"X CORP. OWNS THE X ACCOUNTS."

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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.

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    25 days ago

    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.