The Suppression Of Black Lives Matter Abuse At Meta/Facebook

 I've previously written about the obvious scam that is Black Lives Matter; as a basic matter, there is no national organization per se, and as a consequence, money donated to that cause merely awaits the right scammer to pick up the tab, particularly as much of it passes through the sticky and opaque fingers of ActBlue, a fundraising siphon where accountability goes to die.

Sean Campbell's extensive update to the story at New York magazine discovered that Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Melina Abdullah had purchased a home with

… more than 6,500 square feet, more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, several fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for more than 20 cars, according to real-estate listings. The California property was purchased for nearly $6 million in cash in October 2020 with money that had been donated to BLMGNF [Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation].

Of course, this meant that the BLMGNF immediately started playing defense, changing ownership of their clubhouse (known as "the campus") "to an LLC established in Delaware by the law firm Perkins Coie … [ensuring] that the ultimate identity of the property’s new owner was not disclosed to the public." It also meant 

…monitor[ing] social media for negative mentions of BLMGNF, with members using their influence with the platforms to have such remarks removed. It’s currently not possible to share the Post’s article on Cullors’s home purchases on Facebook because the site’s parent company, Meta, has labeled the content “abusive.” At other points, Bowers and his associates direct a private investigator to look into BLMGNF detractors and journalists, including me.

(Emboldening mine.) The ban appears to be over, thankfully, but it's pretty clear they fully expect the cooperation of social media companies to prevent unseemly details from leaking out. To their credit, as far as I can tell, Twitter never did play along with this game.

No, You Were Fired For Getting James Damore Pointlessly Fired

Tim Chevalier is the kind of person who needs to be nowhere near any sort of power, yet always seeks it out. "Too much 'social activism'" sounds like an excuse.

Interesting commentary from @iamcuriousblue:

Now THIS is an interesting development. I didn't know that Tim Chevelier was with Google or played a role in the Damore case, but it fits. I can confirm that Chevelier/Catamorphism is a particularly nasty SJW troll. > https://t.co/23l1KtNMZa @jaspergregory

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

In particular, Chevelier was one of the more aggressive members the online mob Kitty Stryker raised up to attack Madison Young a few years back. He made a point of contacting groups Young was a part of to try to get her booted. @jaspergregory

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

So Chevelier definitely has this pattern of horizontal hostility, of trying to get people fired, or kicked out of organizations. Not surprising that he was at Google that he would have been one of the people stirring the pot against Damore. @jaspergregory

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

It is interesting to see Chevelier sue on the same grounds that Damore did, and on general principal I'd support it. However, based on what I know about Chevelier's history, I suspect there was more to it than the suit admits. >

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

My guess is that Chevelier was actively at war with other Google employees, tried to get the wrong person fired, and was fired himself.

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

Tim Chevelier's targeting of Madison Young and her participation in HackerMom's over Young's disagreement with the infamous Antioch College sexual offense policy. https://t.co/6ROZmHDo1y

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

(Dutifully noted in Geek Feminism Wiki's "Timeline of Incidents" for July 2014. https://t.co/xiq8ZNA5oQ) 🙄

— iamcuriousblue (@iamcuriousblue) February 22, 2018

Ezra Klein Doesn't Understand Libel Law

Ezra Klein has a penchant for being spectacularly ignorant and wrong, but is nevertheless unafraid to opine on such subjects, viz. healthcare. A couple days ago I encountered a typing of his which purported to make the case that Peter Thiel's funding of lawsuits against Gawker is a bad thing, because, money:

Billionaires might have the resources to fund endless lawsuits that bury their media enemies beneath legal fees, but that doesn't mean they should use that freedom. There's plenty that billionaires can do that they shouldn't, and the more frequently and gleefully they cross that line, the likelier they are to eventually lose the ability to cross it.

But of course, this would not be possible if Gawker didn't have journalistic standards that would make a whore blush. Klein makes the reasonable point that at one time, we did not allow third parties to finance lawsuits — that practice is known as champerty, and was forbidden under the old English common-law regime. But as even Klein admits, citing Walter Olson (all emboldening mine):

...[T]he law used to bar unrelated third parties from paying someone else to engage in litigation and financing a lawsuit in exchange for a share of the damages.

But those laws have fallen out of favor over the past 50 years, in part because lawyers began to see easy access to the courts as being in the public interest. This was driven in part by the rise of public interest litigation — think, for example, of an environmental group finding a third-party plaintiff to sue a company to stop an environmentally sensitive development project.

 So live by the sword, die by the sword, as it were. But so far, at least, all of Klein's perceived threats to Gawker are entirely illusory, or caused by their own sleazebag tendencies. I have a hard time crying for them.

Update 2016-05-30: Comes an excellent summary of why this is a nothingburger, or at least, why the broad public treats it so, by Cathy Young, with many examples of why Gawker is ragingly hypocritical here.