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.
Bitch I run my own mastodon instance. I definitely own my social media accounts
So if x has superior ownership, then they should be subject to every illegal thing ever posted on X.
Including CSAM posts and other illegal things.
So whos the pedo now Elon?
So whos the pedo now Elon?
I won’t ever get over him larping as a child and tweeting as if he’d want himself as a father.
And all because none of his actual children give two shits about Apartheid Daddy.
Hilariously, trump wants to remove the law that says you can’t hold platforms legally at fault for their users. Once that gets repealed, this is a genuine argument. (As far as I know… I’m not a lawyer but that’s my interpretation)
Fine, let them keep it. Just sue them for trademark infringement if they ever use it.
X is a cesspool.
Okay… so lets say Musk wins, and the infowars handle isn’t transferred.
The Onion should then file an impersonation complaint with X and have the handle handed to them. I would assume in the auction the onion purchased the rights to the trademark InfoWars.
This would be interesting considering people like Elon want to get rid of Section 230. He could be shooting himself in his left foot to prevent himself from shooting himself in his right foot.
I own SOME of my accounts. I self host lemmy, email, and a friendica instance.
Sorry to bring it up yet again, but I wonder how this works on Bluesky. On Bluesky, I host my own PDS and use my own domain as my handle. I don’t see how bsky could try to claim any ownership of either.
Wait, what’s a PDS?
“Personal Data Server.”
Ok. The accounts can be withheld, suspended or whatever.
The Onion is therefore entitled to due compensation from X Corp., as this was considered to be included in the bid. X can have that NFT for just 47 billion dollars, what a deal! /s
No. If valve cancel your steam account, you lose your games and they owe you a big fat zero.
Same goes for all accounts with assets attached.
Sad to say, but in this case it is musk’s platform and his rules.
If he wants to go home and take his ball too. Tough luck.
Doesn’t seem right, but it is legal and already happened on multiple platforms multiple times.
Perhaps, but it all depends on the judge’s decision whether X corp’s argument is completely bullshit or not.
For your Valve example, in the Subscriber Agreement you can terminate the agreement, or Valve can terminate it for a violation of the Agreement rules, with no refunds. For a termination without a valid reason, “no refunds” does not necessarily apply. I’m not saying it would be hard for Valve to come up with a bullshit reason to cancel anyone’s account on a whim or to change the terms so that they get broken easily, but it’s not automatic and courts can assign value to a specific license you have access to, based on the jurisdiction, in particular in places like Quebec, Australia, and the EU.
9C. Termination by Valve
Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.
Addendum: I wasn’t totally serious with the second paragraph, nothing may stop X from banning The Onion/Infowars or whatever after the transfer is complete. But trying to disrupt the transfer itself over it seems a little ridiculous.
And twitter / x most likely have a similar rule. And musk could have achieved similar by just banning the account.
There’s no reason to give it to Jones. He doesn’t own any of the applicable ip any more. Maybe there’s an argument if he tried that.
What the actual fuck?! Just that first paragraph!
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.
So they argue that accounts are non transferable, even by court order!!
This is complete bullshit, and should not be taken seriously at all as a legal argument, obviously X has the right to close the accounts afterwards, if they are operated against the terms X has decided. But ONLY if that. It should not be allowed to do it arbitrarily.Not non-transferrable, as that would prevent Elon from claiming @america or the transfer of @POTUS.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Or @X
Or a whole bunch of usernames, for that matter: Elon Musk’s X Has Started Selling Off Old Twitter Handles For Upwards Of $50,000
What the onion could do in such case that elon does not want to give the accounts as part of the deal is to send a letter threatening legal action if they do not take down the accounts for infringing on their InfoWars trademark
Oh I like this
You are naive, if you really think that the law still applies to people in Trump’s near proximity.
I think the entire reason they’re doing this is to set the precedent that they can defy court orders.
It violates the 13th Amendment against slavery
Uh?
Just hollering bullshit, because in the past if he did that louder and longer it worked for jones.
Classic not a lawyer but the terms of service say,
We give you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive license to use the software provided to you as part of the Services. This license cannot be assigned, gifted, sold, shared or transferred in any other manner to any other individual or entity without X’s express written consent.
(Emphasis mine)
Twitter accounts are commonly shared by many individuals and I guarantee they do so without written consent. Does that invalidate/bring into question the whole clause or just the sharing part?
Contracts can be modified by the bankruptcy code.
In 11 U.S.C. § 365(f)(1):
Except as provided in subsections (b) and © of this section, notwithstanding a provision in an executory contract or unexpired lease of the debtor, or in applicable law, that prohibits, restricts, or conditions the assignment of such contract or lease, the trustee may assign such contract or lease under paragraph (2) of this subsection.
So any continuing contract in which there are obligations on both sides, such as a premium account where the accountholder pays a fee and the service provider continues providing access to the service, is assignable in a bankruptcy, even if the contract itself says it’s not assignable.
There’s a few other bankruptcy principles at play, but that’s the main one that jumps out at me.
There’s also a classic case where the bankruptcy trustee can sell a bankruptcy debtor’s Pittsburgh Steelers season tickets, including the right to renew for the next year on the same terms as all other season tickets holders. Just because the season tickets are revocable by contract doesn’t mean that the team has the right to exercise that revocation against a bankruptcy debtor just because they don’t like what’s happening in the bankruptcy.
So Musk wants to take it to court that no accounts on X can be run by a team, only the person who made them, and they can’t be transferred.
I wonder who owns @/POTUS then, some random whitehouse intern from almost two decades ago? What about @/Tesla and @/SpaceX, has he received written permission for them :) ?
My understanding is that it’s the transfer clause he is focusing on. It’s just not clear to me that violating one part of the clause doesn’t bring the rest into question.
In the cases of POTUS, Tesla, SpaceX, etc it is certainly possible written permission has been given (although I agree not likely).
I don’t see why it would invalidate anything. Companies can enforce their terms at their own discretion. It’s not like a trademark where they lose it if they don’t use it.
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
Am I correct in seeing this as the company is claiming that courts of law cannot require them to transfer control of an account from one user to a different user? This despite the fact that doing so has been fairly standard practice for years now?
Personally, I think the lawyers for The Site Previously Known As Twitter have a very weak argument. However, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, so there’s also that.
I mean… Yeah they can always not give out the accounts, but they will still need to disable them if they don’t want to infringe the Infowars trademark that would belong to The Onion
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.
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.
Who owns your outlook.com account? Who owns your gmail.com account? I will give you a guess it is the company that owns the domain to the right of the @.
I’m not sure why everyone is shocked. This has been the case since the beginning of the public Internet. It’s their servers, their infrastructure, and everyone should have been completely aware that we are giving them content for free. I was never under any other impression, even back when I was using Usenet and IRC. That’s why I don’t post anything on social media I truly care about retaining ownership over.
Hey, what’s your social security number, real quick! Don’t even think about it! Just post it!
632-44-8625!
I tried googling that to see if there was a hidden pop culture reference that flew over my head. Kind of like asking for a phone number and replying “867-5309”
Google results first listed a calculator, which solved the equation. -8037 btw.
The next page of results were auto detailing body shops in my area. Which I have to assume are personalized google results, and not an intended point of the joke on your end.
So in the end, I realized we have two different joke phone numbers. Anything with a 555 prefix, is always fake. AND 867-5309 is also always a joke answer.
But we don’t have ANY joke social security numbers!
I recommend we use that random one I posted which is sure to be assigned to someone.
But you own the goodwill and trademarks associated with what’s on the left of it.
Similarly, when people sell a business they sell the clients. It stands to reason that the followers can be like clients and should be transferred in the same way as in normal business sales.
X can’t reuse the inforwars account due to the trademark, but they are also not required to transfer ownership or continue providing access to that account.
True, but I think it’s pretty clear what they’re trying to actually do; to keep control of the account and use it.
