X/Twitter will have to comply with a subpoena seeking the identities of several Genshin Impact user accounts after a federal judge ruled that the social media platform has no intention of deleting them.
The message comes from Freak torrents and Stephen Totilo Game file newsletter, detailing miHoYo’s latest efforts to combat leakers. Cognosphere, the publisher of Genshin Impact owned by miHoYo, filed a subpoena last fall in an attempt to force X Corp. to “disclose the identities, including name(s), address(es), phone number(s), and email address(es)” behind four popular leaker accounts: @HutaoLoverGI, @GIHutaoLover, @HutaoLover77, and @FurinaaLover.
NEWS: Court rules X/Twitter must comply with subpoena issued last fall seeking identities of accounts that leaked Genshin Impact information
X raised the issue of the First Amendment and California’s right to privacy, and wanted the court to address the issue.https://t.co/euVcwG9w8w photo:twitter.com/YSsPX2p4PI
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 23, 2024
How Totilo’s Notesthree accounts are currently suspended. The only one that isn’t, @furinaalover, has deleted all but one post on his X/Twitter account. According to a report from Torrent Freak, Cognosphere believes one person controlled all four of the leak’s accounts.
In filing the subpoena, Cognosphere argued that the leakers had violated its copyright by publishing previously unpublished material. X/Twitter, however, attempted to invalidate the subpoena on First Amendment and privacy grounds, asking the court in a previous motion whether Cognosphere’s request was “sufficient to satisfy all First Amendment free speech guarantees applicable to anonymous speakers.”
X/Twitter requested a legal proceeding to ensure that whistleblowers’ First Amendment and privacy rights are not violated, arguing that “a court must decide these issues.”
However, U.S. District Court Judge Peter Kang ruled on behalf of the Northern District of California that X/Twitter must comply with Cognosphere’s request, finding that “there is no right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to infringe copyright.”
This is just the latest approach by MiHoYo to leaks. In February of last year, miHoYo filed a separate subpoena targeting three other leak accounts for similar copyright infringement claims.
Alex Stedman is a senior news editor at IGN, overseeing entertainment coverage. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
