A Texas judge will soon weigh in on if satricial site The Onion can take over Alex Jones' far-right media company — Infowars.
This comes after Jones was sued for defamation by the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, with the families being awarded a $1.3 billion judgment against Jones, according to USA TODAY reporting. This also marks the second attempt The Onion is making to take over Infowars in hopes of turning it into a parody website.
Here's what to know about the deal and how we got here.
In 2022, Jones was found guilty in a defamation lawsuit brought by the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where six adults and 20 children were killed. He made repeated false claims that the massacre was a “hoax” staged as part of a government plot to confiscate guns from Americans.
The judge ordered Jones to pay a $1.3 billion judgment to the families as a result. In 2024, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court ruled that Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, was to be placed in the hands of a court-appointed receiver and that the company’s assets would be used to pay the judgment.
