From "X's Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts" (404 Media).
That article asserts that "Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends." But The Onion's desire to purchase the account that Infowars stuffed with speech over the years is all about stifling its specific viewpoint. The Onion has its own X account, but it wants the place that Infowars built up so it can stomp out that speech — rewrite it into a parody of itself. It could do that parody on a newly created account and thus give us more speech, more debate.
So who's more against freedom of speech here? It seems to me that X is protecting it.
I'll concede that loving freedom of speech is a specific viewpoint.
ADDED: You can read X's filing here. Excerpt: "While X Corp. takes no position as to the sale of any
Content posted on the X Accounts, X Corp. is the sole owner of the Services being sold as part of
the sale of the X Accounts. While X Corp. has granted account holders, such as Jones and FSS, a
license to use the Services, such license is non-assignable, both under the terms of the TOS and
applicable non-bankruptcy law (i.e., as a personal services contract), and the Trustee cannot sell,
assign, or otherwise transfer such license absent X Corp.’s consent."
Posts
77 comments:
Neutrality is a viewpoint. Cruel neutrality is most definitely a viewpoint.
I'll trade Infowars fot MSNBC. Actually, seeing Alex Jones over most of the samizdat comments and memes means that silencing Infowars only amplifies his voice. They can try going after him for the rest of his life: the more they do so, the more people ask "who exactly are the 'Sandy Hook Families' funded by and how do they have this much legal power?"
I'd love to see President Trump go after that organization.
Some say The Onion will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
The Onion does not bring "the fire".
But if I had to consider twice,
The Onion became a tool of hate,
The Babylon Bee is twice as nice,
Is 100x as great,
And will suffice
We are all very, very fortunate that Musk has chosen to put his huge thumb on the scale in favor of individual freedom.
There are many layers to the onion, and I agree that info wars tweets shouldn't be included. The lawfare destruction of Infowars was truly amazing. Why lawyers should be allowed to destroy someone's business because they said something is beyond me. But 'muricans love lawyers.
Isn't this more a case of identity than speech? The challenge is that can you purchase and launch a parody using the account being parodied?
While a court can order you to divest of your assets something like your social media identity maybe needs to have a different status.
Becoming the Cal Ripken of blogging means you have a horse in the race, too…
As long as it is a crime to have the opinion that Sandy Hook may have been a fake shooting and that the government used crisis actors to attempt to disarm the American people, then we have no free speech in the United States.
And it's time we all admit it. We have no Free Speech.
He's not originally even American. He's South African. But of course, he saw firsthand what Democracy can do in the wrong hands.
Hear me out: what if this has nothing to do with free speech and is just rich people trolling each other?
This is about precedent.
The people who do not want free speech are just looking for a way to end around the First Amendment. Taking out Infowars is just the camel's nose.
The Law profession is currently corrupted and is being used as a tool by evil people to get around the spirit of the 1st amendment.
Saw it first-hand, and had a warm-up next door, too.
I find it stunning that the media now admits it's possible to use Social Media sites to suppress views in the United States.
Our own government was in cahoots with these rat bastards for many, many years. And they got away without a single one of them being shot in their faces.
I don't see the value of InfoWars. It's not like people still closely follow it and will be tricked by the new ownership into beclowning themselves.
Is the Onion so flush with cash that they can spend real money on one sort-of-clever tweet?
It can be two things.
And this is how coordinated media censorship likely ends in a country with the First Amendment. The autocratic left hates freedom, but they never had a legal basis for censorship. It's just sour grapes from the bullies who are losing a political and media hegemony.
"While a court can order you to divest of your assets something like your social media identity maybe needs to have a different status."
I think what would be taken from Infowars would be a place where it built up a huge set of material — expressive writing, video, whatever. And The Onion would take over that place and remove the existing content and replace it with satirical stuff, making fun of Infowars. That is the destruction of speech and cutting a speaker off from the audience it cultivated.
It's great that X is protecting the integrity of these places that millions of speakers have cultivated.
The Sandy Hook plaintiffs sought recompense and punishment for what Jones said about them, but did they also want to silence him and destroy everything he's ever said about anything?
The first legal objection to the InfoWars sale (before Musk) was that it was illegally sold to a low bidder through plan to use lawsuit payoff money from Alex Jones to fund the purchase. The Onion never had significant cash. With the announced plan for advertising on the new satirical InfoWars by Everytown for Gun Safety (a Michael Bloomberg enterprise), it is almost certain that Bloomberg's pro bono attorneys concocted and executed this scheme.
Just more lawfare from one set of billionares. Michael Bloomberg is a puppet master.
I detest Infowars and Alex Jones.
Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends.
Musk has done less stifling than the people who controlled Twitter before him.
Um, yeah. They probably want that more than recompense and punishment.
Thats what facebook and telegram did
Alex Jones is right about more things than you are.
It is cute watching intellectual cowards do this hat and dance routine where they declare they are better than the people a Regime is trying to destroy.
This has almost nothing to do with the plaintiffs. Their feelings are not worth more than a million dollars at most if you are being generous.
This is all about the Regime looking for a way to destroy their enemies. You all need to stop pretending. It is ridiculous.
Achilles - don't be an idiot.
Does blogger own the Althouse blog words and all our comments as their exclusive intellectual property?
Alex Jones is just the flip side of Rachel Maddow. Too many lies too much BS for any credibility. Even if that fake-info idiot is right on one tick of the clock.
If the lawfare efforts are being underwritten by the Progressive Democrats, then do these charitable donations that are directly given to the families as professional services fall under tax law, as a form of income, in the year they are donated?
Of course Jones is detestable. What is more detestable is the effort to squash a bug using a nuclear device. Not only is it an attack on Free Speech, it is an attack on our system of laws. His trial was a mockery of justice, and the process that is being pursued even now, is just as much of a mockery. Pick a subject, any subject, and imagine yourself going to trial in such a courtroom, with such a judge - forbidden to speak in your own defense. It cannot stand if we wish to live under the Rule of Law.
You can detest anything you want to, but you can't detest any ones right to speak. Just like you Alex Jones is allowed his opinion. There is no qualifier in our first amendment.
In no other "crisis actor" claim or libel lawsuit, or slader case, in any court in the United States, has any court ever ruled that our media companies may be taken over.
Whatever you think of this weirdo, he's the media. And we have a First Amendment in this country.
Allegedly.
"You cannot detest anyone's right so speak."
I beg to differ with you there Rusty. This case proves that the United States no longer has a First Amendment protecting either speech or the press.
Imagine someone successfully sued say ... the NY Times ... for libel. Can a court order that the NY Times' newspaper be given to the suit's winner, for them to publish as the NY Times, anything they wish?
How is that any different in the case of Alex Jones?
IANAL but my guess would be they own the right to publish them at least, otherwise they would not have the right to enforce their terms of service, just like X. They also have the right to insert whatever content, i.e. advertising, they want into in the stream. Essentially you don't have the right to sell the ability to publish on Blogger under your blog name and if the account is abandoned then Blogger owns it. That isn't exactly what's happening in the Infowsrs case but it feels close
You'd think so. But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some VERY shady accounting is going on, with "Hoe dare you attack the Sandy Hook Families!" as the aegis discouraging investigation.
President Trump doesn't care about any of that, though, so I can't wait to see which Rat front group gets hit first.
So, you’re saying it’s bad for free speech if one company buys another company and their only plan [in your opinion] is to make fun of the company they bought? That doesn’t make sense. Satire is free speech. And frankly if the choice is Alex Jones’ type speech and satire I think most people will take satire - especially because X has a plethora of Alex Jones wannabe’s. At least with satire you know it’s not proclaiming to be truth or facts.
"I detest Infowars and Alex Jones."
That has no relevance to the free speech questions other than that our dedication to freedom of speech is tested when we hate the speaker and the speech.
Free speech and property issues aside, “The Onion” is now the unfunniest satire website around. It is perhaps the premier example of the left’s inability to meme. That its owners thought they could pull this off is, itself, a joke.
Trump should take Jones, Giuliani, and all the rest of the MAGA people with big civil judgments against them and direct commission them into the military, then give them orders to serve as special advisers on the White House staff.
Then they can rely on the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act to hold up all this civil lawfare.
Plus it would irk the fuck out of the Obama/Biden generals to see all these guys walking around in uniform.
JSM
Intellectual cowards are more detestable than Alex Jones.
But mouthing the words makes intellectual cowards feel good and morally superior to the people who actually fight on their behalf.
These are the same people who supported Desantis and wanted Trump to drop out because he was indicted by the regime and had too much "baggage."
Blogger owns the database.
I am sure Ann could export it to her own database if she wanted.
The Onion didn't buy Infowars.
A corrupt court serving an illegitimate regime is forcing the sale of Infowars to a Regime toady.
You can try to re-frame this any way you want. It doesn't change the fact that you are a fascist piece of crap of you support this.
Musk admitted X throttles links, and Threads is only a little better. But social media's quiet war on links has been going on for years.
Big tech has been draining the open web's lifeblood and giving us "news influencers" instead of the news.
Musk is deciding what is the "truth". If it doesn't fit his narrative and world view, he buries it. This means he is the editor of the message of the media published.
In fact, Musk going to court in the infowars case, is saying he has the ownership of all accounts. He might not realize it but that is saying he is a publisher.
Musk's objection is actually pretty narrow. He's not even really making a free speech argument. He acknowledges The Onion's right to buy all of InfoWar's content and to rewrite it any way they please. He might even acknowledge their right to post the rewritten content on their own X account. He just won't let them post it under the current InfoWar accounts, on the legal grounds that, under X's terms of service, accounts are nonassignable and therefore cannot be sold to anyone.
The article's scare quote saying "you do not own your followers or your account or anything at all on corporate social media" is just not true. You don't own your followers or your account on X, but you do own all of the content that you write or otherwise create and post to your account.
To quote X's objection at tedious length:
Accounts on X are governed by the X Terms of Service (“TOS”). 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.” 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. 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.
Can Trump nominate Alex Jones as solicitor general?
The left are criminally unfunny.
GOD, Rich, you absolutely suck. Did you get your law degree from a can of Monster? By saying that they own all the accounts, social media doesn't commit to policing all the posts. They can revoke access without appeal, but that's like claiming the police are newspaper editors.
True, Twitter might fall afoul of countries which don't have real speech protections, but that's fine. I'm sure Musk will use Starlink to supply dissident news in such countries. Keir Starmer's UK, for one, can't really afford much more dissatisfaction with current authority.
Actually, I'm really starting to warm to the idea. Lose the Infowars archive in exchange for Trump seizing the NYT, WaPo, and stored copies of all New York television? I almost want Infowars to lose this appeal.
They don't own the original content: Vox Day has already republished all of his old Blogspot content on voxday.net. They might own the comments, or at least not release the database to authors, but then maybe Vox didn't think they were particularly worth preserving.
Catherine Herridge explains CBS News' rejection of her live Elon interview.
https://x.com/C__Herridge/status/1861470356394954769
They needed to "edit" Elon's words.
My image and intellectual content aren't worth a whole lot on the market.
But if a court gave/sold my image and intellectual content to someone else, and allowed them to publish as "Me", that would seem to be a gross violation of not only my First Amendment rights, but also those privacy rights that the Supreme Court has discerned from the Bill of Rights.
Isn't that what is happening here?
Only a naive dolt would suggest such a thing at this political stage.
"I detest Infowars and Alex Jones."
Sounds relevant. Thank goodness you got that in there so you can share it at your next wine and cheese party and impress your friends.
LLR-democratical Rich: "Musk admitted X throttles links, and Threads is only a little better." LOL What a farcical buffoonish lie! There are legit business reasons why links on any social media platform that takes you OFF that platform and to another can/should/will be restricted on a business basis alone. Threads is top to bottom, start to finish, one MASSIVE censoring operation which now has devolved into one set of far left morons reporting other far left morons to the Threads far left censor kings who then censor lefties. Its why even lefties have abandoned the site.
LLR-democratical Rich's lies just keep coming: "Musk is deciding what is the "truth"."
No, he's not, The algorithm has been made public and is available for ANYONE to peruse and comment upon. Some lefties have....and there was nothing they could find to complain about: thus, Rich the liar, continues his antics apace.
Even CNN's "journalism" chop-shop survey showed the Pre-Musk Twitter was 65% dems/31% Repubs...post Musk-Acquisition X is 48% dems/47% repubs.
That's what's killing Abacus Boy Rich!
And Community Notes is far and away the best methodology yet for "fact checking" high profile/engaged posts, and its not even close. Even Musk has been Community Noted for mistakes.
So much for Rich's lie about Musk determining what Truth is on X.
Adios Rich. This blog thread is really no longer for you after this latest performance!
Just how pathetic can you really get? Let me guess, we're going to find out, aren't we?
I really should have asked LLR-democratical Rich about his time spent on the other major lefty platform, BlueSky. Given that the dems are the proud party of child grooming and enabling of groomers along with unrestricted child sex trafficking across our borders, it would make sense that Rich and his New Soviet Democratical pals would be spending time on what has been described as a wasteland of pedophilia at BlueSky.
The article being addressed is pretty thin, and omits that a different bidder,
First United American Companies (FUAC), bid $3.5 million, while The Onion’s offer was only $1.75 million. But the Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo a portion of their distributions under the latter offer, meaning Jones’s other creditors would receive more. The trustee is claiming that his selection of The Onion's bid was "the best one in his sound business judgment." Hard to imagine the offer that was half of the FUAC offer was the best decision for the creditors, no matter what the Sandy Hook families thought, and the families should not be mandating his decision. All of this is aside from the Musk/X argument (which does not oppose the sale of InfoWars but says that InfoWars X account cannot be included because the account is X's and not InfoWars').
⬆️ Bonfire of the vacuities
Re: xAI deal
Did you not read the part about the 80% drop in valuation?
Emperors new clothes stuff. Drago is mathematically inept. They’ve lost $40bn on TwiX. They’ve been gifted 25% of something that does not yet exist and other (gullible?) investors have paid $5bn for 25% of ‘so your share must now be $12.5bn’. That is not a windfall, does not make them whole and does not change the TwiX debacle.
By my maths a $1bn dollar investment in Twitter now is worth ~$500m. No EDS here but they haven't been made whole yet / wouldn't describe it as a 'windfall' as Drago does.
For the workings: $1bn investment in Twitter deal has been market down 79% to $214m. That $1bn implies a 2.3% stake in Twitter, and with Twitter having a 25% stake in xAI, a 0.6% stake in xAI. That 0.6% stake in xAI is now worth $50bn x 0.6% = $284m.
In the old world, would this have been considered a Ponzi scheme?
LLR-democratical Rich: "Did you not read the part about the 80% drop in valuation?"
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Poor, poor, business-ignoramus Rich.
Despite having been led by the nose for 2 years now on X's transition to a fee for service model over a plain jane, ad revenue driven social media business model, our Abacus Boy, who clearly doesn't understand any of what that means, despite his years long claims of being a business wunderkind of some sort (LOL, I know, I know, its too funny!), he just can't make the mental leap.
This is, of course, on top of LLR-democratical Rich's claims that Tesla is already a failed company across the board, that SpaceX is a failed company, that Neuralink is a failed company, that the Boring Company is a failed company.....hey! Hold the horses! I think I'm beginning to discern a pattern with our backwards Richie Boy!
After firing 80% of the useless Rich-like leftover Twitter loser staffers and rewriting the bulk of the X algorithms and code (all available for public perusal as noted above..do your homework Richie!), and after receiving licenses from almost 40 states with the expectation that all states will be online by 2025, X will be launching peer to peer money services (including payments, banking etc) along with a host of other services, including TV streaming on your phone then to your TV.
This is in addition to launching competitor apps for Youtube, linkedin, and lots more.
Poor poor Rich. When you get all your Harry-Sisson-like adolescent talking points from Media Matters, Democratic Underground, the DNC etc, and as was demonstrated most thoroughly by the last election, your moronic dem talking points cannot adapt to reality or new facts...so you simply regress to whatever happier reality you experienced in years past.
It's why Rich and his idiot pals still recycle all the old hoaxes, from Russia collusion to the fine people hoax to drink bleach and losers and suckers and all the other long ago debunked schtick.
Its both sad and fun to watch! How strange is that.
Lets see what Li'l Richie pulls out of his Wayback Machine Hat next!.....
Speaking of Ponzi schemes, which Rich also doesn't understand or will he ever, the harris/biden/obama (because who is kidding who here?) admin is going to fork over a "loan" (wink wink) of $6.6Billion (yes, in the end it will be free cash) to try and keep Elon's competitor Rivian alive. Rivian, you will recall, loses about $30k+ on every "sale" (LOL) while Tesla makes the best selling electric cars in the world at a profit, at a significant profit. Which is nice, now that they sitting on about $15B in profit last year and $26B+ in cash reserves as we speak....even as they are spending like wildmen in launching new products and building new giga factories and new mega battery factories and implementing greater and greater numbers of advanced manufacturing robotics and technics ALL the while increasing their lead in sensory inputs for FSD by factors of 100x over all rivals.
It's why all 4 German automakers are getting their arses kicked and are backing off electric car dev/production and laying off tens of thousands of workers....as are the US manufacturers GM and Ford.
And as for BYD in China, well, they can sell in China but at a much, much lower profitability level than Tesla, so they aren't catching up.
And think of the Megapack electric battery business which is booming YOY!
And Optimus, which is the real future of Tesla, hasn't even arrived yet!
Gee Rich, now would be a fantastic time for you to go Full Jim Chanos and short the hell out of any and all Musk companies! Please do so and let us know how you've structured your short position across the board so we can all track just how brilliant you've been in your financial predictions!
I'm on pins and needles waiting to hear......
Props to Drago for his high test blather..
Creating a legion of fanboys who will hear no evil is a critical step in building a Ponzi scheme. Musk is a control freak, who demands total subservience from his people, and is spreading himself so thinly now that he simply can't be on top of everything. When the wheels come off the scheme and reality sinks in, a lot of people are going to look foolish.
So picking over the bones:
1. X equity is impaired by ~80%, nothing on the debt is publicly available, but the holders must be at significant risk if it is not already non-performing.
2. X directly own 25% of X.ai - not clear if that is a diluted 25% from an original 100% or acquired in some other transaction. Either way, it gives the equity holders line of sight to some potential value - especially is it has some anti-dilution around it.
3. Musk offered "preferential access" to the X.ai funding round, but how was the price set? Was it "you can invest at same price or a discount to new investors?". Who got the offer? equity only or also the debt syndicate?
Either way, it is an offer to appear to reduce the pain of the impairment of X.com, by getting those holding the loss to double down on "Muskworld". It is a costly bet on a risky outcome, designed to compensate for a currently losing bet on a risky outcome. It might pay off, but it is not conventional risk management by those involved.
How do I monetize my comments on Althouse? Or has she beaten us all to those wheelbarrows full of comment money?
That's all you could cobble together, LLR-democratical Rich, Self-Promoter of Rich-The Knowledgeable And Experienced Business Whiz Kid "That Has Been In The Room When Big, Big Business Decisions Have Been Made!"?
LOL
Yeah, those innocent billionaire waifs who have the right to exit at any time with their investments are in thrall to the Musk cult!
Why, those silly richest and most successful investors and entrpreneurs in the world just wont listen to the "REALZ" our very own Abacus Boy Rich is "layin' down"!
Whaddya think Rich? Should you be encouraging your left wing pals to take a time out from calling in death threats to Trump cabinet appointees and swatting comservertives to politely ask for a wellness check for Silicon Valley's Best and Brightest?
And I couldn't help but notice you failed, again, to tell us how you have structured your short position against the astonishingly tempting short-target of Musk ponzi schemes somehow masquerading as businesses!
You cant imagine our disappointment....and so close to Christmas too!
And on the heels of 2 straight years of your "solid insights" lecturing all and sundry as to how badly Trump was going to get whacked in the election,l. Remember how it was never going to be close, how biden was unstoppable, how the kamala and spirit fingers walz campaign was genius and a juggernaut....only to find out now that the dems internally showed biden losing 400 electoral votes and kamala NEVER BEING AHEAD in the polls at any point.
Despite telling the big billionaire dem donors she was ahead and would win and gobbling up $1.5 Billion based on those lies...
...wait a minute! We just broke the Richie Code, didnt we?
The entire dem campaign WAS THE VERY DEFINITION OF A PONZI SCHEME which defrauded dem billionaire donors and paid off democratical corruptocrats!!
No wonder Rich is working so feverishly to transfer focus to legit businesses and off his New Soviet Democratical pals!
Thanks for the laughs Rich! And thanks so much for so completely filling the LLR-democratical Chuck Honorary blogging Chair!
I wonder if kamala-la-la-la-la's clearly alcohol/drug induced performance was driven by the realization her heading up this massive LLR-democratical Rich-approved ponzi-fraud scheme, which is still so far in debt that staffers were cut loose without pay by these dem grifters, and will surely be investigated by the incoming administration?
What say you Rich, promoter of dem grifters? Any final "gems" of wisdom we can take to the bank?
LOL
Lets cut to the chase: Rich's real problem with all things Musk is there is a real free speech platform Rich's commie pals dont control and Musk has knocked the dems ChiCom paymasters out of the space launch business and Rich's deep state pals, despite trying very very very hard, were not able to completely stop SpaceX Starship development long enough for Rich's ChiCom heroes to fully catch up by copying SpaceX.
That's a series of tough breaks for you Rich...and you didn't even get a cut of kamala ponzi-fraud scheme pie!
And that ain't fair!
You know how mediocre male athletes simply "transition" to chick status to "win" stuff they don't deserve? I wonder if there is a blog poster equivalent maneuver mediocre LLR-democratical's Rich and lonejustice could take advantage of in an equivalent fashion?
I offer this question in the spirit of Christmas and giving and concern.
Naturally.
Sounds like flag burning. It's not very nice, but it's also a form of expression. An extreme form of expression. I'm sure Infowars content is available somewhere, like internet archive, so those that want to consume it can still get access.
I think that's an interesting issue. Has X appeared in other bankruptcies? Does X claim it owns all your tweaks if you go bankrupt?
It seems to me that 1.2 billion in damages is a violation of the 8th amendment equal protection clause. Your damages can't be "how much you got?"
Under the precedent of this case I could be sued for 1001 trillion for saying the Earth is flat because it scared everyone in the world.
If the statement that the shooting was a hoax caused damage it is certainly no more than the remaining income of that person until death due to being so ashamed that they cant work again, and an equivalent time of mental health treatment. Punitive damages seems like a license to kill.
How many Parents are there?
I don't really care about Jones, whoever he is. I do like to see smug tricksters get a nice comeuppance, though. If the Onion came up with a cool plan to show their superiority in the communications and legal spheres it would please me if it cost them much money.
I noticed that I had "post failed" alarms after a firefox update. After trying reboot I can post again! "Did you turn it off and turn it on again?" says the help desk.
That isn't what X is arguing at all per the Professor's update.
What X is arguing is that the right to publish under the Infowars X account (which is what the Onion claims to want to do) can not be sold to another party. I see the situation as quite similar to a rental unit. It is not uncommon for a rental agreement to forbid sub-leasing the property. You can let other people live in the unit but you remain responsible for them and can't exercise other ownership perogatives.
"Everyone who disagrees with me is a pedo" ~ Drago
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