Andrew Torba promises a lawsuit:
GAB.AI, INC.,
Plaintiff,
vs.
———–
While I hate to disappoint those who are hoping that Gab will strike back at me, I’m afraid you’re going to have to… think different.
Tag: law
Legal Legion update
There have been a number of developments on the defamation front. First, a member of the Legal Legion of Evil has filed the petition in Travis County and the county clerk has approved the filing. Today a hearing will be scheduled, at which we will seek to be provided with the identity of 14 individuals presently identified only by username, and ask to depose a representative of Gab concerning matters related to the identity of said individuals.
According to other members of the Legal Legion who have been reviewing activity at Gab, there have been a considerable number of additional defamatory attacks, directed at me as well as at others, and we will be amending the petition accordingly to add additional examples and usernames until the hearing actually takes place.
Now that we have actually gone through the process, it is evident that Gab’s recommended path of “get a court order” is simply not viable for the average individual who doesn’t have lawyers and paralegals at his immediate disposal. The process is simply too expensive for most people; the court filing alone is over $300.
As one individual has already discovered, it is much easier and more cost-effective to simply contact the Australian registrar, Asia Registry, at abuse@asiaregistry.com. Unfortunately, rather than address the individual’s concerns, news that the abuse on his site was being reported led Andrew Torba to publicly threaten a campaign of harassment of the gentleman concerned.
Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
If our registrar requires us to remove something again we will publish it here and let everyone know that you whined to them because someone hurt your feelings with mean words on the internet.
However, in Australia, defamation is both a civil and a criminal offense, and Asia Registry’s terms of service say a website owner must ensure that the website, “is not comprised or is not used for any unlawful purpose or activity.”
So, if you have reason to believe you have been defamed on Gab, you can send me the link to the defamatory Gab post along with your real name and the username of the offender with the subject LL-ASIA. I will pass your email along to a member of the Legal Legion of Evil, who will review it and decide if it rises to the level of defamation, defamation per se, or criminal defamation according to Australian standards. If, in his opinion, it does, you will then be provided with an appropriate template that can be sent to the woman responsible for handling abuse-related complaints along with her email address.
Again, I will point out that it is not my intent to harm Gab. We are not requesting any damages from Gab and we do not anticipate any further legal action against them once we obtain the requested information about the parties responsible. As a number of VFM and Dread Ilk have noted, I am handling Gab with kid gloves, in part because they are young and inexperienced and they do not appear be receiving appropriate legal counsel. But I have made it very, very clear that the defamatory attacks on me are going to be removed, one way or another, and as always, I am not bluffing.
At this point, it should be clear to everyone that the Legal Legion of Evil is real. As it happens, the LLoE has over 200 years of collective experience practicing the law in various states in a surprisingly wide range of specialties. Including defamation.
I understand that not everyone is happy with my actions, and I understand that a few of my supporters are extremely unhappy with them. To them, I would merely point out that this is a problem Gab was always going to face. I first warned Andrew of Gab’s need for some form of moderation back in early November 2016. And contra the opinions of the free speech purists, extortion, treason, fraud, defamation, and death threats are not free speech, as the court process should suffice to make abundantly clear.
I am not at all unfamiliar with the way in which some individuals simply refuse to take the easy and obvious way out. I once spent three years to resolve a situation that could have been resolved, at vastly less expense, by sending me a simple one-paragraph letter. I hope it won’t take three years to resolve this one, but if it does, that possibility doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve been through it before, and if I have to, I will go through it again.
The ideas, they percolate
An article on PJ media about a distressed young liberal woman who keeps finding out that the men to whom she is attracted turn out to be Trump voters.
No woman wants a man she can push around, walk all over, or beat in an arm-wrestling match. Politics be damned. That’s not how biology works. (Now, I realize I may be talking to biology deniers, but you asked “why can’t I stop?” and this is why. Biology.) Women are naturally attracted to alpha males and not that gamma guy in a onesie with fragile wrists. The left has emasculated their men to the point of putting them in dresses and sending them into the ladies’ room. It’s no wonder you need to shop outside your herd. Why the heck wouldn’t you?
The reality you’re facing is that your guys are the ones getting a wedgie and ours are the ones you want to go home with. I don’t blame you.
People often think that influence is somehow related to everyone knowing your name. That’s not influence. That’s fame.
On a related note, I’ve been hearing for the last week or two that the various kerfluffles with the two Andrews, Anglin and Torba, are “bad PR” and bad for my brand.
The objective measures:
- Twitter followers declined from 33,000 to 32,800
- Five Infogalactic Burn Unit members canceled their subscriptions. All five have already been replaced.
- Daily average site traffic increased 5 percent
- Daily average book sales increased 225 percent
78 new Legal Legion of Evil volunteers.
It would appear there is a sound basis for the Fake Right theory that Mike Cernovich became a successful shekel-grubbing book salesman on the basis of metaphorically punching Clown Nazis. That wasn’t my intention, but if this is what “destroying my brand” looks like, I think I can live with it. Although perhaps the more apt term would be “thrive” on it.
By the way, there is going to be a BIG surprise awaiting the self-appointed experts on defamation presently expressing their legal theories on Gab. I have to admit, I was genuinely shocked myself to discover what is actually considered defamation per se in the relevant jurisdiction. I mean, there is not a single non-lawyer, on either side of the issue, who had a clear grasp of the actual legal situation at hand.
Legal update
First, as I pointed out in tonight’s Darkstream, I am not suing Gab. I repeat, I am not suing Gab and there is no reason to do so. That being said, Gab has already gone into lockdown mode, as evidenced by Andrew Torba’s recent “bring it on” video and Utsav’s recent post asking me not to call him.
In other words, they are not acceding to my request for the personal information of the three users responsible for the defamation, which means that we will have to force their compliance through the legal process. The Legal Legion of Evil is already aware of this and will begin the process next week.
I respect Gab’s right to run their business as they see fit. But there is no way that any responsible parent will permit such baseless and reprehensible accusations to stand uncontested, and so the Legal Legion and I will be pursuing this matter until the defamation is removed and the @dantheman10, @GTKRWN, and @Fabian_Nazism are forced to answer for their defamatory actions.
If you don’t understand why I’m doing this, these three examples might help you understand.
- https://gab.ai/Fabian_Nazism/posts/11749651
- https://gab.ai/GTKRWN/posts/11748825
- https://gab.ai/dantheman10/posts/11773072
In the meantime, if you follow me on social media, you can do so on Twitter, as I will not be using Gab until the defamation is removed and policies are instituted that can be reasonably expected to prevent similar incidents in the future.
And if you’re a lawyer who is interested in joining the Legal Legion, shoot me an email. We still have 40 states that require coverage. If you think I am overreacting, I suggest you consider the recent examples set by Milo Yiannopoulos and Julian Assange.
This is compounded by my level-headed analyses of the alt-right, which has led media organization after media organization to brand me a “white nationalist”—almost always followed by a groveling apology to me and a public retraction after my lawyers get in touch.
– Milo Yiannopoulos, Dangerous
As violence broke out, Arreguin returned to Twitter to half-heartedly proclaim, “Violence and destruction is not the answer.” The following morning he put out a statement condemning the violence, while also condemning me as a white nationalist. My lawyers forced him to retract and apologize.
– Milo Yiannopoulos, Dangerous
An analyst on our air earlier today asserted that Julian Assange was a pedophile, and regrets saying it. In fact, CNN has no evidence to support that assertion… We regret the error.
– CNN
Irony: social media edition
Tariq Nasheed@tariqnasheed
There is a new social media app for white supremacists called GAB, & they have an East Indian spokesperson so they can hide their racism
Gab@getongab
This is utterly disgusting and defamatory. How is this possibly not “hate speech” @jack? Our co-founder is a Muslim Turkish Kurd you moron.
Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
Yeah, about that whole defamatory thing.
What if they called your co-founder “a pedophile”?
What if they did it on Gab?
Repeatedly?
UPDATE: I spoke to Gab this morning. Although the libel situation is getting worse there, they appear to have a good grasp on the relevant issues and will be refining their policies accordingly. I was also pleased to welcome a new volunteer to the Legal Legion of Evil, bringing the total to seven.
UPDATE: Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Over the next several weeks we will be improving our flagging system to make it easier for you to report and label content that you believe may break our guidelines. Our guidelines are fair and common sense. Please review them.
The three types of free speech
This is a concept that appears to be a particularly difficult one for the binary thinkers of the world to grasp. As I explained in the Darkstream last night, there are three types of free speech:
- Platonic
- Public
- Private
As I have repeatedly explained, I support Public free speech, which is the form protected by the Constitution, reject Private free speech on the basis of private property, and observe that Platonic free speech does not, and has never, existed.
The problem that I see is that Gab is nobly attempting to set its policy on the basis of Platonic free speech, limited only by the law. However, this is setting them up for potential legal trouble, particularly since that policy does not permit them to remove libelous and defamatory speech.
Here is how Andrew Torba expressed their Neo-Platonic policy:
@Voxday, you are fortunate enough to choose who to publish and who can comment on your blog, but Gab is a completely different environment, a platform for free speech for all viewpoints. We do not agree when it comes to censorship. Gab will not be the judge of what is or is not libelous. If a competent court requires us to take down a post because it is deemed libelous, Gab will comply. Libel as we all know is not protected by the first amendment.
This means that Gab is knowingly complicit in publishing these false, malicious, and defamatory statements which I brought to their attention and requested their immediate removal.
Silverdawn · @GTKRWN
9 hours · edited
Everyone stay away from @voxday He is a faggot Talmudic half jew half Mexican Pedophile pretending to be White.Fabius MaximusPRO · @Fabian_Nazism
8 hours
I heard @voxday is a known pedophile who’s viewed more prepubescent boys online than viewers to his own site. SadSilverdawn · @GTKRWN
7 hours
Why do you follow a pedophile? are you a pedophile too?AlphaJedPRO · @AlphaJed
@voxday the libel is still up
But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that unless the identity of the individuals is already known, it is going to be necessary to sue Gab in order to force it to disclose their identity so that they can be served for the libel case that Gab requires in order to take down a post. Which is something I tend to doubt is an aspect of their policy that has been entirely thought through. Fortunately, I have other means of identifying anonymous commenters. VFM, you know what to do.
Regardless, this is something that the Legal Legion of Evil is going to have to discuss before I make any decisions, so I’ll be getting in touch with all of you to set up a group meeting later this week. This isn’t the only matter we have to discuss, but it is the most important one at the moment. As a Gab supporter, I certainly don’t wish to harm Gab in any way; this sort of situation is precisely why I previously advised Andrew to adopt a ban-on-sight policy towards known trolls and troublemakers.
But sometimes people, particularly idealists, need to learn these things for themselves.
Andrew Torba’s statement on Gab censorship
Personally, I think there is no reason to hesitate to ban anyone from any site for any reason the site owner deems desirable. But I understand that Gab has publicly professed a commitment to free speech and therefore has to deal with the expectations that they have created for themselves.
We believe the post in question was indeed obscene. It should have been marked #NSFW and it was not, therefore it is in violation of our Community Guidelines.
This is not the first time we have enforced our guidelines. Gab has banned users for spamming, making death threats to the President, posting revenge porn, and doxing among others. We’ve been transparent and incredibly fair about this on many occasions.
We believe this effort was coordinated and planned. We knew this day would come and now we have entered a crossroads with a very binary decision: remove one post or lose our domain and thus the entire website.
Our choice was very clear to me. The post needs to come down. If it does not, we lose our domain. To my knowledge there are no pro-free speech domain registrars and that is a massive problem. Our only other option now would be to play a cat and mouse game by transferring our domain to another registrar. Others who have attempted to play this game have failed and even had their domain seized completely from under them. We will not play these games. We have little choice, for now.
The free and open internet as we know it is under attack. It is centralized and controlled by no more than a handful of companies who provide these services:
- Hosting
- DDoS protection
- Payment Processing
- Domain Registrars
- Mobile device hardware and software distribution
Without any of these things an individual website can not possibly compete and operate at scale. If left unchecked, these centralized platforms will continue their dominance and control the means of all information, personal data, and communication on the internet.
Perhaps it would help if you understand that I don’t believe that free speech exists anymore than equality does.
Bake the damn cake
Instapundit observes that the Kennedy Ministry’s case against the SPLC may have interesting implications for Amazon:
BAKE MY CAKE OR SUFFER THE PENALTIES: As Ed Driscoll reported yesterday, the D. James Kennedy Ministry is suing SPLC, GuideStar, and Amazon over “Hate” labeling. I’ve had a chance to go through the Complaint, and my view is the defamation claims may have enough merit to proceed, the Trademark claims are weak, but the most interesting thing — and what may be the most impacting aspect of this suit — is the claim under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 4 2000(a), which the Plaintiffs point out:
“Because the Amazon Defendants are operating a public accommodation(s), it is a violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically 42 U.S.C. § 2000(a), for the Amazon Defendants to deny the Ministry the privileges and advantages of the AmazonSmile program on the basis of the Ministry’s religion and the beliefs that are inherent to that religion.”
Now here’s where it gets interesting. If the Commerce Clause gives government the authority to trump a businessman’s personal beliefs, even if couched as a First Amendment expression, then the same logic that requires Christian fundamentalists to bake “gay” wedding cakes against their beliefs ought to mean that Amazon has no right to deprive the Ministry of a public accommodation because they “don’t like” that Church’s view on gay marriage.
I’m betting if Amazon doesn’t settle, that this issue is headed to the Eleventh Circuit, and maybe even SCOTUS. This is right in Justice Gorsuch‘s wheelhouse. Stay tuned.
It occurs to me that the Big Tech Left is handing the Right a golden opportunity for profitable lawfare. Whereas it might have been difficult before to argue that one has been materially harmed by defamation when falsely labeled a “Nazi” or a “White Supremacist”, the demonetization and deplatforming of various “Nazis” and “White Supremacists” is putting a material price tag on those labels.
If you’re a licensed attorney in the USA, the UK, or Australia, and you’re interested in helping out those who are being defamed in this manner, shoot me an email. It would appear to be an increasingly target-rich environment.
A presidential pardon
President Trump Pardons Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a Presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. Arpaio’s life and career, which began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the military after the outbreak of the Korean War, exemplify selfless public service. After serving in the Army, Arpaio became a police officer in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas NV and later served as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formerly the Bureau of Narcotics. After 25 years of admirable service, Arpaio went on to lead the DEA’s branch in Arizona.
In 1992, the problems facing his community pulled Arpaio out of retirement to return to law enforcement. He ran and won a campaign to become Sheriff of Maricopa County. Throughout his time as Sheriff, Arpaio confirmed his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.
Good on the God-Emperor. This sends an important signal to the pro-American movement.
Antifa = Alt Left
In one fell swoop, the God-Emperor changed the rhetorical game:
“What about the ‘alt-left’ that came charging at, as you say, the ‘alt-right’? Do they have any semblance of guilt?” Trump said. “They came charging with clubs in their hands,” he said of the counter-protesters.
Trump effectively reopened the debate, despite insistence from politicians in both parties that white supremacists and other racists deserved to be singled out.
“You had a group on one side that was mad, and you had a group on the other side that was violent. Nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say that,” he said.
Trump defended the cause of those who gathered to protest the removal of a statue honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy.
“Was George Washington a slave owner. So will George Washington lose his status?” he said. “What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him? … You’re changing history. You’re changing culture.”
While Trump condemned the driver who rammed the crowd and killed a counter-protester, he declined to label the action specifically as an act of terrorism.
That’s the power of the bully pulpit. And that’s the work of a master of rhetoric in action. Trump is right to decline to label the action of the driver as terrorism, because the chances are extremely good that he’s never going to face trial.
This is not the first time someone has run over and killed protesters blocking the road. In previous cases, the drivers were found not guilty of any wrongdoing. No doubt the video of masked antifas smashing the car with metal bars is going to go a long way towards exculpating the killer driver.