X owner Elon Musk has once again hijacked a rare coveted username from its original user.
This time, however, the takeover wasn’t for the good of X the company, it was so Musk could promote Donald Trump for president.
On Saturday, Musk appeared at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler Pennsylvania. However, earlier that day, Musk began promoting his pro-Trump Super PAC, called America PAC, using a brand new handle @America.
“Read @America to understand why I’m supporting Trump for President,” Musk’s new bio said as of approximately 1:30pm ET on Saturday, Oct. 5.
The @America handle appeared attached to a brand new account setup just this month, in October 2024. However, this rare, one-word geographic handle had already been long registered by another X user more than 14 years prior to Musk taking the handle from them, in September 2010.
According to a person familiar with the situation, X took the handle from the user much like how Musk’s social media company took the @X handle from its original registrant last year.
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You can’t beat musk on his own platform, it’s long since time to use a big boy one.
Honest question from a non-American.
If Trump loses, how much of a case does Harris have of going after Musk for interfering in an election?
None.
Private citizens and companies can endorse whoever they want.
It is unbelievable to me how everyone is just walzing past the fact that a super-pac organizer attended a rally with the candidate.
I’m more worried about election officials getting star treatment at a candidate’s rallies.
My knowledge on this topic is very minimal, but is it because the SuperPAC isn’t supposed to be coordinating with either party?
52 USC 30118: Contributions or expenditures by national banks, corporations, or labor organizations
Text contains those laws in effect on October 6, 2024It is unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by authority of any law of Congress, to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, or for any corporation whatever, or any labor organization, to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any election at which presidential and vice presidential electors or a Senator or Representative in, or a Delegate or Resident Commissioner to, Congress are to be voted for, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any of the foregoing offices, or for any candidate, political committee, or other person knowingly to accept or receive any contribution prohibited by this section, or any officer or any director of any corporation or any national bank or any officer of any labor organization to consent to any contribution or expenditure by the corporation, national bank, or labor organization, as the case may be, prohibited by this section.
It’s one of the few threads of campaign finance law that still exist. Things to keep in mind, in-kind contributions are still contributions. An example would be, directing your private business that is in no way affiliated with your super PAC to promote and fundraise for the candidate that you are standing on stage at a rally with. If that isn’t “in connection with” then I don’t know what is.
If you make the connection that Elon being there is also “in connection with” then wouldn’t that now spill over with Elon acting as the head of twitter, confiscating the @America handle to give to the SuperPAC to promote Trump? One links the other?
In which case Twitter is now providing an in kind contribution?
Assuming that is a problem, then the only way it wouldn’t be is if the SuperPAC itself paid the original holder of @America to sell it to them and then Twitter did the hand over at both parties request?
This is of course subject to whatever SCOTUS sock puppet Alito has his ghostly hand up the ass of, but the way it was intended to work was that super pacs can receive and spend limitlessly so long as there is no coordination with the candidate. Elon can’t call trump and ask what trump would like the pac to do. So Elon being a right wing shit head is legal all day, so long as he doesn’t do any of his right wing shit headery in connection with trump.
And yes, that would usually imply that if there is coordination then all contributions, even those in kind, are campaign contributions and must be regulated and disclosed. Which they aren’t. And probably won’t be. But if this case comes up in a few years, the right wing shit head chorus will cry alligator tears about the poor oppressed witch-hunted trump. FML.
I don’t think she’ll have to. MAGA will implode along with Truth Social, Twitter, and maybe even Tesla as I’m sure Elon has turned off many potential buyers just as competing car companies are getting closer in value as Tesla.
None, because there isn’t even a pretension of justice under fascism.
Probably very little.
I’m not up to speed on what Twitter is doing these days outside of what’s reported here on lemmy.
Unless Musk starts saying things like “Polls are closing early so don’t bother voting because Trump won” or things that will suppress votes, his actions and tweets are going to be categorized as political free speech, which has broad interpretation in the US. Sad, but true.
We, as well as our government officials, should remember that Twitter is not the public town square. It’s a dumpster fire that is owned by a private entity that permits users to throw their shit into. That private entity is within their right to do whatever they want within the confines of the law.
You mean like his mother telling people to go vote 10 times with 10 fake names?
how is this election interference, it isn’t forcing anyone to vote a particular way, nor is it manipulating ballots?
Look who really owns Twitter. It’s the people who loaned Musk money for his buyout.
Who is top of that list? Saudi Arabia.
And now Twitter is fully in service to the Republican party? Sounds like foreign electoral intervention to me…
why shouldn’t Saudi Arabia be able to endorse and support a US political candidate?
But MAH FREEZED PEACH! The world’s town square, argle bargle…
-Any given Crazy Uncle Liberty, probably.
How long before Musk/Trump merges Twitter and Truth? They’re basically the same place at this point.
My 🔮 says they will someday pitch investors on federating with Blue Sky, after which they will discover no one wants their content.
I really don’t think Trump’s dick can go any further into Musk’s mouth
I’m all for hating on musk/trump. But do we know if he actually stole the handle/tag or if he paid an obscene amount of money to the original owner?
I hate Twitter and deleted my account a long time ago but facts matter and assuming he stole the tag is just as bad as what he is doing. We may never know what actually happened but I’m curious
Vote for Trump so I won’t lose my captive market 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Musk is so disgusting.
deleted by creator
Can we establish “dismusking” as a new word that means “extremely disgusting”?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… this isn’t quite as bad as it looks.
although clearly they could have handled the situation better.
Agreed, but I mean has been the general theme with the new owner. Everything could have been handled better, but nothing was.
Users do not technically own their handles on X.
Another reason why the fediverse is better. We have better control over this, simply by owning our own instances. Then admins on another instance can’t simply seize our usernames.
It appears the original owner hasn’t posted on X since it was called Twitter, in May 2020.
So basically they released a handle that otherwise wasn’t going to be used and would have gone to waste.
It would be better if they had a general policy about these things … but considering the owner…
as it pertains to the @X handle, the company had a good case that they should have ownership of it
Less good as the user was actively using it beforehand but the justification is also stronger in this case.
If you’re still on Xitter at this point, you deserve all the bullshit you get. That place is a cesspool. You can’t swim in the toilet and then pretend to be mad you’re covered in shit.
The Other Truth Social.
Well, the account was allegedly inactive. Sounds like they weren’t on Twitter either.
yeah, don’t know why they’re so mad. 90% of people don’t know what lemmy even is, much less mastodon. And those numbers are very generous considering there are ~40k people using lemmy
You can’t swim in the toilet and then pretend to be mad you’re covered in shit.
This is one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard. Definitely made my day.
This sends a clear message: if you still have a valuable handle, sell it now.
Sure it sucks, but it can’t be a surprise anymore.
The username @X was also taken from a user. Same with @Music, who if I recall correctly, was a fan of Musk and was even subscribing to Twitter at the time. They even continued to do what @Music was doing with music recommendations, so it was barely a rebrand. It was basically just hijacking the work someone else put into establishing their social media presence.
Stealing @America sounds about right up his alley. Just like T Daddy.
Anyone still in Twitter is a clown. It’s not different from being on Truth Social.
Indeed. I feel sorry for those people that feel compelled to still be on it for their jobs, or for their side-hustle/main-hustle or whatever, but yeah, anyone still on there just because? I have no idea, unless they are Nazis or Nazi adjacent.
