X's Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts
X's Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts
"X CORP. OWNS THE X ACCOUNTS."
Some key excerpts:
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
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.
Jones has signaled that Musk has done this in order to help him, and his tweet about it has gone incredibly viral.
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.
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.
If musk owns any specific account, or all, wouldn't that make him responsible for it's content?
When I deleted my account it said it was my account.
Which is it?
I've seen some interesting takes on this elsewhere as well. If Twitter is making the legal argument that all the accounts belong to them explicitly, would that make them responsible for all the content they host as well?
They basically get away with all the hate speech and copyright infringement because they are considered a "safe harbor," not the owners of the content themselves; but if they're the owner of the content, the safe harbor status might not apply...
Oh, that is very spicy! I can’t wait for the lawsuit that brings up this argument.
They go into this in the filing:
Under both the Prepetition TOS and the Current TOS, all right, title, and interest in and to X Corp.’s services, including X Corp.’s various websites, SMS, APIs, email notifications, applications, buttons, widgets, ads, commerce services, and other covered services (collectively, the “Services”) are X Corp.’s “exclusive property.” See Prepetition TOS § 4; Current TOS § 4. X Corp., as the owner of the Services, grants each user “a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non- exclusive license to use the software provided” to use the Services. See Prepetition TOS § 4 (emphasis added); Current TOS § 4 (same). In contrast to the Services, the account holders own the Content (as defined in the TOS) they submit, post, or display on or through the Services; however, the Content is distinct and separate from the Services.
So I guess the account itself is something they're saying is part of the Services X provides and is their property, while the stuff you post on the account is yours.
InfoWars the company is being transferred. The InfoWars X account is staying with InfoWars. Legally speaking, there's no change of ownership here, Musk is delusional.
Exactly this. The only way this notion gets entertained beyond just straight up dismissal is bribery and corruption.
While the fact that Twitter is run by a flagrant right-wing fascist who would do anything to help other major right-wing fascists is nothing new, I did think this was an interesting look at the state of social media.
The idea that you can never own your own account (and likely, by extension, anything you post on said account) really drives home the point that the Internet as it is now is basically wholly owned by a handful of corporations.
I don't know if we'll ever be able to reach the point of everyone making their own silly little sites again. It seems like social media is now required to drive views, so the artists who need views for sales will always need to be on social media.
Luckily, decentralized social media is on the rise. Lemmy, while still comparatively small, has a fairly active user base; and while Mastodon has not (and likely will not) ever be mainstream, even Bluesky is technically decentralized as well (I think).
Having said all that, I would very much like to see people making their own sites just for things they enjoy. It's surprisingly not that hard to do as long as you don't need it very polished.
Bluesky's more like an aspirationally decentralized platform, you can keep your own data on your own server and use your own domain name as a user name, but most of the rest of it is "centralized, but we're designing it in such a way that we can open it up later." Even then, though, it's heavily influenced by the original idea of "let's make something decentralized that Twitter can switch to once it's worked out" which means that even when they do open things up, it's likely that a lot of Bluesky will only be practical at "big tech company scale" to run yourself, whereas Mastodon or Lemmy you can just spin up on a server and it'll be fine until you get a lot of users.
they also recently stated 'we designed it traffic heavy at the relay with the expectation that only big companies would manage relays' as their admitted 'decentralization' strategy. ya know, instead of coming up with something more actually distributed. it really feels like they have no intention of true federation.
Luckily, decentralized social media is on the rise. Lemmy, while still comparatively small, has a fairly active user base; and while Mastodon has not (and likely will not) ever be mainstream, even Bluesky is technically decentralized as well (I think).
The paradox of modern social media. Twitter was only good because it was packed with normies, which gave a sense of being part of global conversations that included more than just your subset of weirdos. Bluesky is only becoming good because the normies are finally moving over. However, like Twitter, Bluesky is currently a centralized platform. The simplicitly of centralization is why the normies are there. It's also the reason why Bluesky is doomed to eventually end up like Twitter, unless Jay Graber and the other shareholders magically decide that the initial growth phase is enough and they don't need to grow anymore. But this is capitalism, and we all know how this ends up. Jack Dorsey may have had lofty goals for Bluesky, but he doesn't even work there anymore. The neverending demand for growth will push Bluesky to end up exactly like Twitter, perhaps even ending in another purchase by a billionaire fascist. It is inevitable.
At least Beehaw is cool and nonprofit.
I recently posted an article in another thread about Bluesky. It's from 2023, but worth reading in case you don't know it:
Jack Dorsey may have had lofty goals for Bluesky, but he doesn’t even work there anymore.
Which is a point in Bluesky's favour.
You can totally own your social media accounts (and I think politicians, parties, companies and people should) if you run your own Mastodon, Peertube etc instance (sure, AI-ssholes will still steal you data but you can't not have that if you do something on the public internet today, apparently). Yes, only a few people will want to learn how to do that but just like with email and websites (more things all of the above people should have) you can buy hosted versions and do backups, move to a different host, own your data. The problem is that people don't care until it's too late.
even Bluesky is technically decentralized as well (I think).
it is technically; but it's already thoroughly enshitified as exemplified by their push to censor gazan users under the guise of spam.
It's interesting that this is happening to Info Wars after the tech companies conspired to destroy it and Alex Jones' career by simultaneously banning it from all their problems at once. As I said at the time; it is very concerning that the tech companies could deny a business access to their platforms without proving their case in front of a neutral 3rd party, without offering their target a chance to defend themselves and without any oppourtunity to appeal their decision.
It was very difficult to say anything in defense of Alex Jones, even in the abstract, so they were able to set this precedent with ease.
it is very concerning that the tech companies could deny a business access to their platforms without proving their case in front of a neutral 3rd party, without offering their target a chance to defend themselves
This is a ludicrous position. He/infowars broke their ToC so they acted accordingly. If anything, they were incredibly lenient in not banning all the accounts prior to when they did.
You've also alluded that there's some kind of conspiracy against Jones by those companies..
by simultaneously banning it from all their problems (I guess you meant 'platforms') at once.
By using Hanlons Razor, I would posit that they acted at the last moment before it would blow back on them. The controversy surrounding the guy/company would have generated traffic/clicks/revenue and they wouldn't cut that off unless there were something that would negatively impact their future revenue.
No company acts out of others interests unless it has some effect on their own, thinking otherwise is just naive.
I misspoke in my previous post. The tech companies conspired to act simultaneously when they banned Alex Jones to minimise the blow-back they'd suffer from his fans. Destroying his business/ career was a byproduct.
He/infowars broke their ToC so they acted accordingly.
How do we know that? Did they make their case in front of a neutral 3rd party? Did Jones have the oppourtunity to defend himself or appeal any decisions? No. If 20 gov'ts announced that Facebook broke their laws and its license will be suspended tomorrow Zuckerberg doesn't just have to suck it up. He can go to court and appeal that decision. He'd even be allowed to continue operations whilst the case was pending as Uber, which is guilty of breaking numerous laws, did in London.
This bootlicking for the robber barons that dominate society is ridiculous. "It's only oppression if it's done by the gooburmint!" he said with Apple's boot on his neck.