[sed_zeppelin]

On a whim, I decided to peek at the InfoWars homepage. At this moment, I cannot determine which of the headlines are genuine InfoWars content and which are the product of Onion writers. (I assume it's genuine due to the recency of the sale closing?)

[randomdata]

Are you trying to tell us that Infowars wasn't already outsourcing its content creation to Onion writers before the sale? Big, if true.

[joezydeco]

This seems like an incredible opportunity to see if it's possible to reprogram InfoWars readers away from the hate and the conspiracy theories.

It would be a massive undertaking but wouldn't it be funny if the savior of modern media turned out to be a student newspaper from Madison, Wisconsin?

[9cb14c1ec0]

InfoWars audience is loyal only to Jones himself and will never visit InfoWars again. Jones will go elsewhere, 100% of his audience will follow, and the Onion is in for a big letdown. If you are dreaming about reprogramming Jone's followers by taking over InfoWars, it just shows that you know nothing about the typical InfoWars consumer.

[glaucon]

This my view, in fact the whole thing completely puzzles me, Jones is free to publish his vile views elsewhere and his followers will find him. Infowars "onion-style" would have to be pretty dammed subtle to "trick" Jonesites into consuming it sincerely.

How the parents of the Sandy Hook victims use their compensation is their business but I feel supporting advocacy for better mental health facilities in the USA would be a better use of the money.

[hatenberg]

You are overestimating them. By far.

[9cb14c1ec0]

I will never cease to by amused by the idea that Jones' fans value the InfoWars brand and website above Jones himself. He is a celebrity among his fans. Exactly 0 of them will pay any attention to InfoWars the minute Jones is no longer associated with the brand.

[lukas099]

> The Onion is in for a big letdown.

I don’t think they expected anything different. I think they saw the brand for sale at firesale prices, and decided they could use it. In fact, they’re one of the only ’mainstream’ outlets that can use the InfoWars brand, since it’s funny. Perhaps they will set up a ‘competing’ ‘right-wing’ satire site ala Colbert Report vs Daily Show.

[shaftway]

The Babylon Bee is a pretty right wing version of The Onion with articles titled things like "Satan Devastated After Kamala Loses Election".

https://babylonbee.com/

[lukas099]

But that actually has a right-wing agenda right? I was talking about being ironically right wing.

[JimDabell]

The difficulty with this is that anything that isn’t a hard 180 involves continuing to publish approximately the same type of content for a while, which is probably unpalatable to The Onion. Anything that is a small enough course correction to retain its audience is too small a shift to get away from that hateful nonsense. It’s a nice idea to try to steer people away, but you have to start off by driving in the same direction, which nobody wants to do.

[anon373839]

I have an inkling that Poe’s Law could almost bridge the gap in some way…

[hughesjj]

"they're turning the frogs straight!"

[ceejayoz]

> This seems like an incredible opportunity to see if it's possible to reprogram InfoWars readers away from the hate and the conspiracy theories.

Not a chance; they just flee to other outlets. Even Fox News saw huge numbers of people jump to NewsMax and OANN and whatnot.

[joezydeco]

The trick is to do it without the readers noticing.

[cogman10]

Not terribly hard as Info warriors aren't known for being detail oriented. Credulity is somewhat of a requirement to be sincere.

[alt187]

> The trick is to lie to them to get them away from their hateful and conspiracy theories

I can't articulate what you're admitting to exactly, but it's an interesting admission.

On a more serious note, most of the readers of these kinds of outlets aren't stupid in this specific sense. They go looking for confirmation, rather than new information. This is why they're hard to untangle.

[pcf]

> They go looking for confirmation, rather than new information. This is why they're hard to untangle.

This applies to most readers of most things, not just fringe content on the Left or the Right.

Most people are stuck in their confirmation biases, and few make an intellectual effort to look at topics from multiple angles and via multiple media outlets on various sides of the political spectrum.

[ChrisRR]

Only if they notice. They're stupid enough to have followed infowars in the first place

[AI_beffr]

what is the difference, really, between the way the word "hate" is used now and the they the word "sin" was used 200 years ago?

[fallingfrog]

Easy, hate is what those people throwing stones were feeling, and sun is what they were accusing that woman of. You know the verse, right?

The hate remains the same today, except now the “sin” is being gay, or getting raped, etc.

[AI_beffr]

not seeing your point

[Macha]

It looks like it's down now?