Elon Musk’s X is intervening in the bankruptcy sale of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars, in what is believed to be the first time a social media platform has stepped in to a legal dispute over account ownership.
Jones’ Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, was recently auctioned off to help pay some of the nearly $1.5 billion Jones owes the families of Sandy Hook massacre victims after he was found guilty of defamation. The satirical news site The Onion was declared the winner of the auction, with the backing of some of the families, in a seven-figure bid that Jones and his allies are challenging in court.
The sale includes Infowars’ website, studio equipment, online dietary supplement store and social media accounts, which are followed by millions of users.
In past legal disputes over account ownership, social media companies have left it to the courts and parties involved to work it out. But in this case, X is stepping in, objecting to Jones and Infowars’ X accounts being part of the sale.
“Elon Musk, hands down, is a hero,” Jones said on a recent episode of his Infowars show, praising the billionaire X owner for intervening in his case.
That stands out to experts in social media law.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a social media platform arguing to a court that no one can transfer ownership during a dispute over who owns an account because they will just switch it off,” said Toby Butterfield, who teaches social media law at Columbia University’s Law School.
In a filing this week with the Texas bankruptcy court, attorneys for X said the company does not object to the overall sale of Infowars’ parent company, but “objects to any proposed sale or other purported transfer of any account used by Jones or FSS that is maintained on the X platform (“X”).”
That’s because X says its terms of service make it clear that accounts cannot be sold, and are ultimately owned by X. While that’s not unusual for a social media platform’s terms of service, technology companies usually enforce those terms quietly and do not step in to public court battles, said Eric Goldman, an associate dean and professor of tech law at Santa Clara University School of Law.
“Social media services approach this topic gingerly because they want to encourage their users to invest heavily in their accounts,” Goldman said. “If users fear that the services can moot those investments by taking back or exercising control over the handle, power users will be reluctant to make the desired investments.”
Two things can be true at once, both experts said: Musk may be getting involved because of his political leanings and to set a legal precedent in a high-profile case involving well-known X accounts.
“It’s not that the law has changed here. It’s that Elon Musk as the owner and the people running X are flexing their muscles in a very new and different way,” Butterfield said.
By intervening in the case, X is further showing how the platform is ultimately Musk’s domain, where he can do as he pleases. Musk has shown a willingness to take over accounts in the past, threatening NPR after the public broadcaster stopped posting to its account and seizing the @America handle for his political action committee that supported President-elect Donald Trump during the campaign.
“What conceivable motivation does a company have for destroying the value in their users’ accounts, and implicitly threatening all other users?” Butterfield said. “It becomes an individual person’s playground, rather than a functioning marketplace of ideas.”
