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regular-article-logo Thursday, 05 December 2024

Your X account isn't yours: Elon Musk claims 'superior ownership'

Though X acknowledges that users own the original content they post, the company’s argument may have a significant effect on the site’s millions of users. According to the digital insights company Sensor Tower, X has about 317 million active users monthly

Mathures Paul Calcutta Published 30.11.24, 06:26 AM
Elon Musk.

Elon Musk. File photo

You don’t own your account on X, Elon Musk’s company said while wading into the ongoing legal battle involving The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars, a far-Right conspiracy theory website.

Earlier this month, the popular US satirical outlet in Chicago won an auction to acquire Infowars out of bankruptcy, but an 11th-hour objection to the deal has been raised. A sale of the site would have also meant the automatic transfer of its social media accounts.

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X has filed an objection in which Musk’s lawyers argued that X has “superior ownership” of all accounts on the platform.

“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,” the company’s lawyers have said in a court filing. “A user must use X Corp’s services to create an account in the first instance, and to continue using the account going forward.”

Though X acknowledges that users own the original content they post, the company’s argument may have a significant effect on the site’s millions of users. According to the digital insights company Sensor Tower, X has about 317 million active users monthly.

“X Corp’s TOS (terms of service) make clear that it owns the X accounts, as the TOS is explicit that X Corp merely grants its users a non-exclusive license to use their accounts,” the company told a federal judge in Texas.

It’s rare for a social media company to object to the transfer of social media accounts in bankruptcy from one company to another. For example, when digital media and broadcasting company Vice was sold out of bankruptcy last year, a consortium led by Fortress Investment Group became owners of the platform’s social media accounts and YouTube pages.

None of the social media platforms objected to the transfer because the accounts were not put on the black market.

In the case of Infowars, Musk restored its owner, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s account last year. Jones and his company were permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behaviour under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s regime.

Jones liquidated his assets and declared bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay a $1.5 billion defamation settlement to the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012.

On the issue of ownership, Meta states that you “retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (things such as copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Facebook and other Meta Company Products that you use,” however, “to provide our services, we need you to give us some legal permissions to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our products and services.”

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