this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
325 points (97.7% liked)

News

23280 readers
5232 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is seeking to protect his personal social media accounts from being sold in the upcoming auction of his Infowars media platform to pay more than $1 billion he owes relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, claiming selling those accounts would violate his privacy and deny him a chance to make a fresh start after bankruptcy.

The trustee overseeing the liquidation and selloff of the assets of Infowars and its parent company Free Speech Systems, asked a federal judge on Friday to include the social media accounts as part of the auctions scheduled for November and December. The judge delayed a decision on the matter for at least a week.

Jones’ lawyers argue the personal media accounts that use his real name are not owned by Infowars or FSS, but are controlled by him personally, and should be considered part of his “persona” that cannot be owned by someone other than himself.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OhStopYellingAtMe 91 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ruin his life. Destroy everything he has. Make him reap what he sowed.

[–] FenrirIII 15 points 2 weeks ago

Justice boner

[–] FlyingSquid 48 points 2 weeks ago

Hmm...

Yeah...

Get fucked.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 weeks ago

I'm sending thoughts and prayers for his utter fucking destruction

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They argue that trustee Christopher Murray does not have a right to the social media accounts as property that can be sold, and warned that a purchaser could face lawsuits as to whether they were rightfully obtained.

I'd like to buy it and start posting LGBTQ-positive content. I'm not part of the coalition. I just think it'd be fun to watch people react.

Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts, citing free speech rights and questioning whether the families proved any connection between his comments and the people who harassed and threatened the relatives. He has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen.

Yeah, Margie TG just happened to follow a kid shouting at him for being part of a coverup and recording it on her phone be coincidence. It's not because she gets her talking points from this asshole.

[–] turbowafflz 19 points 2 weeks ago

I want john oliver to buy all of his stuff and run his own show with it that would be so funny

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

So fuck Alex Jones, but I really don't think it's a good idea to force people to sell their accounts so that other people can impersonate them. It's just inviting social engineering attacks.

[–] FauxPseudo 39 points 2 weeks ago

Except in this case, much like with Trump, His business and his person were deeply intertwined. So the account is a business asset. And as such, it is subject to being an asset of the company. Maybe he should have separated them at some point.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago

Yes but you can just tell everyone the attacks never happened, for attention

[–] Joeffect 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Isn't it against the tos to sell your account?

[–] partial_accumen 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If the Wendys burger chain was sold, there would be no problem with the new owner taking the Wendys social media accounts. In this case Jones has long used his social media accounts as part of his business. They're part of the Infowars assets so they can and should be handed over to debtors to settle the claims against Infowars.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Alexstarfire 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Law trumps TOS so it really doesn't matter what it says.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

But is there any precedent in selling accounts due to a court decision? Does the social media company get to close the account due to the TOS violation?

In any case, if it does get sold, it'll create an interesting situation.

[–] mipadaitu 21 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

What's stopping him from just making infowars2?

His rage is his commodity, so I don't get why he can't just start up a new channel and just do the exact same thing.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They also seized his bank accounts and production equipment.

[–] FlyingSquid 24 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

That said, I wouldn't exactly be shocked if his sycophantic fans got together and built him a studio and gave him a salary.

[–] ThePantser 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Or a new patreon account and he would be rolling in money again. But I sure hope he keeps trying because until his debt is settled they are gonna keep taking from him.

[–] Krzd 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I doubt all his equip etc. will be enough to cover the 1 billion. So any and all patreon income could be confiscated as well.

[–] ThePantser 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's what I meant by I hope he keeps trying so it can be taken as well.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Unfortunately that’s not a far fetched possibility.

[–] Viking_Hippie 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

What's stopping him from just making infowars2?

The law, basically. Taking his assets elsewhere to "hide" them from his creditors constitutes fraud.

He even tried to already, but that was shot down by the judge, who made him swear under oath to not try that again. Which he already IS doing, very blatantly.

[–] Alexstarfire 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's not what they're suggesting, I'm pretty sure. They're saying, after selling all the stuff, just start up a new company with the same schtick. Alex Jones is free to still be Alex Jones. And that's all Info Wars really is/was.

[–] Viking_Hippie 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

With what money? He owes much more than the combined worth of his personal and business assets. Any significantly similar new company he would found would be under water in debt from the start.

He's banking on a far right billionaire or organization buying Infowars and keeping him on as an employee, because that's the only way he can keep doing it.

[–] Alexstarfire 3 points 2 weeks ago

🤷 That's a different question.

[–] TaterTurnipTulip 2 points 2 weeks ago

And he's actually been trying again recently as the auction gets closer. But people aren't really following him to his new Twitter account

[–] Telodzrum 8 points 2 weeks ago

He would still be in arrears for this judgement , as the seizures and auctions won’t actually cover all of the award. So, Infowars 2 would just be taken as well.

[–] Carrolade 17 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

We should all pitch in some cash to buy them and use them to start posting pro-Fediverse, pro-FOSS and privacy-related stuff.

Yeah, it might bring in some crazies, but the Fediverse can handle that better than most places.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)
[–] Carrolade 5 points 2 weeks ago

Their interactions with .grad would be priceless. lol Not that they wouldn't instantly defed each other.

[–] Dainterhawk999 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙚.

[–] cynar 2 points 2 weeks ago

Don't commit war crimes. Instead, be the reason they became crimes!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

It would be nice if some nonprofit got them and rebranded to "DisinfoWars" to post critical thinking resources and deconstruct disinformation

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I really like this idea. Transform what he built into a force for good.

[–] x00z 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fuck this guy.

But his personal social media account? What the fuck is that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

The issue he's gone and pulled to Donald Trump or Elon Musk. He's decided that he will use his personal accounts to announce things to do with his "company". This has become a big problem because people have got to the point where they follow his personal accounts to find out what his company is doing because his company accounts don't post too much.

So he's done this to himself. He's made his personal persona inexorably interlinked with his business persona. At the time I'm sure he thought this was a great idea since both personas are utter dipshits.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It'd be pretty fun if some org with opposite political leanings bought the account.

[–] FauxPseudo 4 points 2 weeks ago

I'm hoping that the important assets get sold to the Knowledge Fight podcast. They'd be the ones able to do the most good with them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What's the worst that can happen? Someone buys it and starts hawking boner pills? Yeah, that ain't exactly gonna ruin his good name.

[–] Dashi 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Think bigger, someone gets the accounts and releases all of his private messages. If he doesn't delete them. I'm on the fence about the precident this would set.

[–] Burninator05 2 points 2 weeks ago

Deleting them could be seen as intentionally diminishing the value of the asset before auction and get him in more trouble.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Everyone is missing the best part of the article:

and his video game “Alex Jones NWO Wars” released in 2023, that features Jones as the hero in a shooting game.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Etterra 4 points 2 weeks ago

Cry some more crocodile tears ya no-neck freak.

[–] bitchkat 1 points 2 weeks ago

Even his only fans?

load more comments
view more: next ›