Alex Jones is struggling to sell the rights to his social media account

(AP) — The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones trying to protect their personal social media accounts from being sold into the next auction his media platform Infowars to pay more than $1 billion owed to relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, arguing that selling those accounts would violate his privacy and deny him a chance to make a fresh start after bankruptcy .

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

Jones’ lawyers argue that personal media accounts using his real name are not owned by Infowars or FSS, but are controlled by him personally and should be considered part of his “personality” that cannot be owned by anyone but himself .

They argue that trustee Christopher Murray is not entitled to the social media accounts as salable property and have warned that a buyer could face lawsuits over whether they were rightfully obtained.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said a proposed order on the potential sale of the social media accounts that later preserved Jones’ right to sue over the estate was unclear and tentatively scheduled a new hearing in a week.

“We should have great clarity and everyone agrees that something can be sold before it can be sold,” Lopez said. “I want a buyer or bidder to know exactly what they think they can buy. I don’t want to create litigation risk for a potential buyer.”

The administrator is also seeking to be allowed to sell copyrights from Jones’ book “The Great Reset: And the War for the World” published in August 2022 and his video game “Alex Jones NWO Wars” released in 2023, which features Jones as the hero in a shooting game.

Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones has vowed to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his backers, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in the company’s hometown of Austin, Texas.

In seeking rights to the social media accounts, the trustee’s legal team argued in court filings that Jones X’s account and others on Telegram, Gab, Parler and other platforms “are frequently used to promote and post Infowars content and in some cases, they have a significant following.” Jones X’s account has almost 3 million followers.

The administrator claimed that the social media accounts of influencers, celebrities and political figures have become valuable assets, and that Jones’ accounts have attracted particular interest from several parties in buying them.

If they are sold, Jones’ lawyers said the litigation would depend on who bought them.

“We felt good with the trustee that if certain parties were the winning bidder, there would be litigation later, but if certain parties were the winning bidder, there would be no litigation later,” said Vickie Driver, one of Jones’ lawyers. the judge.

“There’s value for some people to buy these assets and use them one way, and for others there’s value to use them another way,” Driver said.

Jones and his company both filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 — the same year the Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits against Jones for repeatedly calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to get more gun control legislation. Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in a Newtown, Connecticut shooting.

During two civil lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut, the parents and children of many of the victims testified that they had been traumatized by Jones’ false conspiracies and the actions of his followers. They said they were harassed and threatened by Jones’ supporters, some of whom personally confronted the grieving families, saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. A parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.

Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts, citing his right to free speech and questioning whether the families proved any connection between his comments and the people who harassed and threatened relatives. He has since admitted the shooting took place.