Satire publication The Onion has won an auction for control of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media platform, which was put up for auction by court order to pay off the more than $1 billion he owes to the families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims.
Jones said in a post to social media on Thursday that Infowars was being shut down and was bought by The Onion. The families won a defamation suit against Jones in 2022 after they said Jones used his platform to push conspiracy theories that the 2012 mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults was a hoax.
The purchase has the support of the families, according to a statement shared with USA TODAY by the gun violence prevention advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The Onion plans 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,” according to the statement. Everytown for Gun Safety will also advertise on the relaunched site, it said.