Satirical publication The Onion has acquired the domain name Infowars.com from the auction that liquidated conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ media empire.
A federal bankruptcy judge mandated the auction that included Infowars.com, approximately 400 other domains, and associated intellectual property. It is not clear which other domains, if any, were included in this auction that had a starting bid of $1,000,000 dollars. The domain Infowars.com is by far the most valuable of the lot.
The auction’s proceeds will go to the families of Sandy Hook victims, who were awarded $1.5 billion dollars in damages after Jones falsely claimed the 2012 school shooting never happened, leading some of his followers to harass and threaten the families for years.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion noted earlier today that his company’s plans are to “end Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good.”
The Onion plans to relaunch Infowars in January, planning on making “a very stupid website.”
