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