PieFedElon Musk Says He Owns Everyone's Twitter Account in Bizarre Alex Jones Court Filing
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Summary
Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has filed a court motion claiming ownership of all X accounts, arguing they cannot be transferred, in an effort to block The Onion’s purchase of InfoWars, Alex Jones’s conspiracy outlet.
The sale was part of a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones for defaming Sandy Hook families.
X’s filing asserts that users only hold a non-transferable license to their accounts, despite Musk’s prior actions threatening to reassign handles.
Critics view Musk’s move as aiding far-right figures like Jones and aligning with his MAGA agenda.
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They should totally host a mastodon instance at infowars URL
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metaStaticSo if X-itter accounts were to threaten persons or places that were in the interest of the state to protect that responsibility lies on Musk?
Gee wizz, I don't think you understand Capitalism at all. Musk gets the profits and you get the liability.
If only he were also trying to sue advertisers that no longer want to do business with him. It would be the perfect storm of what is good comes to me and what is bad is yours.
I still don't understand how the fuck that worked. Why would any company risk doing business with shxitter after that?
Time to commit crimes with 'our' Twitter account
Elon Musk parody accounts no longer required to advertise themselves as parody, since they really are Elon Musk now.
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CileTheSaneAlex Jones had no say in what was being sold. The Court seized his assets and sold them to pay the people he owes.
This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥Unrelated but can someone overdose on Ketamine?
I hadn't logged into Twitter in years. Just signed in to delete my account. He can have it back.
You think it's really deleted in the back end? Adorable
GHiLA...I don't care.
I left Facebook but I left my account a husk. If the last thing they ever know is that I went to Krispy Kreme and got a pumpkin spice donut in 2017, then that's cool with me.
I kept it because occasionally a dude needs a $50 TV and it's the best place to find a used one.
"After eating the donut, the trail goes cold, Mr. Zuckerberg. We just don't know!*
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It's cute that you think I even have it installed.
Here’s How Facebook Tracks You in 2024 (and how to stop them)
It's cute that you think no one else has done these things unless you specifically told them about it.
Looks like pretty basic and easy shit to avoid. I can't speak for the advertisement part. I don't see ads.
circuitfarmerNot supporting Musk here, but there is some truth to the claim in the headline.
One major danger we currently have is everyone thinking that social media platform accounts are property. They simply aren't -- at least, not yours. If the company decides to terminate your account, they can do that. It will be supported by the TOS. You do not own it.
You also don't own data you put on it. Post a bunch of photos to FB? They own them and can do whatever they want with them.
The danger is that these things are so ubiquitous they appear like information utilities, but they are not. They are corporate services wholly owned by their respective corporations. It is something that makes federated systems stand out from the crowd (not that you own an account there either, but there at least is not a single centralized corporate owner).
More people need to be made aware of this.
Not mine you faker. I never signed up for any of your crap.
Crishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ockHHFfZ3b8&t=11
Sorry. It was my immediate first thought. 😅
It’s days like this that I’m just so happy and proud of myself for never doing the whole Twitter thing.
Good thing I did jackshit with my Twitter account and had it fully deactivated. It was hacked and posted some spam ads that I knew nothing about.
That pic, though: Peak American alpha males.
alpha
Unpredictable behavior, unfit for the general public to interact with.
You mean rich spoiled man-children who are nothing more than insecure adolescent tweens going through puberty and having sexually frustrated tantrums because girls just laugh at them, and their narcissism is so all-consuming that their only emotion is disdain and goal in all the world is more and more self-gratification and the insatiable pursuit of total control of everything, because they know deep down they will never ever be the recipients of genuine respect or admiration.
Yeah that's what I thought you said. Slight faux pas.
BakkodaI mean, if someone lets me into their house, points me to a whiteboard with a pen and tells me to write whatever I want so the other people in the house can read it...
Do I own the whiteboard? Or the pen? Or have control over any of it?
No. The owner of the house can lock me out and wipe off or change what I wrote at their leisure.
You do have some control, in the form of copyright. Also the analogy doesn’t hold up well since you’re not using their “pen” and they only let you reach inside through the window. And the audience is outside the house.
And to continue that analogy- Twitter didn't assign the name, the user created it so they hold copyright on the name.
Except when you enter the home, you accepted the TOS that transfers copyright to the owner of the home.
Nope.
as a user, “you retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours you own your Content (and your photos and videos are part of the Content),” although you also grant Twitter a license to use the content, which authorizes it “to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.” Based on this language, other twitter users are also licensed to copy and redistribute your posts by “retweeting” them.
https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/tweets-protected-copyright/
Congratulations on reading the twitter TOS. Now tell me if it is legal for a company to lay claim on copyright via a TOS.
We were talking about twitter. Stay with the program please.
I thought we were talking about who legally can lay claim on copyrights in the hypothetically house with a whiteboard? i'm not the one lost with the program.
Really ? I think you'll find that clause means you do not own copyright to anything you post on X.
x00zNo but somebody else can own the creator of what was written on the board. That might be a bit weird in today's terms if it's a person, but if it's a company that wrote that stuff it can legally become somebody else's, which is what is happening with Infowars.
Twitter has always allowed a company to own their own account, and even transfer it and be used by multiple people. For example how Biden's account is used by his staff. But now X starts meddling with this specific case, which is very questionable.
And if you're going to say that "it's his own account"; lawyers were saying that his "personal brand" is too heavily intertwined with Infowars and that it should be part of the Infowars brand.
He does. Same with any other platform you do not “own” your account. You have credentials to login to an account you created.
This should not be news to anyone. This applies to all social media, all entertainment, and every other account you use online.
Which is why it's really important to have some trust /reputation if using these services.
Why anyone would use a service run by a fascist entitled madman who literally represents the very worst version of humanity is beyond me and they deserve whatever they get.
bizarrolandI don't know why you're getting downvoted, you are correct.
The platform owns the platform.
You have given the platform permission to use anything on the platform however they want.
They own the content you put on the platform.
They own the content you put on the platform.
This will depend on the terms of service agreement. Some of them try to get away with this, while others just give themselves an irrevocable license to use content you publish on their platform.
Ok then. Close the account.
I just need someone to explain to me how this doesn't mean he's liable for anything posted on every account. If he has ownership of the account then the liability rest with him. So the meteoric rise of child pornography on Twitter would seem to indicate to me at least that Elon Musk is liable for child pornography. Not to mention hate speech and credible threats.
He didn't think that far ahead.
He didn't think
He doesnt think
Rich people aren’t liable for their actions.
They don't get arrested or charged, they get letters from the DoJ asking them to stop please.
I believe the argument being used is roughly analogous to lending something to someone.
If you borrow a lawnmower, it doesn't get auctioned off when you go bankrupt. You get to use it however you like and if you commit a crime with it you're responsible. It's still ultimately *owned* by the person who leant it to you.
Doesn't it expose them to at least a little bit of liability? Especially if they loaned it out to a child or something.
So, the argument they made hasn't been successful yet, so "who knows". Just because they make an argument doesn't mean it's accepted.
The judge could very easily say that Twitter *does* ultimately own the accounts, but that because the user has exclusive access said exclusive access is an asset the user can forfeit as part of legal proceedings.
More than one person can have ownership of a thing, just different senses of ownership. All of them are legally recognized, and some just take precedence over others.
By saying they have a superior claim of ownership, Twitter tacitly acknowledges that the users has *a* claim of ownership, they just say theirs is stronger.
The judge just gets to decide if a Twitter account is like a borrowed lawnmower where it doesn't get auctioned off on bankruptcy but instead goes back to the owner, or if it's like business rental agreement for office space, where the purchaser of the bankrupt business also picks up the lease, even though it's "more owned" by someone else.
The way policy and such is currently, a platform isn't generally liable for its user generated content if the platform is roughly neutral with regards to the content it publishes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
So they're not generally responsible for what they're users post because they don't pick which bits are visible and which aren't, generally.
The same provisions that protect internet providers when subscribers use their service to break the law, probably. As long as they pretend to be a communications provider and self-regulate, they're shielded from liability.
In this case, the account/handle could be argued to be equivalent to an IP address, which is something owned by the provider and not the user. If Felon Musk tried to claim copyright of user-submitted content as well as their accounts, *that* would be what opens up a large can of liability worms (by turning them into a publisher).
The problem with citing those Provisions is those companies have never claimed direct ownership of said accounts. This is an entirely new legal argument.
It's pushing existing boundaries, but I wouldn't call it an entirely new argument. Twitter's lawyers could (and probably would) argue that a Twitter account is analogous to something that is already well-established as being both property of the service provider and insulated enough that it doesn't make the service provider liable for content published through it.
My previous example of "Twitter account = IP address" is probably the easiest to explain through analogy.
An IP address is an addressable identifier. /
An account is an addressable identifier.
Verizon owns their IP addresses. /
Twitter owns their accounts.
Subscribers can communicate under one of Verizon's IP addresses. /
Users can communicate under one of Twitter's accounts.
Verizon can not be held liable in civil court for actions performed with one of their IP addresses. /
... (this is the argument Twitter could make)
A *sane* court would probably find that the second point isn't comparable because an account uniquely identifies a specific entity whereas an IP address is shared, but we don't exactly live in times where sanity is a given. Alternatively, they could argue that "Twitter *handle* = IP address" and "Twitter account = subscriber account".
In any case, we won't find out until when/if it makes it to court. Though, if it does, that might actually be one and only time I don't side against the MPAA or RIAA.
I'm surprised people still have any respect for this hypocrite.
And then: Elon Musk’s ex-wife refutes his claim that firstborn child died in his arms
After the election, I'm so not surprised at all.
In fact, I haven't been even a little surprised these people have fans since 2016.
Oligarchs only care about acquiring more and more wealth. Nothing else. Not you. Not their families. And they definitely don't care about whatever they said 10 minutes ago.
You don't acquire that much wealth by being a good person.
So he’s going to take his ball and go home..?
More like, he’s taking his ball, and you go home.
Pepperidge Farm remembers when he took over the @x account from a long time user and no 'no transferable license was ever muttered when it benefited him not to do so.
you take away all his money and you're just left with pure, raw asshole.
he's more like one of donvict's hemorrhoids.
Weird, because their help articles suggest giving account handles over in the case of trademark infringement. https://help.x.com/en/search-results?limit=10&offset=0&q=Trademark&searchPath=%2Fcontent%2Fhelp-twitter%2Fen&sort=relevance
You don't expect Elon to read things, do you? He has important one-word tweets to post!
Regimental...
Those were written by sane people before Muskrat took over and fired everyone that had any ounce of integrity.
Sure, but that doesn't mean he owns any trademarks that might appear within those account names, like, say, *Infowars* or some such. He can give the account to whoever he wants. But he can't protect them from being sued for trademark infringement if they use it.
Only if they sue because they are pretending to be infowars. I can register “google” as a username all I want and they can’t actually *stop* me as long as I don’t pretend to be them or use their logo.
What if they put a blue tick on it?
Straight to jail.
OK, but why should this block the sale? The twitter handle is only a small part of the Infowars assets.
Mean the one I deleted a while ago?
naw. the one you *thought* you deleted a while ago.
You mean the one Elon uses now?
So if you threaten someone on Twitter it's really Elon threatening them? Interesting.
No, just Elon threatening himself.
Man.
He's like if Dr. Evil and every bond villain were combined into one, then poorly written in a Sci-fi channel special as the wealthiest man in the world.
He doesn't actually do anything but be rich and say stupid shit, and for some reason people keep going along with it
The hero of free speech everyone.
But they have been transferred. They've taken accounts away from people.
Yeah. This won't hasten the exodus to Bluesky or anything
It won't. People on on twitter cause they say the engagement isn't the same everywhere else. But I think its just bots.
I've started noticing embedded bluesky posts in news stories instead of embedded tweets. I think it might.
Just a reminder... melon head is a junkie. Everything he says is a drugged up delusion.
Nothing to see here, just walk on by.
You could say he's under the influence, but as much as I dislike the guy and want him to fail, I cannot discount that he knows what he's doing. He's a billionaire, that bought a media company to further his business and personal interests. Just like Bezos. He feels he swung the US election and is fuelled by hubris and self-importance. A right winger using his media company to help out right wingers. Was it his choice or a favour for Donny, who knows. I do suspect Tesla and SpaceX are going to get a nice smooth run in terms of contracts, funding and legal disputes
Dude is wanna be CEO of two companies, has no involvement in five other companies, has twelve kids with his employees he doesn't take care of, and now wants to help run the US government when he couldn't run a McDonald's. He is spread thinner than a jar of mayonnaise on a thousand loaves.
He has a team of handlers whose job is to literally keep him away from anything important. Not only does he not know what the fuck he is doing he is failing his kids, companies, and humanity.
He bought a company with other peoples money and let them turn it into a propaganda machine to extort and sell influence around the world through deception and lies. He is Alex Jones Jr. with more money and more reach.
A self admitted drug addict that thinks he knows more about manufacturing than any human alive. Once you peel back the lies and deception you have a Nepo baby manchild sexual assaulting conman.
But sure he has a lot of money. I guess that is all it takes for some people to drop trough, spread them cheeks, and get ready for daddy Muskrat.
Technically he's right. It's like the access card to a shitty gym, the card is their property, provided to you as long as you fulfill your part of the agreement.
Except that this time, the gym is owned by a megalomaniac madman. I'd let him keep the card and let him waddle in the filth of his own making all by himself.
No, the X terms of service specifically state that you retiain ownership and rights to anything you post. X just takes free license to your posts so that it can show it to the world.
You retain rights to your content, but not to the account itself.
Which isn't a bad thing. Platforms *should* be able to terminate accounts that break the law, for example.
That's not the same as saying you own the account.
does this mean whoever bought dril's account has to give it back
Feels like a great time for a competitor to explicitly state that you in fact, do own your account on their site. Nuance to that as tech bros is always gonna be tech bros (and blue sky is also tech bros, just with temporary infective to say "nah man, it's cool baby..." for the time being while they build market share). But basically stating that you have full ownership and responsibility to manage your account, and that management transfers along with any kind of power of attorney shift or through any other related court actions
My tinfoil take: There’s something in the Twitter DM between him and Alex Jones that NEEDS to stay private.
And you think the twitter CEO can't delete that?
Elon’s looking like he’s got a Michael Jackson style chin implant.
Does this come as a surprise to anyone?