Author: Spocko

That’s how I’m describing what will happen at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. US Courthouse. The MSM headline won’t call them terrorists or mention the guns they will be carrying concealed. And the hostage isn’t Trump, it’s counter protestors, “Antifa”, journalists covering the event and law enforcement. They are focusing on some of same targets as January 6th.

The Trump supporters are even busing their supporters in like they did on on January 6th. (It doesn’t look like Charlie Kirk is behind the buses this time, but has anyone talked to Ginni Thomas?)

The other hostage is the American public and our sense of feeling safe at protests. When people are armed, deadly violence could happen at any second. It’s not a peaceful protest anymore, it’s a hostage situation.

We KNOW that cops prepare for and treat armed people differently, especially those with a history of violence. When the media knows that there will be armed people there, THEY need to talk about this differently. And ask some different questions, like:

Will the FBI be arresting people “left of boom” Monday?
There should be arrests! But I don’t expect to hear about them for days, (or ever) if they do. Which is part of the DOJ’s procedure, but it would be nice to know they are proactive.

Will known domestic terrorists groups like the Proud Boys be there?
Their members helped planned January 6th, participated in it and some have been convicted for seditious conspiracy. What about other individuals & groups?
What does “the chatter” say?

Will arrests be made of armed terrorists AT the event?
Cops don’t want to put themselves in a situation where they could be shot. And the armed right wingers KNOW this. They expect the cops to treat them “politely” because they are armed. When someone IS arrested it’s usually after the event.
(See this story about a Proud Boy who pulled gun at a Portland protest, there was no arrest so he returned armed at a Gresham event. He was finally arrested after multiple egregious actions. Proud Boy Alan Swinney sent to prison for 10 years)

• The Secret Service failed when they evaluated groups like The Proud Boys prior to January 6th. They saw them as friendlies, because they didn’t see them as a threat to Trump.
  [Fun Report: 84% of Groups Involved in Armed Demonstrations Are Right-Wing Actors Like the Proud Boys ]

• The same failure will happening on Tuesday unless the DOJ learned from January 6th.

Threatening speech is NOT protected speech

When Proud Boys or Three Percenters are openly carrying a gun at a protest it’s designed to intimidate. They WANT us to know the threat of deadly violence backs up their words. That’s threatening speech. And threatening speech is NOT protected speech.

When they are holding signs in support of Trump in a place where they COULD legally have a concealed gun, they WANT us to know they could be packing. They want to use the 1st Amendment protections we all have, but that’s not enough for them. They WANT us to know the threat of deadly violence is right there and people should treat them with respect, or else!

I’ve been reading the coverage of the preparation for this. It’s the same type of coverage. Post January 6th it MUST be reported differently.

There is a lot of hopeful and magical thinking in the media about this arrest based on what happened in New York. But New York has different laws, different law enforcement and a different population.

More than 2.61 million people had Florida concealed weapons licenses as of Nov. 30, according to the News Service of Florida.Dec 25, 2022 . Starting July 1st 2023, Florida has permitless concealed carry so ANY resident, or non-resident, of Florida is eligible to carry a concealed firearm in public.

These facts change the dynamic of what is happening on the ground in Florida. We need to change how to talk about this hostage situation.

How bad will it get? Another possible predictive headline for Tuesday. (h/t George)

Will “Proud Boys” Use Floriduh’s “Stand Your Ground Law” to Murder Counter Protestors?

My prediction: Tuesday, armed terrorists will surround Miami’s courthouse in an hours long hostage situation
But that’s not how the media will cover it.
Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain

I’m just watching SG-1 defeat the human and alien villains on PlutoTV  today while playing games on my phone.

I don’t want to think or write or move. Yet here I am. Writing. My thought last night was what I said on the Nicole Sandler show while talking about our mutual friend, the late great Joel Silberman. He taught progressive politicians to tell stories that illuminated their message.

There is good news in the world. US job numbers are great. The Economy was not destroyed by GOP, THIS TIME.

YET…. As Mrs. Spocko said, the relief that we feel when the GOP didn’t destroy the American and WORLD economy, doesn’t match the worry & anxiety that we have been feeling for weeks.

Celebrating the win is important. But also infuriating when we shouldn’t have been here. I get Biden talking about “My friends across the aisle” since his plan worked. The MSM LOVES that bipartisan stuff. But I really want those assholes on the right who brought us here to be stopped. I’d like them to be punished, but that’s not Biden. So let’s look at how to punish them in their role in the insurrection. Telling stories about victories is important for helping us feel good about our actions.

Anger is energy. Action is energizing. And Depression is real

I TOTALLY understand why the right stokes anger. It provides energy for them. I’ve used it in the past to fuel my action against RW media. Taking action can be energizing. And when it looks like all the anger you are feeling and the actions you are taking isn’t leading to stopping the right, NOR to getting justice for their horrific actions, the depression can get overwhelming.

The agents of destruction are still out there. They are still powerfully. They are still making money and getting resources and driving their grievance/ victim narrative.

I’m not just “documenting the atrocities” as Atrios likes to say. I try to help people with messages and actions. That includes the choir. Because getting the choir to sing together is important. Picking the right music that meets the moment is important. Are we singing about a funeral or celebrating new life at a wedding or baptism? Do we sing in Latin, that only the elite understand, or the people’s language?

I believe it’s my duty to stop the horrible people on the right and to help others to stop them. I can speak with authority because I HAVE HAD SUCCESS in the past fighting them, both with our narrative and financially. When I tell these stories it’s not about self aggrandizement, but because I want to help others to learn, and when we win, to inspire them. WE CAN DO THIS.

I told Nicole the story about how I worked with multiple religious groups, costing Michael Savage millions of dollars and dozens of advertisers. He sued one of them, CAIR, and lost.

I saw on Chris Hayes someone said Biden won’t gloat or do a victory lap after winning the Debt Ceiling crisis created by the GOP. Sure, that’s an appropriate solution, if you are A Responsible Adult like Biden.

BUT I want to CELEBRATE THE FEELING of defeating them. BIDEN got them to stop! Hurray!
Let’s not just move on to the next crisis.

As I said, it would be best if people on the right realized they are wrong and changed. But what if they don’t? What do we do with the ones who know what they are doing is wrong and they keep hurting us? We need to figure out the ways that they get it. Punishments come in many forms. Personally, I don’t want them to profit, we know they care about money above almost all else.

But money is only one reason they keep coming. They like to hurt others. They use the phrase, “Own the libs” and “Make liberals cry” because that is SATISFYING to them. I’m all about making Fascism less profitable, but it’s not the only thing. I don’t know what the pathology is that drives them, but we know that autocrats use that emotion to consolidate their power.

Right now Trump is psychologically exhausting us. He uses many methods to stay in the media, but also lawfare. Everything is always delayed. No victory feels complete. He turns financial judgements against him into fundraising opportunities. He sends a message that he never really loses. NYU prof Ruth Ben-Ghiat talked about this to Ali Velshi.

Right now I see the fight against RW media, Fascists & their promoters requires having a plan to show, and then stop, their use of threats of violence to get what they want. This fight involves how we define threats of violence and the actions we can take when we see it happening. People can and do pay a financial price for defaming others. People CAN and DO go to prison for threatening violence.

It has now been established people go to prison for planning and implementing an insurrection.

The Department of Justice has been sending “the boots” to prison. Elmer Stewart Rhodes just got 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Here he is with his prison issued orange eyepatch.

Now it’s time to send “The Suits” to prison. And tell the stories of our victories. And then we celebrate.
Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain

E. Jean Carroll won. I’m glad she won, but I’m still depressed. Why? Because a financial victory against Trump is not enough.

As I said on the Nicole Sandler show on Thursday, we know how Trump responds when he loses, so we need to KEEP working to crush him especially after we win. He must be crushed legally, financially, politically and narratively.

I could speak generically, “Here’s what we should do.” But I have experience in fighting the right financially, legally, politically and narratively. I think that experience can be applied to the situation now and apply it in the future.

Recently I spoke on a panel about my wildly successful work to make the violent rhetoric, racism, sexism and religious bigotry coming from right wing media toxic to mainstream advertisers and less profitable to the distributors of RW media. It was a financial victory, but I kept working to make it a legal, political and narrative victory.

I spoke about the narrative and messages that I used that people on our side could get behind and how I taught other groups how to use the Spocko Method.

(If you want to hear more about how it was used on Rush Limbaugh, check out my conversation with Matt Binder on Doomed on Feb 18, 2021. Here’s the YouTube video link)

Because of the recent Dominion settlement, I talked about my previous success, working with Color of Change and Angelo Carusone (while he was still in college before he was CEO of Media Matters) to get Glenn Beck pushed off of Fox News. I spent months writing to News Corp institutional investors to point out Beck wasn’t getting ad revenue in line with his viewership. That was the narrative I used for the institutional investors, “Hey, you care about quarterly revenue, why isn’t this popular show bringing in ad revenue?”

Investors hate an “asset” that isn’t maximizing its profit potential. I knew some would be willing to wait a while, but they would ask Murdoch, “Why AREN’T there any advertisers? What can your hosts do to get the advertisers back?” When it was clear Beck wasn’t going to change, that led to investors to pressure Murdoch to fire Glenn Beck, because they wanted higher quarterly revenue.

In 2023 we see that Tucker Carlson had virtually no ad revenue and that News Corp now uses carriage fees to keep a high viewership, low revenue show on the air. The institutional investors may have have come to accept that they aren’t going to get money from ads on Tucker’s show, but they would REALLY like to have ad revenue.

(BTW, New Corp lied about the impact of losing Glenn Beck advertisers, they are lying now about the lack of advertisers for Tucker Carlson. How do they lie? Using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles of a Conglomerate. That’s why my question to Murdoch started out, “I know you don’t break out the numbers… but”

A new report in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal about Tucker Carlson’s very abrupt firing confirmed Fox News had been lying for years about supposedly not having an advertising problem related to the toxicity of its former prime-time star.

Fox News previously lied about the effect of advertiser boycotts Media Matters For America

If I couldn’t stop violent rhetoric, I could make it less profitable.

When I first started contacting advertisers in 2005 about the violent rhetoric from right wing radio host I knew that management and the hosts might listen to them and stop talking about blowing people’s brains out and putting a bullseye on Nancy Pelosi. THAT was my goal.

I knew that some hosts wouldn’t listen to anyone. One “doubled down” with more violent rhetoric, he eventually got fired.

A second host was more careful with what she said, but she had already lost the support of the advertisers and got fired for not bringing in enough revenue. The third started using the Tucker Carlson, “I’m just asking questions” construction and he stayed.

I knew saying, “These hosts should not talk about torturing and killing people.” would be ignored. I was told, “If you don’t like it, change the channel. You aren’t forced to listen to it.”

One of my goals was to interrupt a platitude I heard used by the left, “I don’t like what they have to say, but I’ll defend to the death their right to say it.” Fine. So I said, “The hosts can say what they want, but there are sponsors who don’t want to support what they are saying. Advertisers have a choice. They can choose not to associate their brand with violent rhetoric. The hosts can keep saying certain things, but they don’t have to get rich saying it.”

You might notice I didn’t use certain terms, I did NOT want the hosts to be able to use certain defenses. “I was censored!” No you weren’t, you could keep saying what you did, but you won’t get paid for saying it. “I have my 1st Amendment Rights! ” The sponsors aren’t the government.

Here’s the thing, as a society we HAVE made decisions that certain things people say should be restricted. And, if those restrictions are violated, there should be consequences.

KSFO was, and is, broadcast radio, they WERE under government restrictions. They still are. If they violated those restrictions, like using profanity, the stations could be fined. I knew that, I might not have agreed that profanity was detrimental to society, but the stations were under FCC rules with consequences, so they set up tools to prevent them, like the 7 second delay. If someone let slip an f-bomb, during a broadcast, the station suffered governmental financial consequences for it.

I knew certain forms of violent rhetoric aren’t illegal, even on broadcast radio. However, advertisers said those kind of comments weren’t in line with their stated values. So they pulled their ads. My method was to make violent rhetoric less profitable. It worked.

I also realized that making it less profitable didn’t stop it, but it had an impact. Those stations lost the ability to make money from hosts who said things that advertisers found repugnant. If the stations couldn’t convince the hosts to stop their violent rhetoric, they needed to find other sources of revenue or accept less profits. And that is what happened. Advertising revenue for the “controversial” right wing media hosts crashed. The distributors didn’t make the huge pots of money like they did in the past. Rush wasn’t bringing in the big bucks, so radio distributors shuffled him off to radio stations with a smaller broadcast footprint so they could make revenue when they switched the station to Sports Talk.

iHeart has also forced its high-profile talk hosts to take pay cuts in an effort to save money. In 2016, Limbaugh agreed to a reduced salary, although the terms of the deal were not announced. This was a departure from past years, when information about Limbaugh’s contracts was blasted far and wide to boast of his influence and power.

Laden with $20 billion in debt, talk-radio giant iHeartMedia is trying desperately to save its failing business Salon, Feb 2018

People in right wing media adapted, some hosts moved to platforms where they could hide from accountability from advertisers. When platforms started monitoring them for saying certain kinds of things, the hosts stopped saying those things–because they couldn’t earn money if they did! Others moved to a subscriber only model, where their revenue wouldn’t be subject to platform or advertisers approval. For others, like Alex Jones, even if the show didn’t get ad revenue, mainstream platforms would not host them. So they kept looking for new platforms where there are no restrictions.

So what if a host has enough money sources that likes what they say, and the platforms are fine with it?

Do we just ignore them? Or do we say, “What they are saying is dangerous, harmful and we need to act.”

My friend Angelo Carusone talked about this on the Nicole Reid show last Friday, how this idea that “free speech and defending free speech … is one and the same with this paradox of tolerance, which is that it doesn’t matter how extreme, how ridiculous, how terrible, how violent — if you’re not willing to, as you know, subject yourself to it or even go one step further, facilitate and enable it” you are against free speech.

I’ve been talking to experts in the legal profession, and those who think and write about what people say on right wing media and via social media. I’ve focused on what do we do when what’s said is specifically used to harm people.

I’ve also been talking to people to understand why it looks like there is nothing we can do about this because … (and they have lots of reasons, the 1st Amendment, how they define ‘free speech’, the reluctance to engage in prior restraint or issue a gag order, the difference between public broadcast vs. private platforms, how threats are defined legally vs practically used, enforcement problems by the criminal system vs. enforcement on social media, the use of comments that are “awful but lawful” and the scale problem. ‘It’s too big to solve!”

I want to see Justice. What do we need to do to reach it?

I’ve been breaking down each reason and looking for solutions. Like what I did to stop the violent rhetoric on RW media. I know that a financial path is powerful, but it also isn’t enough. We can understand how a corporation can be defamed and be compensated. We are seeing that a price can be put on “reputation restoration.” But is that Justice?

I want to see Justice. What does that include? I’d like to see the perpetrator punished. I think the victim who is harmed should be compensated. Going forward the perpetrators’ bad behavior should stop.

After the E. Jean Carroll case I read people saying, “He’ll never pay!” So I talked about how he had to put up a $5 million dollar bond to appeal. How it will take at least a year, and he’ll likely lose, so when he does, the money will be there.

When people said, “He’ll raise four times as much money from his supporters.” I brought up how Jack Smith is already investigating Trump for campaign finance violations from his last fund raising actions.

But I know that’s not addressing the anger people are feeling, “He denied he lost, acts as if he won, is getting more money than the settlement and won’t stop harming others? WTF?”

Trump is different. How he responds when he loses is different, so we need to KEEP working to crush him after we win. I didn’t give up after my first win against my local radio hosts on KSFO, I kept building on successes. It’s not an accident that Tucker Carlson had no advertiser revenue in 2023. That’s a good thing, We made that happen. As a CEO of a syndication company said about our campaign,

It was enough to change the paradigm for all of talk radio.

David Landau, former co-chief executive of syndication company Dial Global

I’m proud of that work. And I know that the right adapts. Going forward we go after how they raise money, we explode their twisted definitions, we use their threats to harm others after they lose a civil case to crush them criminally and then politically. We destroy their narrative that they are the victim.

Cross posted at Spocko’s Brain

Fox is NOT a journalistic entity, it’s a political operation.
A person working for a PAC wouldn’t get congressional press credentials, but Fox does.
It’s time to revoke the congressional press credentials for anybody from #Fox.

I’m happy Marcy started the conversation. I want to move it forward. I think that de-credentialing should be one result following the resolution of the Dominion case in favor of Dominion.

Why Bother To Revoke Fox’s Credentials?

Press credentials have VALUE to Fox. It allows them, as a political operation, to masquerade as a news organization. I’m making the case that Fox is like the RNC or a Political Action Committee and not a journalistic entity, therefore they are not entitled to the benefits and protections we offer journalistic entities in America. Having Congressional Press credentials is a sign of legitimacy. Not having them wouldn’t mean they couldn’t still do stories about congress, but NOT having them, and the REASON they don’t have them sends a message to everyone.

I’m already hearing all the defeatist responses from the left about trying to do this. And the predictions that journalists and media organizations will defend Fox and won’t even TRY to revoke the credentials. We know how the RW would spin this. “Liberals Hate Free speech! Censorship! They hate the 1st Amendment!” So I propose we set up some test cases we can use to raise the issue:

What if the Democratic PAC set up a new company called Donkey News to do “electronic newsgathering and the daily dissemination of news.” and that Donkey News hired “bona fide newsgatherers and/or reporters of reputable standing in their business to cover congress.”
Would the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association accept or reject Donkey News?

(BTW, those phrases are from the membership rules for the House and Senate Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association.) At the hellsite they are @HouseRadioTV @SenateRadioTV @RTCACapitolHill.

I’m hoping they would reject them using the same criteria that the Periodical Correspondents’ Association uses to reject a periodical based on what the organization can’t do.

“The Periodical “does not engage, directly or indirectly, in any lobbying or other activity intended to influence any matter before Congress or before any independent agency or any department or other instrumentality of the Executive branch.”

Periodical Correspondent’s Association rules. Link to Periodical Correspondents’ Association rules.

What if the person under consideration for Donkey News is questioned about his parent organization, the Democratic PAC? Can they use the line, “The reporter works for the news side, not the political lobbying side opinion side.”?
(Here is what the Periodical Correspondents’ Association rules say:)

“No part of your publishing family or parent organization may be involved in providing representation services, feasibility or marketing studies, nor be engaged in research or analysis not available to all subscribers. “

Periodical Correspondent’s Association rules. Link to Periodical Correspondents’ Association rules.

As you read about the Dominion case ask yourself, “Do we have evidence that the parent company, “News Corp” and its directors “engage[d], directly or indirectly, in any lobbying or other activity intended to influence any matter before Congress?” Ask if there is evidence that the parent organization was involved in any activity intended to influence “the instrumentality of the Executive branch?

Will any journalistic entity bring up this issue to RTCA? I doubt it. Marcy suggested that a “good government group” do it. I would like to think that journalistic organizations WOULD want to do this, then I read an article “Why journalism schools won’t quit Fox News” in Nieman Lab where they talked to a lot of J-school professors. They didn’t want to attack Fox because it might hurt their student’s chances of getting a job.

Fox weaponized 1st Amendment protections to gain political power

I’ve written to some journalism professors and asked, “What would it take to convince reputable journalists and bona fide newsgatherers within RTCA to decertify Fox?”

When I bring up this topic I see people on the left doing the work to validate the excuses for Fox to keep their credentials. I welcome those because then I can see objections from our side. If I can get them to see that it IS a possibility, then some ask, “What’s the point?” I believe doing this is one more way to weaken a massively destructive force in our country.

I’m an activist and blogger. I see myself as journalism adjacent. I know that I could not get Congressional press credentials, just like Marcy couldn’t when she worked for FireDogLake.

I’m writing about this because Fox has abused the protections we give journalists. Journalists use those protections in the quest to get to the truth. The public rightly supports journalists using their power for that purpose. But that is NOT how News Corp & Murdoch have been using those protections.

Jon Stewart described it this way, the right has weaponized the 1st Amendment protections. Listen to him and his guest RonNell Anderson Jones, Professor of Law at the University of Utah discuss the Dominion Fox case. It is clear that Fox execs knew the truth & lied anyway.

They are knowingly exploiting the cracks in a system that believes in the 1st Amendment

They’re gaming a system designed to give journalists broad leeway in trying to expose truth.

They’re reverse engineering it to create falsehoods–then exploit those falsehoods–which appeal to the basest instincts of their audience, to gain political power.

If you think losing credentials doesn’t matter, ask yourself, “What if the congressional press credentials for ABC were revoked? What if Mark Parker, the head of Disney was deposed with the same kind of clear evidence we are seeing in the Dominion case from News Corp management?”

The DISCUSSION about Fox losing congressional press credentials is about consequences for a political organization using the benefits and protections we offer journalistic entities in America for a corrupt purpose. There should be a price to pay.

I think this masquerade needs to end and it needs to cost “News Corp” money. Losing money is one of the few ways we drive change in corporate media in America. A damaged brand is another.

I do not expect actual broadcast journalistic entities to do this work, even though it would benefit them and the profession. They are gatekeepers. They can revoke credentials. In the past when the Congressional Periodical Correspondents’ Association found out that someone who got press credentials worked for a lobbying firm, they asked them to resign. The person resigned.

The Dominion case is hurting News Corp. There has never been a better time to hurt News Corp and Fox “News”.

I’ve heard lots of ways that Fox will fight this or why this is a waste of energy, so help me out here folks, start thinking of all the ways to USE what we are learning in the Dominion case, the Smartmatics case and the Jan 6th stories to hurt News Corp and Fox.

There is an old Klingon saying, “When your enemy is drowning, throw them an anchor.”

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain Follow me at @spocko@mastodon.online or at the hellsite @spockosbrain

When Trump returns to Facebook he will likely instantly violate their lax new “guardrails.” We know it will happen. Adam Schiff even pointed out what the violations will be in a letter to Meta on December 2022.

When it happens we should demand that Meta enforce their own rules. Will they?

If they do, they will lose engagement. In Zuckerberg’s mind more engagement, even engagement that violates their community standards, means more revenue. We know this from the Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen. We also know from the Jan 6th committee memo on Social Media (Link to gifted Washington Post article) that Zuckerberg overruled his staff who wanted to ban Trump for his multiple violations of their community standards before Jan 6th.

But engagement isn’t the only metric for Meta’s success. Meta’s stock price can be hurt in multiple ways. Stories about management making bad decisions hurt the stock. Stories about management supporting and enabling domestic terrorists can hurt the stock price. Big investors put pressure on management all the time when they see them making bad decisions (like they did on Zuckerberg for investing in the legless VR experience). Zuck thought it was going to be huge, he was wrong. Many investors think bringing Trump back to Facebook is a bad idea. It will be filled with controversy and advertisers don’t like controversy.

The investment community can punish Meta if it keeps Trump on OR if they kick Trump off. It all depends on how they see his return. A case can be made either way. Let’s help make the case that bringing Trump back on Facebook is reckless & wrong. And then make this decision hurt Zuckerberg financially.

When the violations happen the mainstream media will politely ask Nick Clegg, President of Global Affairs who announced the guardrails, what Meta is going to do about the violation.

I’ve watched Clegg in interviews on TV. The media isn’t going to pin him down and this pisses me off. He’s a trained spokesperson, so I’d push him harder about the past & his promises for the future and ask “You decided to let a man with a history of inciting violence and threats of violence on your platform. You created special guidelines and said you would act when he does violates them. Now that he has violated the new guidelines, where is that action?
Why won’t you tell us what is happening and who is making the decisions?
Where is the transparency you promised?”

The media typically only think about all the ways Trump coming back on Facebook can help Meta be profitable. They don’t look at the big picture. Here’s the thing, Facebook doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The Trump of 2016 – Jan 6th 2020 is not the same as today’s Trump. He has a history of inciting violence. He is not going to stop being who he is. He will keep inciting violence and spreading lies about the election. To ignore that history and bring him back on Facebook is a bad decision by the CEO. And investors should punish Zuckerberg for it.

Yes, there are a bunch of people who believe bringing Trump back on Meta is going to be profitable. But is that the only outcome? NO! Right now there are people talking to the instructional investors saying, “Trump’s return is going to have a negative impact on Meta.”

When I read the new guidelines and policies I saw that they are clearly designed to give Trump multiple ways to stay on the platform, no matter what he says. But some violations are clearly worse than others. THAT is what we should focus on.

Here are some of Meta’s community standards on violence and incitement. I’ve read them all. There are multiple ways that Trump has violated them and WILL violate them.

META Violence and Incitement Policies
Do Not Post:

• Threats that could lead to death (and other forms of high-severity violence) and admission of past violence targeting people or places where threat is defined as any of the following:
• Statements of intent to commit high-severity violence. This includes content where a symbol represents the target and/or includes a visual of an armament or method to represent violence.
• Calls for high-severity violence including content where no target is specified but a symbol represents the target and/or includes a visual of an armament or method that represents violence.
• Statements advocating for high-severity violence.
• Aspirational or conditional statements to commit high-severity violence.
• Statements admitting to committing high-severity violence except when shared in a context of redemption, self-defense or when committed by law enforcement, military or state security personnel.

Link to META Violence and Incitement Policies

The New Paper Mâché Guardrails For Trump

Meta’s previously bent the rules to keep TFG on the platform, ranging from their “newsworthiness allowance” to their creation of a Public Figures and Civil Unrest Policy for when there is a riot happening. They have a policy for restricting accounts of public figures during civil unrest and now they have a “Crisis Policy Protocol” which is a basically a black box of people who are supposed to “assesses the risks of imminent harm both on and off of our platform so we can respond with specific policy and product actions that will help keep people safe. ” The specifics on what the Crisis Policy Protocol contains are not made public and, as we have learned, the decisions made can be overruled by Mark Zuckerberg.

(BTW. they have this weird sanction/rule that what Trump puts up on his Facebook feed will be visible only to HIM, but nobody else will see it, even if they follow him. This is a blatant dodge designed just for Trump (as if his minions can’t figure out what is happening. “Hey we posted his Truth Social Murder Rant on Facebook and I can see it on his page, but when I look at my own personal account it doesn’t show up!” )

This policy will have NO impact on stopping the spread of his messages of violence, in practice they will be amplified. The policy was created just so Meta can say, “But we HAVE limited what he said! We removed the reshare button!!!” This is a lame sanction especially for someone who already starts with a massive audience for the original message.

What will happen is that the media will COVER what was made “invisible” to Trump’s followers thereby amplifying the message AND now making it “newsworthy” which allows Meta to keep it up because now it’s “News.” (It will likely be something that was already said on Truth Social that the Trump team didn’t bother to change for Facebook’s TOS.)

The followers will scream “They are censuring him!” They will cover it on Fox News, post if all over their platforms that have content moderation policies, but don’t enforce them. The followers don’t care that it was clear violation of Facebook’s defined policy, like incitement directed at a person. They just will scream CENSORSHIP! And what pisses me off is that there will be a bunch of woolly headed people who refuse to focus on the issue of Meta’s Community Standards and clear violations of them and talk about “The 1st Amendment.” and “Free speech.”

We have to stop giving TFG & his supporter the benefit of the doubt when they make threats! We now have multiple cases where threats were made, intent was the confirmed and action taken. And they are doing it again! Just last week, Trump promotes message from ‘locked and loaded’ supporter who vows to ‘physically fight’ for him

The minute Trump violates Facebook’s the media SHOULD dig into the evidence of how Trump and the right wing influencers used social media to incite violence and how they were protected by Zuckerberg–even when they clearly violated Meta’s own terms of service.

The right wing have been whining and complaining for years about how the “Woke Left” at Social Media companies are censoring them. It’s like how they worked the refs in the mainstream media. “The reporters are Democrats. They can’t be objective! They are covering us unfairly!” “The Social Media employees are Democrats. They are banning us for no reason! We need to be protected from being shadowbanned!”
Of course it’s all BS, but it worked on the media and it works on social media.

Here’s the deal, Meta EMPLOYEES created policies based on definitions of various types of comments people make, like threats of violence. They applied those policies in multiple areas. Meta is a private entity and can make decisions on what it allows to be posted. Employees created procedures to address what to do when there are violations. What we have learned from Frances Haugen (the Facebook Whistleblower written statement ) and the January 6th committee on Social Media, is that Zuckerberg consistantly overruled policies, decisions and the recommendations of his Trust and Safety employees.

But if there is one thing that I hope everyone takes away from these disclosures it is that Facebook chooses profit over safety every day — and without action, this will continue.

Congress can change the rules Facebook plays by and stop the harm it is causing.

Frances Haugen, Statement to Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security
October 4, 2021

The 122 page memo from the January 6th committee on Social Media covered the role they played before, during and after the insurrection. Big takeaways for me include:

• Popular right-wing figures are protected from enforcement of Meta’s terms of service.
• They can incite violence & intentionally spreading disinformation and get no “strikes”
• Trump had perpetual “Zero Strikes”

Another big takeaway is that Zuckerberg worries most about negative press and criticism from the right vs. criticism from the left. Right wing groups come to him complaining that they were being removed for no reason (even when the reasons are very clear) they are given “a person” to call to complain to when they are reported by humans. And if they trigger Facebook’s AI, they are given the chance of human review (Which is a HUGE deal at a company where it’s almost impossible to talk to a human.)

Bottom line is that there have been no negative financial consequences to Zuckerberg for his bad decisions about Trump on Meta, so we need to make them happen to him.

This is not simply a matter of some social media users being angry or unstable.
Facebook became a $1 trillion company by paying for its profits with our safety,
including the safety of our children. And that is unacceptable.

Frances Haugen statement to United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
October 4, 2021

Musk is making massive blunders in his take over of Twitter. It’s great fun to point and laugh. Which I will happily do. It’s an opportunity to show him (& the rest of the world) why his definition of “free speech” is juvenile and harmful. It’s also a time to point out that when social media companies fail to act on known harmful content, there should be consequences.

Showing companies the financial consequences of their failure to act on harmful rhetoric is a powerful tool for change. It’s one of the methods that I have developed and taught multiple groups & people for the last 15 years.

Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts — New York Times January 15, 2007

A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers.

The lead blogger, who uses the name Spocko, said that he and other bloggers had contacted more than 30 advertisers on KSFO-AM to inform them of comments made on the air and to ask them to pull their ads.

The activist groups and individuals that I have worked with over the years like Color of Change, Free Press, and Angelo Carusone, (now the head of Media Matters for America) have used Musk’s failure to understand the harm caused by violating Twitter’s own terms and conditions around safety to convince advertisers to leave the platform.

"Musk’s now-deleted Paul Pelosi tweet was perhaps the most expensive tweet ever: It may have cost Twitter billions in advertising revenue."https://t.co/ck0xLAmMsn

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) November 8, 2022

Musk’s Paul Pelosi tweet might cost him billions in lost revenue

Musk tried to blame the activists for advertisers leaving, but just like my advertiser alert campaign in 2006, the advertisers looked at the situation and made their own decision to stop advertising.

Musk’s response reminded me of how the management of the RW radio station KSFO responded when I alerted the advertisers of the violent rhetoric coming from their hosts. First they told the advertisers that it wasn’t true, but the advertisers heard for themselves. Then they said the hosts were joking, but I had enough examples to prove that they were serious, including audio clips of them saying, ‘I’m not joking!” Instead of the station telling the hosts to stop talking about “putting a bullseye” on Nancy Pelosi, they attacked me and had my website shut down. It was a great narrative flip where they couldn’t play the victim.

When advertisers started leaving the station, one caller suggested to a host he should “name and shame” advertisers who left, to punish them. One of the three host’s agreed with that idea!
(The same suggestion was made to Musk, look at his bone head response!)

This is stupid behavior based on impulsive emotion. Lashing out at others, instead of looking at and fixing their own behavior, is typical narcissist behavior. THEY can never be the problem. “No one can tell ME what to say on my own show!” one RW host said.

Musk’s is seeing now what his definition of ‘free speech’ includes and doesn’t include. Mocking him isn’t included. Nor is impersonating brands.

Musk is learning TOS exist for a reason. “Hey, falsely impersonating others is bad! It happened to me! Spreading disinformation is bad, it led to harm to me, my bottom line!”

We know harmful content connected with terrorism, racism, misogyny and online hate is very real. I was telling someone I recently met about my work to defund right wing media because management wouldn’t take action to stop it. I told her that the movie Hotel Rwanda had a major impact on me and when I heard violent rhetoric coming out of my local radio station I decided to act. I knew that in America people change their behavior when money is involved. I set about showing the radio stations, and then TV stations, that what they thought was an asset, was actual a liability.

In America the impact of financial harm on a company is one of the ways we can drive change. It’s good to show everyone that Musk’s failure to follow Twitter’s own TOS is causing him financial harm.

But what if threatening violence is profitable? What if, like Murdoch’s Tucker Carlson show, threatening violence doesn’t earn the network money directly, but it does earn them power?
Twitter’s TOS has restrictions on threats of violence. I’ll bet that if Elon gets threats of violence toward him he’ll remove them. If they are removed, it needs to be pointed out that threats toward others should be removed too. I would say,

“Hey, Elon, you didn’t like it when you got threats of violence. You removed them. Other people should have the the same protections. Also, this is what the people you fired in the Trust Safety division did for the platform.”

POLICY & PEOPLE make a difference. AI programs alone aren’t going to cut it.

The people who incited violence and bomb threats against children's hospitals have now all been verified under Twitter Blue. Advertisers should not support the vile hate being legitimized and amplified on this platform. pic.twitter.com/mKbkIufWFJ

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) November 9, 2022

My friends in the activist community know that “Brand Safety” matters to companies and they have the financial incentive to protect their brands. They organized and taking these actions for a reason, they know some of the same things that upset Brands, like disinformation about medicine, can also hurt people. As individuals it often feels that you have no power to make a change, so I suggest you join up with these groups that are doing great, effective activism.

1. Sign up for their email alerts
2. Donate money to them
3. Support their efforts to make social media a safer place

Here are four of my favorites and what they have said.
Free Press Action Fund
Jessica J. González, co-CEO of Free Press. “Racists and conspiracy theorists are testing how far they can go with spreading lies, harassment and abuse — and misinformation about the midterm election is rampant. This is not the healthy forum that the vast majority of Twitter users want, and it exposes Twitter’s advertising partners to great risk. We’re calling on Twitter to, at a minimum, retain and actually enforce existing community safeguards and content-moderation systems.

Media Matters For America
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America. “Musk has already put Twitter on that glide path, firing employees responsible for content moderation and brand protection and even tweeting out political conspiracy theories himself. Luckily, major brands that advertise on Twitter, and provide over 90 percent of its revenue each year, can speak up and make it clear: Their buys are contingent on the maintenance of the key brand-safety guidelines and community standards — and they will accept nothing less.”

Color of Change: Tell Advertisers: Keep Twitter Safe

Here is a copy of the open letter they sent to the top Twitter advertisers.

My new favorite group is The Center for Countering Digital Hate
“Elon Musk has consistently failed to comprehend that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to abuse and that online spaces should be safe for women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. ”Twitter must make a clear commitment to retaining existing standards, and Musk should provide a credible plan for applying his undeniable engineering prowess to reducing the prevalence of bots, increasing the detection and pre-publication removal of violative content, and enforcing the rules that prevent his platform from becoming a ‘hellscape’ with what appears to be significantly reduced staff and resources.”

I suggest people read their STAR Framework, a Global Standard for Regulating Social Media.
Safety by Design, Transparency, Accountability and Responsibility.

Here’s a quote from it,

We cannot continue on the current trajectory with bad actors creating a muddy and dangerous information ecosystem and a broken business model from Big Tech that drives offline harm. We need to reset our relationship with technology companies and collectively legislate to address the systems that amplify hate and dangerous misinformation around the globe.

 Imran Ahmed, CEO The Center for Countering Digital Hate

I was really anxious & depressed for the last 2 weeks. Today I’m feeling a bit better because it wasn’t the blow out that the BS polls were predicting. 

During my delusions of grandeur I think about how to change the system. Part of it is Spreading the Good News about what good Democrats have done and can keep doing.
But that is REALLY boring to the media and Social Media.

What is more exciting to the media is when we Fight the Bad Guys. So, talk about our wins then talk about fighting bad guys!

Hey, that Fetterman win felt good! RIGHT? I’d also I’d like to say, “F that Oz guy!”
But talking about crushing Oz is uncool. The consultant class says “Be the bigger man… ” Well, Fetterman is, but they will also push him to “be a uniter.”

The MSM will ask what he is going to do next. 
“Are you going to “Reach across the Aisle to all the people who didn’t vote for you?” 
He’s supposed to look out for  “all Pennsylvanians, no matter their party.”

But that’s different from his role in the Senate. He can support the need to prosecute people where we have evidence and probable cause they committed crimes that harmed the country during a coup attempt. But Fetterman doesn’t need to go after the coup plotters and the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, but we can. DEMOCRATS CAN. GO! Go! Go! Do it NOW!

We have probable cause Republicans  COMMITTED CRIMINAL ACTS. They need to be indicted. Keep talking about their crimes!

Say, “The can have their ‘day in court’ where they have to testify under oath. (Vs lying to the public on social media.)
They can see the EVIDENCE against them.
They can argue about the evidence. They can question it. They can provide exculpatory evidence, if it exists. (Which I doubt.)
They want to prove their innocence? Great, bring it!

During this time will a House REPUBLICAN majority want to start investigating Democrats for no reason? Sure! They’ve already said they would. So what? We just CONSTANTLY point out the huge amounts of evidence that points to probable cause that they committed CRIMINAL ACTS.

Glenn Kirschner reminds us that a Republican controlled House can NOT stop the DOJ.

A Republican controlled House can NOT stop us from saying, “When there is probable cause people committed crimes they should be indicted.”

 The Republicans will play the victim, even when they control of the House.
They play the victim as they harass and intimidate others. 
They just straight out LIE that Democrats are the criminals, because they project. 

The media will both sides this, but we have the stronger story. WE HAVE HARD EVIDENCE that they committed CRIMES, whereas they lie and make shirt up!  

NOW is the time to start talking about their CRIMES. Also the media will love it, it makes for an exciting news story, now that the horse race is almost over.

Start spreading this story on all your new social media channels!

I’m in beautiful downtown Asheville North Carolina. Mrs. Spocko & I had a vegan pizza & a great conversation with fellow Hullabaloo blogger Tom Sullivan & his wife.

We talked about what was happening & I described the various actions by activists I was following. My big focus now is on current harm being done by the right & what can be done. I had lot of pent up talking and some “You know what you should do… ‘ thoughts. I said that I found this clip from Ben Collins very interesting.

Ben starts with how bad information about the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi got distorted by the right and then a false story got spread from the top rapidly.

Social media companies will tell you that there is nothing they can do. They are lying. We know this based on the Facebook Whistleblower & this report from @CCDHate. https://t.co/H6ONGgsXmG https://t.co/0jRkiR5BSx

— Spocko (@spockosbrain) October 31, 2022

His comment starts with “If we don’t cut this out right now, * instantly my inner Sam Seder popped up.

PAUSE IT! Who is we? What does cut this out right now mean?”

When I talk to people about threats and intimidation online, via email, social media or RW media I have suggestions on what to do. Some are accepted, “Make them pay a financial price. Use the market against them. Convince advertisers to stop associatiomg their brand with this threatening violent rhetoric.”

But other suggestions to stop harm are met with lots of “Yes but…” and “If you try to do that, then…” what I want to do is get people to acknowledge the reality that harm is caused and that we need to do something about it.

I suggest people read the first four pages of this piece from The Center For Countering Digital Hate.

One of the things that has to be made clear as said on pages 4-5, self regulation is no regulation. The social media companies know harm is happening & choose to ignore for profit. They need to be regulated. (I can hear the “Yes, but…” from here in Asheville! But read the rest of the article first.)

As we watch Musk’s sophomoric view of ‘free speech’ lead to new harm, people will keep asking “what can be done? ” based on their Disinformation Dozen research & follow up report the answer that will be given is, “Nothing, people are just going to have to keep being harmed.”

People in the media can see disinfo, racism, & antisemitism lead to harm and that something needs to be done. BUT THEY feel they can’t change things.

They aren’t activists. We are.

Since for the tech companies the harm they amplify leads to more profit, they aren’t going to change things. . But we CAN.

Change the equation, change the world.

Here is a clip from the Young Turks that I find especially relevant.

It is a follow up on the woman who called the police on a black man who was bird watching. You probably saw the clip when it went viral. Her company saw it, investigated it and fired her. She then SUED the company for defamation. Well, SHE LOST the case.

This is another case of how the RW always has to be the victim EVEN after they face justifiable negative consequences for their actions. The good news is because there was DUE process and an investigation when they fired her, the company was on solid ground and proved even MORE so that she was fired for a justified cause.

This is why when I talk about giving the people making threats a chance to do the right thing before we go to their boss or bring in the law. Because they WILL turn around and say they are the victim or go on to attack others even more!

When they do that we can then use our evidence of offering them an out and them not taking it to incriminate them further. If, say for example, we find the people making death threats to Boston Children’s Hospital and it looks like they made them “on the clock” while at work. We need to provide evidence and the employers should investigate before they act. Maybe they were on a lunch break when they sent vicious death threats. Or maybe they did it on company time via a company phone.

Besides being the right thing to do, another reason we want due process is that anything that we do in good faith they will do in BAD FAITH. They love to flip the script so they are the REAL victims who were “just stating an opinion!” They want to turn any legitimate push back against them saying or doing horrible things into, “It’s all a big witch hunt just because I’m a conservative!”

Many intentionally refuse to get it. We can say, “You had a chance to be better, but you doubled down on racism and threats of violence. Now you have double the loses. Just stop it. You lost. You were wrong.” That is the kind of message that others need to see.

I found this comment under the YouTube video very interesting, because it shows the thought process that many people go through:

In kind of two minds when it comes to firing someone for what they did off of the clock. For certain jobs I can see it, like if you are a cop or a judge or a teacher; But what if you are a roofer? a plumber, or store clerk? There should be a certain amount of freedom allowed people who mess up and still keep a job.

I dont know. I havent decided yet which is the correct way to be. Personally what she did was abhorrent, but it wasn’t while she was at her job. Should we just fire all racists? What if you were on one side of covid or another and your employer had the opposite side and just decided to fire you because you went to a rally, but you complied with whatever orders the employer decided was best?

Its not as cut and dry as we think. I can see many instances of me wanting to fire someone because they are horrible and I want the revenge of seeing them fired, but I can also see where it would be unfair to do so.

The only conclusion I can come to based on those facts is that it is a bias to do so, therefore free speech is NOT the overriding principle here.

With that said she did do something wrong, but being fired for that alone should not have happened.

I responded.
This follow up story of the case is important. The woman was given a chance, IN THE MOMENT, to do the right thing. She didn’t. She intentionally lied to the police. She is the perpetrator.

When the company saw this, they investigated. That is the right response, because they needed to know the context, see the whole video and talk to people. (She was first put on administrative leave, then fired.)

Now in most situations companies don’t HAVE to do this because in most states people are at will employees, but doing an investigation is the right thing to do because people do make false accusations, and employees can turn around and sue for wrongful termination. )
(This is one reason we have unions and tenure, it gives people due process for false accusations.)

But notice here how you put yourself in her shoes for being fired for what she said and did “off the clock” and then faced negative consequences for it.

Now please put yourself in the shoes of the black man who was falsely accused of threatening her.
Police could come and it could be a death sentence for him. He was “off the clock” too. Was it fair that he might end up dead?

These days, people who make racist comments, or threaten violence to others, often face NO consequences for their actions. In this case, she did. In a civil society if your “off the clock” peers accept your racism we don’t have a way to ensure negative consequences for that. But corporations can have guidelines for employees. Sometimes an employee’s actions are public and their association with the company is made known. If it is a GREAT thing, they are fine with that, they might even promote it. “After hours these employees save sick kittens!”

But in this case they didn’t want their brand to be associated with this woman’s racism and the actions that came from that. To NOT do anything about it (after the investigation) would be to condone it.

But the woman didn’t accept that she was wrong, even after it was proved she was wrong. Society’s impression of her racism was already out there, she didn’t “walk it back” immediately. She got hit with a fast, massive response condemning it. Then afterward, when she didn’t recant, she got hit with modern day shunning which can follow you around forever. That can be done to people unjustified and is a problem that needs to be addressed, but in her case it is now more clearly shown it was justified.

One way that we enforce norms in our our capitalist society is to use financial leverage. Sometimes even that doesn’t work. We are seeing now how racists RAISE MONEY on their racism or bigotry “I got fired just for trying to protect my life!”
(Forgetting to mention the lie, the racism and the knowledge that her actions could lead to great bodily harm to the man.)

You worry about the fairness to HER for losing her job because you identify with her. You think, “what if that happened to me? What if I was unfairly accused?” (Of course some people know they would be FAIRLY accused, and are afraid of it coming out!) Your desire for fairness is a GOOD thing, We SHOULD work for equal justice for all. What we are seeing is how today’s modern bullies try to use our compassion, empathy and fairness AGAINST us.

We need to prepare for when they do this. Then we use their clearly shown horrible words and actions against them for further negative consequences.

I was working on a long post about the recent arrest of a woman for calling in a bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital. I was suggesting a plan for steps BCH could take to hold people accountable for their threats. Then I saw this tweet about Tucker Carlson’s show. I got really depressed.

Tucker Carlson just named and showed pics of executives at a hospital that provides gender affirming care to trans teens, calling them criminals who deserve the bomb threats they receive. I won’t share the image, but I think we all know where this is headed…

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) September 22, 2022

The right knows how to make threats and face no consequences

• The cunning ones have learned how to “just ask questions” when suggesting violence.
• Others use mob-speak and have learned what law enforcement can and can’t use to charge them.
• Many right wingers know to use the “I was JOKING!” line or the “I didn’t intend to actually DO anything I said!” response when questioned. Some will say, “I was just being hyperbolic! Everyone says stuff like that!”
• Tech savvy right wingers have learned the key words not to say on Facebook or Twitter.
  (Some learn the phrases and then they use the rules against their enemies and report them. Others know how to hack accounts, use banned phrases to get an account permanently banned. This recently happened to my editor at C&L who was targeted.)
• If they are on a social media platform that takes some steps to stop the threats, the offenders go into victim mode and cry they are being censored, “Just for saying mean things to doctors!” That was the actual line used by Tucker Carlson following the bomb threats to BCH!)
• Many move to right wing social media sites that don’t take any action to stop threats.
  (Truth Social’s policy is, “Don’t do it. But if you do, we don’t have to take any action to stop it. If anything bad happens, we aren’t liable.” The Cincinnati FBI shooter made multiple threats on line via Truth Social. )

There is also a VERY savvy group in the right wing that knows how to work the legal system, the media and social media world to coordinate and attack others online. What is fascinating is how they use legal defense experts, MSM’s bias when covering speech, social media’s engagement business model and democratic politicians’ fear of passing any legislation that has anything to do with speech to successfully stop or stall any negative consequences against them for their actions. And, if we do finally figure out a way to ensure there are some negative consequences for them they whine & cry how unfair it is.

They also have an audience that claims victimization when held accountable for the harm that they do. “I’ve been cancelled!”

On the rhetorical side they have trolls that go on the attack when anyone attempts to counter them. I’m sure you’ve all see these types of arguments :

• “Your proposal would have a chilling effect on free speech. Aren’t you FOR the marketplace of ideas? Curious.”
• “You say that people whose words you think causes harm should be identified, yet when we identify people who say things WE think causes harm we are wrong? Interesting.”
• “You supported BLM protests. They turned violent. Should the activists who told people to protest be locked up for talking about the issue? Should the government identify & lock up people who tell others to protest? Should the government prosecute the BLM organizers?”

“You know what you should do…”

I’ve been thinking about what I’d tell the executives at Boston Children’s Hospital & other hospitals being targeted. First I’d ask what they are already doing, because they probably already have a plan. I’d encourage them to implement a comprehensive response to these threats of violence.
I’d tell them what to expect, and to connect to the people who have been doing great work already.
I’d say, “Learn from these people.”

But here’s the deal. Multi-million dollar organizations don’t turn to a bunch of lefty activists for advice. Even ones that have fought and won battles against the coordinated actions of the right wing. Corporations are cautious by nature. They just want the pain of the moment to stop. If that involves deleting their website that talks about gender affirming care, they will.

They go to law enforcement to pursue the people making threats. They still believe that when one woman was arrested for making a bomb threat that it will “Send a message to all the other people to stop doing this.” The message most get is, “Be more vague in your threats, and use a burner phone.”

Now if someone wanted to connect me with the BCH & Vanderbilt execs I’d tell them what I’ve learned about how threats are used in the modern world and how to fight them now.

I’d talk about my COVID reporting and conversations with people in the public health field who were getting threats. I’d show them the reporting from Reuters & Washington Post about how law enforcement didn’t pursue those making them. I’d note that legislators didn’t pass laws to protect people from harassment or doxxing. I’d explain why public health commissions didn’t independently, aggressively investigate the threats. They could see how the burden was put on the victims. And they would understand why so many of them just quit.

So for the multimillion dollar health care businesses I’d show them how when they fail to do something about this it impacts their staff and patients. And since they also care about revenue I’d say “Here is how threats of violence negatively impact your bottom line.”

Prepare for the Bully’s Victim Narrative

One of my biggest pieces of advice to them is to understand that ANY action they take will already have been anticipated by the right. Your actions to protect the health and safety of your staff from harassment and bomb threats will be turned into an attack on free speech.

Remember when the Association of School Boards went to the FBI and said, “We are getting death threats and threats of violence. Please investigate.” We even saw video of a woman threatening violence at a meeting. The right turned those very justified investigations into death threats into a cry of victimhood,

“The FBI is monitoring all of us! Just for our opinions!!!” And the FBI had to put out a statement that they aren’t doing that, only looking into specific credible threats.

It’s all BS, but they use their media and social media to amplify their “I’m the real victim here!” message.

If I were to present to the big cheeses in these hospitals, I’d suggest they learn what happened in other cases of people threatened with violence. I’ve followed up on several cases in tech, journalism, education, public health officials and election workers where people were threatened.

I’d explain how most threats are dismissed by law enforcement. (I’d excerpt the brilliant and shocking reporting from Reuters called Campaign of Fear. ) Yes, a few people were found and charged, but they were extreme cases where a prosecutor could easily prove the case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” but most are dropped.

I’d describe the vicious threats that Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss got. I’d point out that the threats to them were ignored by police. It took national media coverage on the Rachel Maddow show to get criminal charges filed. Then I’d tell them about the successful multi-million dollar defamation lawsuits they won against a OAN, a cable TV media company owned by Herring Networks, Inc.

If they want to figure out how to stop Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson from spreading lies & slander I’d direct them to talk to the people behind the various voting machine defamation lawsuits.

But first I’d tell them to look into the civil lawsuit of another hospital, St. Lukes in Idaho. The lawsuit filed in May accused Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez of defamation and harassment. I talked to the lawyer working on the case to get an update. It’s still active, but Bundy is taking a page from Trump’s playbook and ignored the court order. The thing to note about that case is it “follows the money” and two political organizations — People’s Rights Network and Freedom Man PAC were also named.

Since social media plays a huge role in spreading disinformation, I’d make sure they talked to the people who tracked down the Dirty Dozen of Disinformation and got them deplatformed. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has done some especially relevant reports that the senior execs should know about. Like,
Don’t Feed the Trolls A Practical Guide to Dealing With Hate on Social Media?

I talked to Imran Ahmed, the founder yesterday and he told me about a new report they did with the Human Rights Campaign, Social Media’s Role in Amplifying Dangerous Lies About LGBTQ+ People
(If you aren’t a “reading” person I suggest they listen to his amazing interview on the Matt Binder Podcast Doomed, listen here. )

I know I have a tendency to talk AT people, so if I was on a Zoom call with these execs I’d ask them if they know how the Feds busted Al Capone. They’d all say “tax evasion!” Then I’d ask them why the Feds had to use that method. Would it have been good to get him for his violent crimes? Does busting someone on tax evasion the only method that can work?

I’d ask them if they saw that Soprano’s episode where Tony tells Christopher to kill someone, but he used vague phrases like “Take care of that thing” because he knew his phone was tapped. I’d ask if they know how law enforcement classifies threats & why they don’t bring certain cases even when experts say laws were broken. (Just for fun I’d ask them if they know how to record a call on their Smartphone if they got a threat right now and where the closest pay phone is.)

The techniques used to threaten people and avoid prosecution are still around. But today the people making threats have expanded by thousands. The techniques to find them have grown but the people making them watch the Soprano’s too, and know how to use mob-speak and a burner phone.

If anyone wants to do something about those who use of threats of violence they have to prepare for the right wing to turn around and doxx and threaten those who investigate them. Because that is what they do.

The right wing “works the refs” in the media on issues of speech. When I talk about a plan to stop the threats and seek justice for the victims, it’s because I want someone with resources and power to help them. But I know that rarely happens, so sometimes all I can do is suggest how to help individuals who have personally experienced threats of violence.

I recently watched the Twitch stream of Clara Sorrenti, better known as Keffals, the woman who stopped Kiwi Farms. She gave the timeline of the threats directed at BCH & Vanderbilt. She knows something must be done about the people harassing and threatening the people at BCH & Vanderbilt, but she hasn’t articulated a plan yet.

• (Personally I think she should be given big time funding from the hospitals for her work. But sadly, one of the things that I’ve learned is that on the left we will only rally around someone after they has been attacked, If that person goes on the offense it makes people in power on the left uncomfortable.)

The thing is people on the left LOVE it when someone stands up to bullies!

There is a whole segment of our population that has been getting away with threatening us individually and collectively for years. Unlike the out of date concept of school yard bullies, these people DON’T back down when you stand up to them. They double down. They make more threats. If they are held accountable, they flip the script. They become the victim.

They avoid accountability for their actions, or attribute their motives to some noble cause. They gaslight followers and work to convince people in authority they did nothing wrong. And when it is made clear the harm they did and the intent behind their threats was deadly, they downplay the harm and claim being held to account for their actions is unfair.

Right now MSNBC is running an ad with Rachel Maddow talking about how threats of violence pushes people out of public life. She’s right. The radical right uses threats of violence to get what they want. They aren’t going to stop until they are stopped.

I was explaining the Elonis v. U.S. Supreme court case on the Scam Economy post show. I pointed out that the very savvy right wing USE this ruling to avoid prosecution for threats of violence. The case said that the prosecution needed to prove intent for a criminal charge. I looked at that and thought. “Okay, since they have made that their standard, let’s use that to our benefit.”

On the left we often give people the benefit of the doubt on things they say since sometimes we don’t make our intent clear when we say something. If we were accused we would want a chance to clarify a statement, explain hyperbole, point out when we are being sarcastic or joking. People need a chance to walk back their threatening, vicious comments. That is what we want for our people accused. Due process is good.

So what happens when we give them a chance to moderate their comments and they don’t? What if we ask if they are joking and they chose to double down on the threats? We USE that admission of intent to give us more confidence when we ensure they face the negative consequences of their actions. I could then say:

“We gave you an opportunity to be better. You chose not to.”

If this whole process sounds too complex, I understand. It’s the advanced part of a broader strategy and plan. We have a plan to fight “the boots” who are threatening us, and we must also have a plan to fight “the suits.” The methods and strategies for fighting one doesn’t always work for the other.

The good news is that there are ways to successfully fight a rhetorically clever, media savvy foe, even ones who want to turn our strengths into weaknesses. If you want to see a current example of what I’m talking about look at how the J6 committee and the DOJ have been anticipating how TFG would react to any action, and then USES his over reaction against him. It’s glorious.

This is what we can do. Use their own words, actions and overreactions against them.

cross posted to Spocko’s Brain