Shouldn’t InfoWars just simply die?

On November 14, just one week after Donald Trump’s re-election broke all of our brains, we woke up to the most incredible, ridiculous headline imaginable: The Onion is buying InfoWars.

You’re not hallucinating. You read that correctly. The Onion, the long-running and beloved satirical news website, has purchased Alex Jones’ online media outlet InfoWars. InfoWars will be turned into a parody of itself.

“We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website,” said The Onion CEO Ben Collins on Bluesky.

Related: Alex Jones’ Infowars has now been sold and is about to become a must-read site on We Got This Covered

But wait, the story only gets better as you learn more. InfoWars was being sold as part of a bankruptcy auction of Jones’ estate in order to pay off the whopping $1.5 billion in defamation settlements Jones owes to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Jones repeatedly wailed that the horrific 2012 mass shooting, which killed 20 children and six adults, was fake and staged. His actions created and caused harassment the grieving families of the victims.

As such, the Onion’s purchase was actively backed by the families of eight victims and one first responder, who all agreed to forgo part of their settlement in order to make The Onion’s bid possible. The new Onion-owned InfoWars will have an exclusive advertising deal with Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group.

And to sweeten it all, following the news, Jones immediately went on InfoWars to pathetically wallow in the final moments of his ownership. He’s literally going to have to go out kicking and screaming. Justice feels rare, but it is not dead. And goddammit, it’s wonderful to be reminded of that.

Still, among all the revelry, a question has kept arising in my head all morning: regardless of the new ownership, how do I feel about “InfoWars” still being a name that I see in my social media feeds? How will I feel the first time I click on an InfoWars article?

Destroying the brand, and good riddance

The Onion buying InfoWars is an incredible development. Still, trying to make sense of this news is a mental roller coaster. There’s disbelief and the initial (and reasonable) suspicion that the headline is a joke. And then, joy in the absurdity of it all. But after that, you might experience doubt.

InfoWars has caused real damage. Beyond encouraging the harassment of the Sandy Hook victims’ families, the website has promoted white supremacy, anti-vax conspiracies, and any number of awful vitriol. The opposing side buying it out doesn’t make that damage go away. There’s undoubtedly healing in humor. But also, it’s natural to feel like a brand as tainted as “InfoWars” should simply be erased from existence.

Unfortunately, such a sweeping action was not going to be possible. InfoWars was going to be sold to someone. And Alex Jones’ allies, who he’s been referring to on-air as “the good guys,” were also trying to buy it. If a Jones ally had gotten InfoWars, Jones would not have been held fully responsible for his defamation settlement. InfoWars and its parade of fear-mongering and disinformation would have continued, uninterrupted.

Sure, Jones has said that he’ll start a new website. But especially now that we know Donald Trump will be starting a second term in January, wresting one of the most infamous propagators of disinformation away from its creators and allies is important. Without InfoWars, Jones’ influence (and the influence of his allies, like Steve Bannon) is less centralized, and therefore less powerful. Jones clearly knows this, which is why he’s saying he’ll try to legally stop The Onion’s buyout.

Rather than continuing as a new version of the same vile website, InfoWars is in infinitely better hands with The Onion. They’re working with all the right allies to subvert the alt-right scaffolding Jones spent years building into the platform. The buyout was actively supported by a handful of the Sandy Hook victims’ families and will be executed in partnership with the country’s leading gun control advocacy group. If InfoWars had to keep living, let’s turn it into a parody of itself that’s supported by the people the original most damaged.

The satisfaction of knowing that Alex Jones is angry and sad about it all—and can do absolutely nothing about it—is truly just icing on the cake.