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.

  • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    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.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      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@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        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@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          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.

      • TaterTurnipTulip@lemmy.world
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        24 days 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@lemmy.world
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      26 days 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@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    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.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Fuck this guy.

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

    • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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      25 days 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.

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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    26 days ago

    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@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      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@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

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