The purchase of Alex Jones’ Infowars at an insolvency auction by the satirical news publication The Onion is the current twist in a yearslong legend in between the reactionary conspiracy theorist and households of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.
The sale was bought after family members of a number of the 20 kids and 6 teachers eliminated in the 2012 shooting effectively took legal action against Mr. Jones and his business for character assassination and psychological distress. Mr. Jones consistently made incorrect claims on his program that the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting was a scam staged by crisis stars to stimulate more weapon control.
Here are some things to learn about how Mr. Jones’ false information empire wound up on the auction block.
The increase of Infowars
Fresh out of high school in the early 1990s, Mr. Jones, a barrel-chested, gravelly voiced Texas local, began relaying on a public-access tv channel in the state capital. From the start, Mr. Jones promoted conspiracies about the U.S. federal government and incorrect claims about a secret New World Order.
In 2004, Mr. Jones had 2 staff members and a small workplace in south Austin. In 2007, he formed Free Speech Systems, to run his growing media company, according to court records in his insolvency cases. By 2010, Mr. Jones had more than 60 staff members.
As the extravagant nature of his incorrect claims grew, so did his media empire, with yearly earnings of as much as $80 million, and a fanbase that at his height listened to him on more than 100 radio stations throughout the United States in addition to through his Infowars site and social networks.
Mr. Jones’ Newtown lies
Mr. Jones has actually acknowledged in court that he promoted the conspiracy theory that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a scam committed in part by the U.S. federal government as part of an effort to broaden weapon control. He called the moms and dads of killed kids “crisis stars” on his program and stated the shooting was “counterfeit as a three-dollar expense.”
After different disparagement suits were submitted in Connecticut and Texas by relative of victims, Mr. Jones acknowledged in 2022 that the shooting was “100% genuine” and stated it was “definitely careless” to call it a scam.
The claims versus Mr. Jones
Victims’ households who took legal action against Mr. Jones stated they went through years of torture, hazards, and abuse by individuals who thought the lies informed on his program.
Courts in Texas and Connecticut discovered Mr. Jones accountable for libel for his representation of the Sandy Hook massacre as a scam and granted the households almost $1.5 billion in damages. In both states, the judges provided default judgments discovering Mr. Jones responsible without trials due to the fact that he stopped working to react to court orders and turn over lots of files. Juries then heard proof and picked the quantity of damages, with judges adding extra charges.
The sale of Mr. Jones’ Infowars empire
The auctions arised from Mr.