Tag: SJW

The Attack on Substack

Simplicius, the great chronicler of the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine, comments on the attempts to police and deplatform Substack contributors:

As of several weeks back, Substack has been under a massive seemingly coordinated attack from subversive forces seeking to create a viral exodus from the site by reputationally damaging it. Unfortunately, it seems the program is of such wide scope as to even target individual high volume accounts, of which I appear to be one—as I too have now come under the hatchetmen’s blade of deplatformization…

It’s very clear to see why this is happening now, of all times. Just as Substack may have owed its initial popularity to the trench-war surrounding the 2020 election, J6, and Covid, Substack likewise stands to be at the center of what is certainly going to be an unprecedented, controversial, and dangerous historical firestorm later this year, and early next.

Think that’s silly? A middling platform by the standards of market capitalization and total users can’t possibly be such a ‘dangerous’ bugbear to the elites, can it? Yet those who’ve been following will know that some of the empire’s most dangerous dissident voices reside exclusively on Substack. Does Matt Taibbi, Alex Berenson, Seymour Hersh, and many others ring a bell? Some of these Substack writers have been central to the most momentous political scandals and revelatory bombshells of recent times. Hell, Taibbi even paid for it with a retaliatory federal case against him.

That’s right: Substack gives succor to dissidents viewed as grave dangers to the establishment, and they cannot allow Substack to remain unfettered going into the critical end of 2024 cycle.

That is why the attack had to come now, to begin seeding the groundwork to try and discredit and eventually dismantle one of the last remaining free speech bastions on the internet. And they’re doing that with the same ol’ tired shtick, claiming some tiny obscure holdout of “Nazis” is not only denning on the site, but are forcing their way into people’s recommends.

This quite obviously stinks of the same type of contortion Media Matters was accused of just last month, wherein they were said to game the system by refreshing ads hundreds of times until landing on the chance ‘desired result’, which then served as smear-piece fodder about ‘dangerously’ unwanted ads appearing unbidden next to their content.

The largest of the self-exiled, Casey Newton, wrote up what sounds like a semi-reasonable explanation, though he admits the Atlantic hitpiece was the initial spur which led to his re-evaluation of Substack. He further admits it only really revolved around six main offending newsletters, though “[his] analysis” found “dozens” more—which advocated the ghastly and unbearable “replacement theory”:

Really? The replacement theory Biden himself admitted on video to not only being true, but a “good thing”, is akin to “hate speech”? This is the “Nazi stuff” we’re talking about here?

Most troublingly, the rat openly admitted to going straight to Stripe itself to squeal on Substack—what appears an obvious attempt to get Substack shut down at the merchant bank level.

Year of Troubles: The Hatches Come Out, SIMPLICIUS, 19 January 2024

It’s always the same game, the same motivations, and the same tactics. It will be interesting to see if Substack resists the pressure and remains viable, or if it submits to it and begins the same inevitable decline toward irrelevance that we’ve already seen from dying platforms like Blogger, Buzzfeed, Vice, YouTube, Patreon, Indiegogo, and other organizations that were either allied, or submissive, to Clown World’s SJW thought police.

This is one reason why my new Sigma Game substack, which I created to provide a central location for the forthcoming SSH book, presently has no paid subscriptions despite the generous pledges that have been made; there is no point in either permitting even the slightest amount of dependence upon it or allowing it to be utilized against Substack until the company decides whether it will submit to the thought police or stand against them.

UATV will eventually offer a written aspect that will fulfill a similar function, but one that will, as SocialGalactic is to Gab, be a community-focused platform rather than one that is intended for a broad public audience like Substack. Since the subscriptions are free, I’d recommend sending a strong message to Substack by first subscribing to Sigma Game, and then to the stacks that are recommended there, including Simplicius.

In any event, this is absolutely nothing new. Whatever happens, we resist and we persist.

DISCUSS ON SG

Cancelling the Cancel Pigs

According to recent a recent report on Fandom Pulse, things are not going well for the SJWs in the comics industry. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to bite the hands that feed them, so they proceeded to attack the very stores that sold their products:

Now it looks like the chickens have come home to roost. First, there was the news that cancel pig Mags Visaggio was begging for money online on X: “We could use some help till our next paycheck (invoiced Dec 7) following a pretty catastrophic month.”

Now, a new bombshell dropped when award-winning writer of science fiction, steampunk, and comics Jon Del Arroz tweeted on New Year’s Day: “I’ve heard from a retailer insider that several shops are refusing to order books by the “cancel pigs” who insulted shop owners. Not a good start to 2024 for the mainstream comic industry!”

Why Marvel and DC writers ever thought it a good idea to attack the retailers that are selling your comics will be a mystery for the ages. Now it looks like the cancelled pigs are the ones who are going to be cancelled.

Cancel Pigs Are Getting Cancelled, FANDOM PULSE, 2 January 2024

If you don’t listen to your audience, and if you not only refuse to take their concerns into account, but actually attack them for the mere fact of possessing those concerns, you should not be surprised to eventually discover that you do not have an audience.

In respect of this principle, and after dozens of discussions with various parties, the Castalia team has decided that we are not going to attempt to save the independent publishing industry from itself in 2024. Why should we be more concerned about its fate than those who actually depend upon it are? As one member of our team sagely observed: “It’s too soon. They’re worried, but they aren’t panicked yet. They still have faith in the status quo.”

So, what we’re going to concentrate on this year is improving our processes, reducing our production times, and elevating each element of the operation to the highest possible level of quality and service. We improved in 2023, but we still have a long way to go. Once our own House is entirely efficient and in order, perhaps we can spare a few thoughts for those whose livelihoods and businesses are being systematically destroyed by a certain corpocratic behemoth.

And on a not-unrelated note, the Library email will go out tonight.

DISCUSS ON SG

Mailvox: The Post-Morten Convergence of CS Lewis

A reminder, as if any could possibly be necessary anymore, of the importance of Castalia Library preserving the original texts that are being actively disappeared by the publishing industry:

We were given tickets to the stage version of The Lion and Witch and the Wardrobe. It was terrible. I was waiting to see what SJW stuff would be included. It started with about eight or so army guys, and only one of them was black, so I thought maybe we will be lucky… then the kids walked out. They were black. It was abysmal. Although it did put a different spin on a few of the lines – like when Mr Beaver is asking if they’re human or not…

The kids got to the house after being evacuated from London, and one of the two housemaids was a big burly man with a beard. He was wearing a maid’s outfit. It was grotesque. They stripped away all Christian references and undertones, which was impressive in an awful way given the subject material.

They even removed Santa. He was now Sinta Klause, and looked like a fat Turkish man who had been caught in an explosion at a fabric factory.

The West has fallen to Clown World. We are the remnant. We will rebuild anew and wiser than before.

“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them.”

— JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

DISCUSS ON SG

Reddit Bans Autarch

As well as any discussion of the RPG Adventurer, Conqueror, King System that has been so successfully crowdfunded:

This is, for Autarch, a triumph of the greatest magnitude. I am profoundly grateful to all of the backers who have supported and continue to support my magnum opus. Thank you, truly.

Of course, the success of ACKS II attracted the attention of some of the more unattractive denizens of the /r/rpg and /r/osr subreddits, who promptly began to defame and slander me with their usual half-truths, falsehoods, and slurs. When some of the ACKS community refused to allow the disparagement to go unrebutted, it led to a flame war the likes of which has not been seen since the days of the Usenet. Ultimately, the moderators decided it was best to simply ban discussion of both the game and designer, citing “brigading.”

Evacuate? In Our Moment of Triumph?, 6 November 2023

I think these sorts of bans are only helping advance the alternative economy. I can only speak for Castalia, but we have zero desire, much less any need, to be on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, or even Amazon. The more they attempt to silence and deplatform us, the more people climb out of their walled gardens in pursuit of something different, more traditional, and on average, better.

And, as Autarch has discovered, the stronger and more independent we become.

DISCUSS ON SG

In Which I Express A Heartfelt Apology

This beautiful piece by my PR agent, Pax Dickenson, appears to be disappearing from the various archive sites, which themselves appear to be disappearing as the Zero Historians attack the Internet now that racism and problematic history in statuary has been satisfactorily addressed. And we simply cannot permit that to happen to what is nothing less than a glorious work of performance art and the pinnacle of positive media relations.

A fortnight ago I was contacted by a Ms. Amanda Robb, who identified herself as a journalist. Having had a personal history of difficulty with unsavory wretches of that sort, and being a well-known proponent of a harsh criminal punishment for their un-American collectivist scribblings, I of course immediately recommended that Ms. Robb engage in a vigorous act of self-procreation.

Ms. Robb, however, would not be deterred. She (I did not ask her pronoun, regrettably, so I must assume) was earnestly seeking my comment regarding traditionalist superhero comic books and the manners and methods of aggregating funds for the production of such. The aggressively persistent Ms. Robb told me she is a journalist for the widely known (none would say ‘popular’, but it is widely known) Rolling Stone magazine; which magazine, I learned, is not actually solely published for manipulative character assassinations of washed-up entertainers and the dissemination of libelous false rape accusations against innocent frat boys, but purports to do Actual Journalism. I questioned this ambition, of course, but Ms. Robb assured me that the former incautious Rolling Stone editors responsible for the recent libelous rape fiction had been quite thoroughly sacked after the massive financial settlement and had been replaced by a new crop of editors who were assuredly much cleverer about not being found responsible for making things up in any legally actionable way.

Upon perusing Ms. Robb’s prior work at Marie Claire, The Guardian and with The Investigative Fund of The Nation Magazine, which focused on baby-killing tips, a convenient debunking of investigations of elite pedophile rings, and Ms. Robb’s personal experiences with extensive plastic surgery, I could only conclude Ms. Robb must be undoubtedly amongst the finest of politically axe-grinding journalists working in stale Boomer left-wing pop music magazines today.

I explained to Ms. Robb that I have retired to the quiet life of a simple gentleman farmer, knew and cared little about comic books, and did not seek further attention from the media-propaganda complex. I further explained that I considered her employers and her “profession” (such that it is) to be distasteful at best and criminal at worst, and that I expected she might not have the best of intentions toward me given my knowledge about how modern journalism is done and my past experiences being a subject of the yellow press. I directly and forthrightly informed Ms. Robb that I considered her to be my enemy and refused to help her. Ms. Robb, however, was not to be discouraged by any such declaration.

Ms. Robb insisted on an interview despite my pugnacious resistance and emphatically asserted that it would be helpful for her story. Worn down by her insipid pleadings, I reluctantly agreed, and set up a meeting with her in New York City for the next afternoon. I wasn’t in New York City, and in fact I was at my home over one hundred miles away from New York City. I had absolutely no ability or plans to be in New York City by that next day, but Ms. Robb was so insistent that I decided to just make the appointment with her and hope for the best.

At the appointed time, for security reasons, I texted Ms. Robb to change the location to a different one at which I hoped to somehow be, despite never having left my home, which is, as I said, over one hundred miles away. She “never got” my message until she was home, so it all worked out. Except for the small detail of actually doing an interview. I was quite comfortable with this outcome but regrettably Ms. Robb was less than satisfied.

I explained to Ms. Robb that I lived over one hundred miles away from New York City and I wasn’t planning any trips to New York City in the foreseeable future, so any interview was simply impossible. Ms. Robb immediately suggested driving the three hours to rural Pennsylvania to talk to me. I demurred, but she explained that comic books and the manners and methods of procuring funds for the production of such was of such importance, she would gladly drive over one hundred miles to talk to me despite my repeated professions of ignorance and declarations of refusal to help.

I agreed but explained that I required significant security measures for meetings with the disreputable journalist class she represented, and she would have to follow my security directives to the letter in order to get her interview.

First, I ordered her to purchase a bright red Make America Great Again hat at Trump Tower before her trip. I explained that the fashionable hat would cost $35 due to its quality American-made construction, but assured her that her paymasters at Rolling Stone magazine would certainly reimburse her. I explained that I needed her to have the hat for identification purposes later. I also sent her an address to a closed restaurant 3 hours drive from New York and told her to go to that location and await further instructions.

On the appointed date, she eventually arrived, later than the expected time as is the wont of her gender and profession, but arrived nonetheless. I directed her to the next rendezvous point, a small restaurant with outdoor seating 30 minutes drive further west. I told her that upon arrival at this location, she should sit outside and send me a ‘selfie’ with the red MAGA hat on, in order to confirm her arrival and help me identify her.

At this point, the entire endeavor had been going precisely according to plan, so I’m not sure what explains Ms. Robb’s clear expression of annoyance in the selfie I received. Perhaps she had a premonition of the unfortunate disappointment to come, via some oracular power, as some of the distaff sex have been known to possess. However, given the remainder of this tale, Ms. Robb’s psychic ability seems scant.

I directed Ms. Robb up the hill and to a pleasant location near the lake in the nearby State Park where I imagine that I might have waited, had I actually left my house, which I hadn’t. She expressed reluctance, and then seemingly became confused, sending me a picture of a park sign at the shale pit instead of the lake.

As if a knowledgeable and well-placed journalistic source like myself would imagine hanging out in a dusty shale pit. In retrospect, I suppose a state park with dozens of ambiguous signs marking half a dozen non-interconnecting entrances and extremely spotty cell phone service was not the best choice of rendezvous location. By the time Ms. Robb had arrived at the exact location where I had imagined I might be, I unfortunately was no longer imagining myself there anymore. I certainly tried my best to find Ms. Robb, despite never having left my house, which was, as I said, over a dozen miles away from the park.

Having imagined myself in a place with such spotty cell phone service, I was unable to reply to Ms. Robb’s repeated messages looking for me until quite a while later. When I was able to imagine myself in better conditions, I found that she had meandered all over the park in a futile attempt to find the place I had imagined I might be. After a distinct lack of success she then booked a nearby hotel room and informed me that she was prepared to await a more auspicious outcome on the morrow. Not wanting to disappoint, I proposed a very early 6:30 a.m. meeting at Cracker Barrel for the next morning, which Ms. Robb graciously accepted.

Unfortunately, that breakfast was to remain one cracker short of a barrel. In an unforeseen turn of events, I was hypothetically summoned at sunrise to aid a neighbor in rounding up a dozen escaped hogs.

Engaged as I was in these pretend porcine shenanigans, I quite reasonably missed the time for my breakfast meeting with Ms. Robb. I communicated my regrets to her shortly thereafter. She asked if we could instead meet that afternoon but I suggested meeting that evening after I had sufficiently recovered from my swine herding efforts.

That night I changed the time of our dinner from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., on a whim, just to keep Ms. Robb entertained. At this time she informed me that her editors were getting irritated. The thought of the finest political editors in the Boomer Left pop music magazine business being personally irritated with my humble antics left me filled with amused pity. Later, I messaged Ms. Robb to tell her I had been delayed by a henway. She not unreasonably asked, “What’s a henway?” to which I of course replied, “About three pounds.” She didn’t understand this, and then began to rudely question my subsequent promise to arrive in a “BOFA” (Brisk Or Fast Arrival–a well-known acronym).

I finally decided that I had had enough of the rudeness of the press for that day, and let her know that the only BOFA she should be expecting was BOFA DEEZ NUTZ.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that I’m truly sorry we had such trouble arranging to meet up, Ms. Robb.

I realize that journalism depends on good faith and trust between journalists and sources, and I’d hate to see our repeated poor luck inspire unscrupulous or mischievous fellows to waste the time of well-meaning journalists like yourself. If journalists had to wonder every time they made an appointment and were required to buy a right-wing hat if this was some sort of trick to embarrass them, it’s possible that no journalism would ever get done at all. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? I don’t. I’d be worried about all the blood rushing out of my brain from the massive schadenfreude erection I would get.

P.S. Ms. Robb, shall we try once more? I’ll be at Famous Ray’s pizza in Brooklyn on Tuesday at noon. No, the other one. This time, I swear I’ll show up.

P.P.S. Wear the hat.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Legend Will Not Be Cancelled

The relevant publishers have spoken on Bounding Into Comics. Also, the cover for the new Chuck Dixon’s Conan paperback has been unveiled.

Rippaverse Comics founder Eric July and Arkhaven Comics publisher Vox Day recently shared their responses to the attempts to cancel legendary comic book writer Chuck Dixon…

July responded to this cancellation call on YouTube, “Here’s what’s going to happen and you’re going to have to get over it. Yes, we have people that the mainstream has deemed, I don’t know, abhorrent. Because maybe they have a view or two, namely it’s likely they support politicians or don’t support the politicians that they think they should.”

He added, “Here’s what’s going to happen and what you’re going to have to get over. As far as this company is concerned, Chuck Dixon is about to be part of a campaign that is going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars perhaps millions. And guess what? He gets a bonus in the event that it does. You’re gonna get his pockets lined up and there’s nothing that you can do about it.”

July continued, “They say some people want to go their employers. They want to get them to put off a certain platform. That doesn’t happen over here. And you can’t do s**t about it. And you want to know why? Because what are you going to do? ‘Well, we don’t want the Rippaverse to publish that.’ Who you going to go to? ‘Well, go to the publisher.’ I am the publisher! ‘Oh! Well, well, maybe we go to his distributors.’ Look at me. I am the distributor now. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing. And they’re going to have to get over it.”

He then reiterated, “There are people that have been very creative and because they said something you don’t like you’ve deemed that they shouldn’t be a part of like the f***ing comic book industry? Who are these people? They are losers. And this is why social justice activism is the f***ing tool and occupation of losers. Because it unfortunately has been able to amplify people that are not only unreasonable, but it gives them some sense of importance that they have never got in their entire lives ever.”

Day responded to the cancellation attempts on his website. Day wrote, “Let me get this straight. Because The Legend wrote a comic about an evil elite that engages in child sex trafficking, he is antisemitic.

“Now, isn’t that an open and public admission that a certain group of people are engaged in child sex trafficking and Satanic sacrifice? Especially given the fact that the comic doesn’t mention or imply anything about Satanic sacrifice,” he continued.

Day concluded, “Anyhow, this is just an attempt to get Chuck kicked off Eric July’s projects, which isn’t going to happen. What’s amusing about this is that if Dane is worked up about AH:Q, he’s going to stroke out on the spot if he ever reads The Legend’s Levon Cade novels…”

He then shared a gif indicating he had no intention of ending his working relationship with Dixon. To that point, Day shared with Bounding Into Comics the cover to Dixon’s upcoming novel, Caravan of the Damned.

Eric July And Vox Day Respond To Attempts To Cancel Chuck Dixon, 25 September 2023, Bounding Into Comics

Read the whole thing and check out the new cover there. It’s really, really good! We’re just about ready to go to print, we’re just wrapping up a few final interior illustrations and then we’ll make it available at Arkhaven and the usual bookstores.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Ustasi is Real

Sarah Hoyt describes a successful attempt to infiltrate her communications two years ago:

I have found out recently that when my phone got spoofed, and my email hacked, back in April of 2021, it was part of an effort that involved a lot of people on our side getting that happening to them at the same time. The email was then used to send insulting emails to those people they thought were monetary supporters. At the same time, the emails were rifled for “incriminating” messages, used to bring legal charges against these people, or to discredit them with the community at large.

It did a number on my mind for various reasons. Note I’m not saying who was behind the hacking because I don’t know. But the fact that legal charges were brought in some cases makes you think… well, you know, the Stasi is real even though it goes under other names.

For the record, the attempted hack was curtailed earlier (and there are now measures in place), by pure luck. I happened to be up really late for me, through being too tired to go to bed. (It’s a thing.)

Also for the record, the shenanigans attempted didn’t land, because their ideas of who I am appear to be pure leftist projection. While I have monetary backers — Hi, y’all — for this blog, they’re not political monetary backers, and they don’t send me emails encouraging messages or slants. In other words, there is no journolist on the right, and there is no equivalent of Soros directing our efforts.

Most of what my email contains are actual personal things. Messages from friends and family. Kids and cats pictures. The occasional editor email, though now that I’m not doing comics, not even that. Links to blogs that hope I’ll link them, or links a friend found interesting. Discussions of how a book did with a friend.

So most of the insulting, (highly racist slurs, btw) emails were sent to friends telling me how much their book had made, and one to my comics editor. None of them “landed” because the reaction were immediate texts saying “Sarah, you’ve been hacked.” First, because I don’t use that language, and second because the messages made no sense since these weren’t political backers but friends. (Even the comics editor became that.) And because it was curtailed early, there was no time for fake emails advising violence, or fake posts on facebook to be made.

The other thing I found out at the same time, through incidental comments in a chat, is that the next attempt was to tap into people’s internet to capture the stream. Doing that on ours is bizarre, but yes, we do have proof that was actually done to us just before we left Colorado. The only reply to that is “Dudes, wait and get it when I post it on the blog or publish it.” Because there is nothing, literally, in either my email or my internet signal that couldn’t be made public tomorrow because most of it is. Oh, some of my correspondents would hate to have their emails made public because they are in the political closet, but they’re not political operators. They’re professors or scientists or members of the Armed Forces (not high up.) Knowing they associate with me at all might bring questions, but then again most of them use pseudonyms, and the emails themselves are blameless. “Hey, have you read this?” and “Look at the cute face my cat made” comprise 99% of it, the rest being maybe more personal and less political than that.

However, the fact that so much effort was made made me queasy. Particularly because I know some of the other people to whom this was done, and they’re much bigger. My claim to “bigness” is posting over at instapundit, (which is yuge) but other than that, I’m medium-small and I’m just a science fiction writer with a nasty politics problem.

While it would have been useful for us to hear about this two years ago, it’s still good that Mrs. Hoyt is going public with the surveillance state’s attempt to interfere with her relations with her readers and supporters. It would also be useful to know how many other public figures were targeted and how successful those efforts were in their attempts to sabotage them.

In the meantime, it’s vital to always remain aware of the constant attempt of these bad actors to infiltrate every organization and every group of people that aren’t completely submitted to the Narrative. The lidless eye is always on you, which is a simple fact of human existence that you should accept with equanimity and utilize to inspire you to do more and do better.

None of this is new. Epictetus made it clear nearly 2,000 years ago.

Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man’s own Guardian Spirit, who is charged to watch over him—a Guardian who sleeps not nor is deceived…. So when you have shut the doors and made a darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your Guardian Spirit, and what light do they need to behold what you do?

Man’s surveillance state is but a poor, twisted, and fallen version of God’s. And we know which one holds the real power.

DISCUSS ON SG

YouTube Piles On

Despite him not having even been accused of streaming anything objectionable on YouTube, the social media giant has demonetized Russell Brand.

YouTube has stopped Russell Brand from being able to earn any money through his channel for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’.

The 48-year-old produces around five videos a week for his 6.6million subscribers, earning him an estimated £1million a year.

Under the terms of his suspension Brand – whose net worth has been estimated at between £15m and £40m – will still be allowed to post videos on the platform but will not receive any of the advertising revenue.

YouTube said in a statement: ‘If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand.’

This is why it is so foolish for these public figures to prioritize reach over stability. What is the point of building up a massive social media following on a platform where it can, and will, be taken away from you overnight?

This is also why UATV, and other independent platforms with paid subscriptions, are the wave of the future. But it will probably require the collapse of YouTube before most creators are able to seriously consider those platforms, because the allure of YouTube fame and money is far too strong for them to resist despite the obvious risks.

JUST IN: “We will move to an economic model of a small monthly payment to use X.” – Elon Musk

Anyhow, YouTube’s action, in combination with the media blitz, does make it obvious that Brand’s cancellation is an organized, inorganic action.

DISCUSS ON SG

Deep Pockets and Defamation

Elon Musk brings up the possibility of suing the ADL for defamation:

While the ADL is obviously vulnerable on the issue of defamation, and has previously lost defamation cases, I think Musk and many others would actually have a much stronger case concerning tortious interference. The ADL literally raises money on the basis of its successful interference in contracts between third parties to which it has no relation, and its entire modus operandi is based on tortious interference for the purposes of harming the party it is targeting.

And while defamation is extremely hard for a public figure to prove, tortious interference is usually an easily established matter of record. In the case of the ADL’s interference with X’s advertising contracts, all of the elements are observably there and could be easily proven using the communications between the ADL and the advertisers.

  • The existence of a contractual relationship or beneficial business relationship between two parties.
  • Knowledge of that relationship by a third party.
  • Intent of the third party to induce a party to the relationship to breach the relationship.
  • Lack of any privilege on the part of the third party to induce such a breach.
  • The contractual relationship is breached.
  • Damage to the party against whom the breach occurs.

If Musk actually follows through with his musings with a lawsuit for tortious interference, and if Facebook, which was also targeted by the ADL, followed suit, there is a very good chance that the ADL would be financially ruined. Which would be ironic, given how many other organizations and individuals it has attempted to ruin financially. #BantheADL

UPDATE: I am very skeptical that Musk is genuinely serious about this. Among other things, he hasn’t fired his ADL-friendly CEO, Linda Yaccarino, yet.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the mainstream media is already rushing to misdirect the public and provide cover for the ADL, which tends to suggest that they are afraid the threat is real.

It’s unclear what kind of communications Musk is referring to, but a successful defamation suit would require him to prove that the ADL has been making false claims about him and his company. Musk and X did not immediately respond to a question from NBC News as to whether a complaint had been drafted. The ADL told NBC News on Monday that as a matter of policy it does not comment on legal threats.

The ADL’s publicly shared research and its criticisms of antisemitism on Musk’s platform in recent months are grounded in evidence. In March, the group flagged specific examples of antisemitic hate speech and tropes, and it criticized X for failing to remove posts in accordance with X’s own policies that prohibit hateful conduct, threats or incitement to violence based on individual or group identities. And in May, the ADL posted a report that documented examples of how antisemitic harassment networks are flourishing on the platform. Some of the ADL’s methodology seems unclear to me, and the organization also has a history of sometimes defining antisemitism in ways that conflate it with anti-Zionism. But the ADL flagged persuasive examples in its posts, and anyone who spends time on X knows the site is brimming with hate speech directed at all kinds of minority communities. One might also note that in these posts and in its report, the ADL is not calling Musk or X itself antisemitic, but the group is critiquing the company for failing to take action against antisemitic speech. Musk said on Monday that he was “pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind.”

Musk’s decision to single out the ADL is odd. As I noted, the ADL is just one voice among scores of civil rights-oriented organizations, research groups and media commentators that have criticized Musk’s laissez-faire attitudes toward hate speech. That’s to say nothing of the possibility that advertisers may choose to pull back on their spending on a platform without any pressure from activist groups or critics, and simply out of the calculation that the platform might be risky for their reputation in the future.

The twisted logic of Elon Musk’s defamation threat against the Anti-Defamation League, MSNBC, 6 September 2023

Notice how there is no mention of tortious interference, and yet the last sentence is specifically phrased to provide a hypothetical defense against the possibility that X advertisers were contacted by the ADL and pressured to stop advertising on X. And it is those communications between the ADL and the advertisers it is believed to have pressured are presumably the kind of communications to which Musk was referring.

DISCUSS ON SG

Then They Came for Wranglerstar

Miles Klee of Rolling Stone gets Wranglerstar banned from Tik Tok and goes after his YouTube account with a hit piece written on behalf of Jared Holt, the social media hit man who was previously “instrumental in getting social media and other internet platforms to give Infowars the boot” from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify, among others.

While his comments are a mixed bag of supporters and detractors, there’s no telling whether someone will put Crone’s more irresponsible recommendations into practice. “It’s alarming to see content that he offers instructions for doing damage paired with content that promotes a generally paranoid worldview,” says Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who studies the intersection of tech and U.S. political extremism. “That can be a volatile cocktail, and I worry that it normalizes types of violence.” 

After Rolling Stone brought the UN helmet video and other clips to TikTok’s attention, the company deleted Crone’s page. A TikTok representative confirmed that Crone was banned for “repeatedly violating” their policies, though did not enumerate which rules he had broken. The TikTok representative also reported that Crone had never made money on the platform. “While our investigation is ongoing, I can confirm that it did not monetize through our product features this year, and we’ve so far not found an indication it did so before that,” the rep said. Another Wranglerstar-branded TikTok account with more than 200,000 followers has preserved clips including a guide on breaking into buildings and a screed about “pushing back” against police officers by showing up to their houses to confront them. (It’s unclear whether Crone operates the account or someone else is reposting his content.)

YouTube, for its part, did not remove any of Crone’s videos or issue him a warning, and continues to generate revenue from his brand. (Crone, who has had an ad partnership with the site for at least a decade, was previously featured as an “On The Rise” influencer and on YouTube’s “Spotlight” channel.) In a statement to Rolling Stone, YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon says Crone’s videos have not violated the site’s community or the advertising-friendly guidelines for official YouTube Partners. “As such, they will remain on the platform,” Malon says.

According to the site’s policy guidelines, YouTube forbids “content intended to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organizations is not allowed on YouTube,” though notably, Crone does not seem to identify with any particular radical group. YouTube also prohibits “content encouraging others to commit violent acts.” Whether Crone risks violating this policy with material like the arson clip — which falls into something of a gray area — is an open question. Malon’s statement did not address the assessments YouTube made of any individual video.

Holt tells Rolling Stone that Crone is “crossing or edging on the line of policies that platforms have against what’s usually called ‘dangerous’ or ‘harmful’ content,” but that such rules are useless without rigorous enforcement. If YouTube doesn’t see fit to remove this kind of content, says Holt, it would “be responsible to at least down-rank it in sorting.”

Though Holt emphasizes that “most people who view this sort of content will not be compelled to act, and even fewer will be violent,” he says a slim minority may feel emboldened to take action “in harmful or violent ways.” For YouTube to allow this content on their platform, he explains, is “to provide the next would-be attacker or vigilante with the tools they need to act,” comparable to “scattering instruments all over a stage and inviting musicians into the theater.”

Of course, Holt cautions, we can’t say for sure that this is what Crone intends — which gives him the plausible deniability to continue operating on YouTube without interference. As long as he is ambiguous enough in his prophecies, avoiding direct imperatives to act or praise for known terrorist groups, he comes across as just another eccentric, gun-loving conservative. This way, Crone is able to walk a thin line, seeding extremist propaganda while separately laying out strategies for an anticipated clash with authorities, leaving his audience to connect the dots. Unlike his less-filtered TikTok channel, his YouTube presence relies on the power of what remains unsaid.

He Taught People to Make Bombs — And YouTube Is Helping Him Cash In, ROLLING STONE, 11 August 2023

When, as they like to say, there is no place in their society for us, it is clear that there is no place for them in our society. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to demonetize, deplatform, and destroy you. This is why it is foolish to rely in any way upon enemy platforms; there is more to preparation than building a cabin in the deep woods. Fortunately for us, our half of the global economy is much bigger than the one they have coopted; the two leading BRICSIA nations, Russia and China, have already declared war on their Empire of Lies.

It’s fascinating to see the Imperial SJWtroopers intensifying their attacks and expanding their range of targets at the same time that the companies they utilize as weapons are in decline and increasingly desperate to bring people, including those they previously banned, back to their platforms. Just this week, one major platform unsuspended an account that was frozen in 2020 and tried to get us back on the platform; we declined and took advantage of the unsuspension to cancel it for good. Just as it’s a mistake for consumers to subscribe to Disney+ or ESPN, or drink Bud Light, it’s a mistake for a non-SJW creator to become reliant upon YouTube, Facebook, or any other converged platform.

Big Bear and I have warned other creators about this for years. Most of them didn’t heed those warnings. But it’s just going to keep getting worse as the US continues to implode internally and the external pressure on its various institutions and corporations grows. Is it going to be easy at first? No. Are you going to take an initial hit in terms of every single metric? Yes. But that’s the price of playing the long game that ensures you’ll be around in the future.

DISCUSS ON SG