On Monday, X filed an objection in The Onion’s bid to buy InfoWars out of bankruptcy. In the objection, Elon Musk’s lawyers argued that X has “superior ownership” of all accounts on X, that it objects to the inclusion of InfoWars and related Twitter accounts in the bankruptcy auction, and that the court should therefore prevent the transfer of them to The Onion.
The legal basis that X asserts in the filing is not terribly interesting. But what is interesting is that X has decided to involve itself at all, and it highlights that you do not own your followers or your account or anything at all on corporate social media, and it also highlights the fact that Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends. In the filing, X’s lawyers essentially say—like many other software companies, and, increasingly, device manufacturers as well—that the company’s terms of service grant X’s users a “license” to use the platform but that, ultimately, X owns all accounts on the social network and can do anything that it wants with them.
“Few bankruptcy courts have addressed the issue of ownership of social media accounts, and those courts that have were focused on whether an individual or the individual’s employer owned an account used for business purposes—not whether the social media company had a superior right of ownership over either the individual or the corporation,” Musk’s lawyers write.
The case Musk’s lawyers are referencing here is Vital Pharm’s bankruptcy case, in which a supplement company filed for bankruptcy and the court decided that the Twitter and Instagram accounts @BangEnergyCEO, which were primarily used by its CEO Jack Owoc to promote the brand, were owned by the company, not Owoc. The court determined that the accounts were therefore part of the bankruptcy and could not be kept by Owoc.
Except in exceedingly rare circumstances like the Vital Pharm case, the transfer of social media accounts in bankruptcy from one company to another has been routine. When VICE was sold out of bankruptcy, its new owners, Fortress Investment Group, got all of VICE’s social media accounts and YouTube pages. X, Google, Meta, etc did not object to this transfer because this sort of thing happens constantly and is not controversial. (It should be noted that social media companies regularly do try to prevent the sale of social media accounts on the black market. But they do not usually attempt to block the sale of them as part of the sale of companies or in bankruptcy.)
But in this InfoWars case, X has decided to inject itself into the bankruptcy proceedings. Jones has signaled that Musk has done this in order to help him, and his tweet about it has gone incredibly viral. On a stream of his show after the filing, Jones called this “a major breaking Monday evening news alert that deals with the First Amendment and the people’s fight to reclaim our country from the clutches of the globalists.”
"Elon Musk X Corp entered the case with a lawsuit within it to defend the right of X to not have private handles of people like Alex Jones stripped away. It violates the 13th Amendment against slavery, there are many issues. Today they filed a major brief in the case,” Jones said. “Elon Musk’s X comes to Alex Jones’ defense against democrat attempts to steal Jones’ X identity.”
Musk famously unbanned Jones, then appeared on the same Twitter Spaces broadcast with him. Musk has also tweeted occasionally that he believes The Onion is not funny. Jones, meanwhile, has been ranting and raving about some sort of conspiracy that he believes led a judge via the Deep State to sell InfoWars to The Onion at auction.
X calls itself “the sole owner” of X accounts, and states that it “does not consent” to the sale of the InfoWars accounts, as doing so would “undermine X Corp.’s rightful ownership of the property it licenses to Free Speech Systems [InfoWars], Jones, or any other account holder on the X platform.” Again, X accounts are transferred in bankruptcy all the time with no drama and with no objection from X.
“Looming over the framework [in the Vital Pharm case] was the undeniable reality that social media companies, like X Corp., are the only parties that have truly exclusive control over users’ accounts,” the lawyers write. “X CORP. OWNS THE X ACCOUNTS.”
That a corporate social media company says it owns the social media accounts on its service is probably not surprising. Meta, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and ByteDance have run up astronomical valuations by more or getting people to fill their platforms with content for free, and have created and destroyed countless businesses, business models, and industries with their constantly-shifting algorithms and monetization strategies. But to see this fact outlined in such stark terms in a court document makes clear that, for human beings to seize any sort of control over their online lives, we must move toward decentralized, portable forms of social media and must move back toward creating and owning our own platforms and websites.
Interesting that it’s the same web3 proponents that are the first to say they own your entire digital identity and you have to like it
Which proponents?
If he wanted to save a right wing shitbird’s stuff so badly, why didn’t he buy it?
My guess?
He’s far less concerned about the specifics of this situation and far more concerned about what happens if/when his Twitter is host to something horrible enough that people are calling for his head, and/or he is wanting to sell…or being pressured to sell Twitter…but there’s something specific he wants to stipulate in that transaction that a precedent set here might fuck up.
I think he’s going entirely the wrong way then.
If he owns all accounts he’s responsible for all accounts, right?
He should have just let it go.
Why does this surprise anyone? Doesn’t anyone know what terms of service are? This place is the same way.
The fediverse is very different. Every valuable account will have its own instance and abide by its own rules
To make sense of this: Infowars is social media company (uses X account as platform)?
Infowars was/is a media company, Alex Jones’ show was on TV and online.
They are known for peddling and creating far right conspiracy theories, and because of this were often banned from social media websites for breaking their Terms of Service.
Because Elon is a right-wing conspiracy theorist who likes Alex Jones, he unbanned infowars from Twitter when he(Elon) bought it.Inforwars was recently sued into the ground because of the claims he made to his audience about the victims of school shootings and their families. Because of this, he was ordered to have his assets liquidated.
The Onion (a satirical news/comedy website) won the bid for Inforwars and its assets, and Elon isn’t a fan of this, so he’s trying to not allow The Onion access to the Inforwars Twitter account.
How will Musk manage all the conflicts of interest, between all of his companies and assets and his role in government. His business interests are so large and diverse that it literally can’t be done, can it? Already got the sense that the US is going down the path of oligarchic kleptocracy. But how shameless and out in the open will it be?
CEO must be the easiest job in the world because so many of those fuckers have more than one.
A very big conflict of interest is tariffs on Canada/Mexico auto sectors that would significantly diminish his Tesla competition.
He helped Trump get elected, Trump owes him favours now. Game 101
Also, everybody was mocking him about “losing money” on twatter… who is laughing now, idiots.
Just because you are too stupid to understand the play, does no make you smart ;)
The big 3 automakers getting kicked out of the oligarch club, is a recipe to destroy NA economy for the benefit of Tesla. Canada looking to China as path to survive is path to having a war on Canada. Canada just sitting there and dying isn’t good for US either, but hopefully our oligarchs are saved by buying up cheap resources.
oligarchic
kleptocracycryptocracyFFY
Simple: he doesn’t.
In his mind the government needs to be run like a business, and in business only profit matters, therefore there is no conflict of interest. Also it is becoming clear that laws are completely irrelevant now and no matter the accusation, they will put YOU in jail because they got the power.
That’s the strange thing, it’s completely open with tons of news outlets constantly calling it out, not an “taboo secret” like of like old facist governments. And in all liklihood, it will stay that way.
The filter bubble and American apathy is just that powerful, I guess?
I just finished reading Amusing Ourselves to Death. In it Neil Postman explains the apathy you mention in a way that I found very convincing. Although the book is from 1985 it’s as relevant as ever, perhaps even more so given our current media climate. It’s worth a read, though I would advise reading Brave New World in advance.
If this was just about the X/Twitter accounts, then X could just suspend them.
I don’t disagree but I’d say that there’s a more important lesson here: The concept of ownership is mediated by a legal system that gives the wealthy a special pass. Rich people can pay lawyers to make up concepts like “superior ownership” 'til the cows come home, and any subsequent precedent costs $600/hr to even access. None of us should feel secure under this system about our online lives or our fucking houses, even if we “own” them.
I entirely agree with your main point.
Aside from that, the concept of “superior ownership” isn’t something made up any time recently. It’s the notion that there are different types of ownership and some of them take priority over others.
For example, if I have a watch, A steals the watch from me and sells it to you, and then B steals the watch from you, you, me and B all have a claim to it.
B possesses the watch so you need to prove they stole it to show you have a superior claim to ownership. You can show that you bought the watch fair and square from A, which means it looks like your claim is valid, but because it was stolen from me in the first place I have the best claim.It’s not a rich person making up a new legal principle, it’s a rich person trying to use their money and lawyers to buy an outcome because they don’t like one of the parties.
My point wasn’t that in this specific case they made up “superior ownership,” but rather that it was made up as a legal concept at some point in the past, probably by lawyers working for rich people, and it’ll probably never matter to you and me. Like so many legal concepts, it is reasonable, but only rich people can really access it, and, at this point, there are so many of them that they will always have one ready to go when it suits them.
Concepts like “fair”, “balanced”, and “democracy” can not exist under Capitalism, because money is speech and power, and the small elite who control thousands/millions more capital than average control everything thousands/millions times more than average.
A country where money gives you power over even the justice system, is just a joke of country and will eventually collapse on itself.
No it won’t. It will prop itself up on labor exploited from the working class.
It’s the middle class that will collapse. Eventually everybody will be poor. Nobody but the rich will own land. It’ll all be one big exploitation of it’s people. Just as russia has done for 1000 years before us.
That’s the goal, didn’t you know? An entire nation of labor slaves without power, and an entire class of elite without empathy.
And that’s how it’ll collapse. People will burn it to the fucking ground.
Now see, I don’t like it but the simplest thing would be for musk to ban the account right now.
He’s not circumventing anything then. Ownership of the account was transferred, that twitter, a private entity chose to ban it is their business.
It’s not worth arguing about. The website and ip is the juicy thing, being able to make satirical info wars programming and products is where it is at. Maybe, maybe there would be a case if musk allowed Jones to make a new account with the same name or otherwise handed it to him.
Would be hilarious if the onion just told Musk to shove that account up his ass and take it to bluesky
If he was an US citizen, I would almost panic - sorry guys, love your country but…
I’d be okay not owning my social media account if these parasites would stop thinking they’re entitled to my privacy and sensitive information.
This is grounds for the immediate dismantling of twitter.
Musk too
In his case it’s just disposal, no salvageable parts
Still a net improvement for humanity.
X is a cesspool.
Look around man. Half the country drank lead ladened koolaid and became drooling, hate-filled sycophants. The other half fought for keeping people safe and still 15million of that portion were apathetic to the cause.
if they own the accounts, that means they arent protected by section 230 and is liable for every illegal thing that is posted.
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Musk is not American, he is here to profit off America and does care what happens to it.
If he bleeds the country dry and ruins the country he will just leave while the rest of us are stuck here
MUSK is not American. Be warned.
Global capital has no loyalty… game 101 tbh
When the war comes, it will be the pedons doing the “defending of property rights”
Prime example: Russo-Ukrainian war, where are all the daddies when property needed to defended?
You own what is on your machine, that you save locally.
Some companies believe they control the internet, but they do not. They control what is on the computers they own, that they save locally. Sometimes that is information that users have shared. That is their choice.
Unless you use Mac or windows
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