out an advert for CAVEMAN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-ZqD9-W1_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-ZqD9-W1_8 . I used to like Infowars 10+ years ago (I'm from New Zealand) when the site was a news aggregate site so you could read the sources. Now that it is him just talking I don't visit the site that often. I remember walking around in a small township in Norway (just under 10,000 people) and seeing a Infowars sticker on a road light. So yeah he used to have massive reach, I don't know if he still does.
- vundercind 2y agoThe ads on some information-channels carry a lot of information about the audience, and so, about the channel. Some are dominated by reverse mortgages, supplements, buy-gold ads, Franklin “mint”, and, if online, crypto scams. This happens to be a convenient way to quickly tell when you’re headed deep into a particular part of Bullshit Country. [edit] point is I find it unsurprising they had a supplement business. It’s probably the easiest of the above to break into.
- ChrisRR 2y agoInfowars basically was a supplements business. Sold a load of soy based products while ranting about soy
- bbor 2y agoHmm NBC seems to imply that they purchased "Free Speech Systems", which is the parent company for the entire operation. Of course, who knows what they'll actually get other than the domain and copyrights -- Jones will just move all the physical assets into a storage unit/another office and dare them to complain, Guliani-style. Also, who knows if any of these stands for long, anyway; the cases are in state court (Connecticut and Texas) but what's stopping the president from issuing an executive order clearing them? Laws? Re: "who gets the most promotion", IDK I think it's definitely the new owner of the Onion. Personally speaking, I think we're past the "don't give them attention" stage of fascism, and "they were bought by a satire company" isn't exactly a better rallying cry than Jones has already been spouting during the entire litigation. Plus, I trust them; The anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety said it will be the exclusive advertiser in The Onion’s new venture as part of a multiyear agreement. John Feinblatt, the group’s president, said in a statement that he hopes to “reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nation’s gun violence epidemic.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/onion-wins-alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-auction-rcna179936 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/onion-wins-alex-jones-i...
- cogman10 2y agoThey are almost certainly going to sue for illegal enrichment. I'm certain that Jones will try and move assets and I'm sure he'll get caught doing that. It means Onion sues Jones will likely be in the headlines a fair bit.
- ddoolin 2y agoHe has been getting away with moving assets for months now.
- sgt101 2y agoI think it's all the assets of the website. I believe that the current state of play is that Jones has to pay $1.1bn damages even post bankruptcy so maybe any future successes will lead to money for the Sandyhook families. I certainly hope so. Ironically he may live longer to earn more for them - he'll never be able to afford a cigar again.
- grahamj 2y agoWait am I understanding this right? - Collins buys InfoWars - Auction money ends up going to SH victims - SH victims have an anti-gun organization set up - This org enters into a long term ad deal with Collins - Some of the money therefore flows back to Collins, effectively helping with the auction buy
- sgt101 2y agoThat's what I guessed from the story - I suppose that there would be a lot of reticence about buying this site from a lot of corporate actors, but maybe there are a lot of crazy people who could have bought it if the price was right. So, this way it is for sure a "dead" property.
- bilbo0s 2y agoPerhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this? Well, we’re all talking about the onion. And I, personally, haven’t read onion content in a long, long while. So this kind of put them back on the radar for me. But I could be one of only a few people who fell out of onion readership? More likely is that they believe the next four years will provide them a lot of comedy fodder and they’re setting their pieces early. For them the election is likely to be pretty good for business.
- bmitc 2y agoWhile their stuff is brilliant at times, I don't actively seek it out because it leaves me pretty depressed and anxious. The parodies are almost indistinguishable from real events these days.
- shagie 2y agoAlas, "Onion Now: Focus" https://youtu.be/Bex5LyzbbBE https://youtu.be/Bex5LyzbbBE
- bmitc 2y agoYep, that's my feeling everyday. I would have liked to have seen Patrick Warburton cast in that role, though. For example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaghIdSJKvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaghIdSJKvQ
- moate 2y agoThey have become the embodiment of Poe's Law (or the world is such a hellscape that Poe's Law is just taken for granted now?)
- troyvit 2y agoI even felt that way reading The Onion's article about this and then listening to Alex Jones' rant on Xitter. They sounded like they came from the same writer.
- notatoad 2y ago
- rs999gti 2y ago> Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site/business under a new domain name. Maybe but the judgement was for 1B USD. So any profits would probably be garnished away. Basically, lawfare was used to censor Alex Jones. I wonder if this is a case for the Supreme Court and First Amendment rights?
- sophacles 2y agoWas it? The constitution lays out slander and libel as types of speech that can be censored. The trashy Jones then knowingly and maliciously lied about people for profit - aka libel and slander. Seems reasonable to take the money he made as well as punitive damages. How is censorship?
- rs999gti 2y ago> How is censorship? How does he make future money, you know for living? The judgement basically means the courts get to garnish his wages until the judgement is paid. Jones is a goof to me and I like seeing him rant and rave and wear foil hats. But I don't think anyone should have their livelihood taken from them by censorship of the courts. EDIT: remember all judgments and penalties cut both ways. Today Jones tomorrow someone you follow in the media. Lower the judgement to 1M USD (EDIT: or something reasonable) and let's move on.
- egoisticalgoat 2y agoNot sure how it works in the US, but e.g. in germany only a certain portion of your wages go towards debts, they let you have a certain portion for yourself since you need it to live.
- sophacles 2y agoHis livelihood wasn't taken. His assets were taken because he did damages and has to pay for those damages. He can go get all sorts of jobs. Yeah his wages will be garnished, but that doesn't mean his whole paycheck - just the lesser of 25% of the paycheck or 30x minimum wage. He can make money and a living with that just fine. Same as I'd expect for anyone intentionally lying and hurting people for money - whether I "follow" them or not. Perhaps you should find some reputable sources for information, instead of relying on the proven liar to tell the truth about his situation?
- grahamj 2y ago> Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this? I think the idea is the US’ terrible gun situation