Does it feel like your X account belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it? That’s not true, according to a new court filing from the social media company formerly known as Twitter. It’s an argument that X is making in order to throw a wrench in The Onion’s recent purchase of InfoWars, the conspiracy theory media company run by Alex Jones. And it’s a great reminder that you don’t actually own what you think you own in the digital age.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    16
    ·
    16 hours ago

    I mean, if someone lets me into their house, points me to a whiteboard with a pen and tells me to write whatever I want so the other people in the house can read it…
    Do I own the whiteboard? Or the pen? Or have control over any of it?

    No. The owner of the house can lock me out and wipe off or change what I wrote at their leisure.

    • Taleya
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      3 hours ago

      A better analogy is i hand you a bullhorn and you shout at randos.

      Do i own your words, even though it’s my bullhorn? No.

      • superkret@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 hours ago

        Depends, actually.
        If you lend it to me privately, no. If you hand it to me on a stage, kinda yes.

    • Hawke@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      15 hours ago

      You do have some control, in the form of copyright. Also the analogy doesn’t hold up well since you’re not using their “pen” and they only let you reach inside through the window. And the audience is outside the house.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        15 hours ago

        And to continue that analogy- Twitter didn’t assign the name, the user created it so they hold copyright on the name.

      • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Except when you enter the home, you accepted the TOS that transfers copyright to the owner of the home.

        • Hawke@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          14 hours ago

          Nope.

          as a user, “you retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours you own your Content (and your photos and videos are part of the Content),” although you also grant Twitter a license to use the content, which authorizes it “to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.” Based on this language, other twitter users are also licensed to copy and redistribute your posts by “retweeting” them.

          https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/tweets-protected-copyright/

          • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            8 hours ago

            Really ? I think you’ll find that clause means you do not own copyright to anything you post on X.

            • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 hours ago

              Really? How do you get that from “you retain your rights and give Twitter a license to use your content”? Retaining rights literally means not giving them up.

          • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            13
            ·
            14 hours ago

            Congratulations on reading the twitter TOS. Now tell me if it is legal for a company to lay claim on copyright via a TOS.

              • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                14
                ·
                14 hours ago

                I thought we were talking about who legally can lay claim on copyrights in the hypothetically house with a whiteboard? i’m not the one lost with the program.

                • trolololol@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 hours ago

                  You see, x is the pen, Infowars is the ink and we’re the contents of the water bowl all along

                  Skibidi dibidi bop