Police are investigating an incident in which Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian graffiti was discovered on a wall of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland.
Police are investigating an incident in which Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian graffiti was discovered on a wall of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland.
The message, which contained hateful rhetoric directed at Muslim and Palestinian communities, was discovered early Friday morning.
Hate speech toward Muslim and Palestinian communities found Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, on a wall at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. (Credit CAIR)
In a letter home to the school community, Whitman Principal Gregory Miller said the graffiti was “profoundly offensive” and that type of “hate speech is completely unacceptable, hurtful, and will not be tolerated at Walt Whitman High School or any school in Montgomery County.”
Miller added that school officials are working with police to review security camera footage and meet with students.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said in a statement that the hateful act “does not reflect who we are as a County and will not be tolerated,” adding that the county police department is working with the school system to “find the perpetrators.”
At-Large Council member Will Jawando said in a post on social media the message is a “direct threat to the safety and well-being of our students.”
“As a parent of MCPS students and as Chair of the Education and Culture Committee, I find it unacceptable for any child to walk into a place of learning and be met with calls for the obliteration of their people or their faith,” Jawando said.
He added that his team is working with MCPS and local law enforcement to monitor the situation.
“It’s on each of us in Montgomery County to ensure that hate has no place here,” Council member Andrew Friedson added in a post.
The graffiti was quickly painted over Friday morning.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact the school administration, the police non-emergency line at 301-279-8000, or anonymously through the Maryland Safe Schools Tip-Line at 1-833-632-7233.
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New York just weathered one of the ugliest political seasons of the last 50 years, with multiple public figures pumping out literally thousands of divisive, hateful messages about Muslims that were seen and heard by millions. Unfortunately, the bigotry has continued postelection and will poison our city until and unless a vocal majority demands it come to an end.
On the night of Zohran Mamdani’s election victory, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, posted congratulations on social media, writing, “New Yorkers faced a clear choice — between hope and fear — and just like we’ve seen in London — hope won.” But Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, knows all too well that even after hope wins, hatred hangs around like an angry drunk in an alley, spoiling for a rematch.
“Any decent New Yorker, certainly any Jew, should hate this bastard,” WABC radio’s morning host, Sid Rosenberg, recently told listeners in a rant against Mamdani that the station not only aired but excerpted and pushed out on social media. Two days before Thanksgiving, Rosenberg was at it again: “This punk is now the mayor. This little bitch,” he spat. “Now he’s putting together this transition team, which looks more and more like the Iraqi soccer team.”
These comments are typical of the sort of bigotry the station aired throughout the campaign. I asked WABC’s owner, billionaire and former Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, why he allows it. “You know what I said to Zohran? I said to him, ‘Look, before November 4, there was war. After November 5, let’s settle down and forget about the past and go forward,’” Catsimatidis told me.
I asked whether he plans to rein in the hate speech on his station. “I would not allow any hate speech,” Catsimatidis promised, and I will take him at his word.
It would be nice to believe that New York’s problems are confined to one radio station and a troubled broadcaster who has frequently gotten himself fired, but politicians who know better have generated similar garbage. The losing campaign of ex-governor Andrew Cuomo, who chuckled along when Rosenberg suggested during an interview that Mamdani would cheer if another 9/11 attack happened, created and posted — but then quickly took down — an overtly racist ad that included a Black man wearing a keffiyeh while going on a shoplifting spree.
“It was an ad that was created by a social-media personality, a comedian who came in at the very end, who put it together, and it was put up. And as soon as it was brought to my attention, other senior people on the staff’s attention that it was up, it was immediately pulled down because it hadn’t been approved,” Cuomo’s campaign adviser, Melissa DeRosa, told me. “It hadn’t gone through the right legal channels. And so that was a mistake, and we acknowledged it at the time.” The problem, of course, is that the ad was created in the first place.
“The depth to which they were willing to go to polarize the city, to polarize the Jewish community, to inflict real fear in the Jewish community, I think, is inexcusable,” Morris Katz, a strategist for Mamdani, told me. “Andrew Cuomo, at the top of his lungs, for six months, with millions of dollars behind the effort, was essentially telling Jewish New Yorkers that this person is an existential threat to your safety. And eventually, that’s going to break through, to a degree. It was a real organized, deliberate, cruel misinformation campaign that penetrated certain parts of the Jewish community in New York.”
The political ads were part of a deluge of online messaging, mostly on X, that only accelerated as Election Day approached. “We found a huge spike in online hate and fearmongering targeting Muslims in the aftermath of Mamdani’s primary win, blending racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, red-baiting, and anti-immigrant sentiment into one dangerous narrative,” Raqib Hameed Naik, the executive director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate, told immigrant-oriented news website Documented. The center issued a report after studying 6,669 public social media posts about Mamdani in a 17-day window during the campaign and found that just under 2,000 of the, “frame Islam itself, not any policy detail, as a public threat.”
In posts that racked up hundreds of millions of views and other forms of engagement, “Muslims were portrayed as threats to national security, incompatible with democracy, or as agents of an imagined foreign agenda,” Naik said. He’s talking about messages like the one right-wing agitator Laura Loomer posted the night Mamdani won the primary — “There will be another 9/11 in NYC and @ZohranKMamdani will be to blame” — which got more than a million views.
“We know from experience that this kind of online demonization and dehumanization doesn’t stay online,” Naik told Documented. “It creates a permissive environment for real-world harm.”
Real-world harm is exactly what a Texas man named Jeremy Fistel promised before he was arrested, extradited to Queens, and charged with making a series of graphic, terroristic threats against Mamdani and his family. “I get messages that say, ‘The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.’ I get threats on my life … on the people that I love. And I try not to talk about it,” Mamdani said at an emotional September press conference, placing some of the blame on his political opponents. “I’m characterized by those same rivals as being a monster, as being ‘at the gates,’ language that describes almost a barbarian looking to dismantle civilization,” he said. “Part of this is the sad burden of being the first Muslim candidate to run for mayor.”
Something similar happened when Khan, the mayor of London, first ran in 2016, defeating a Conservative Party opponent whose closing argument to voters was that “London stands on the brink of a catastrophe,” next to a photo of a bus blown up in a notorious terrorist attack. Khan went on to win by 13 points and has been reelected twice. As one Conservative activist noted, the party was blowing “a dog whistle in a city where there’s no dog.” It must also be noted that Khan continues to require as much security as King Charles III and has recently been the target of a surge in anti-Muslim online hate, according to a report commissioned by the Greater London Authority.
The lesson from overseas is that bigotry’s defeat is never final: People of goodwill must always be ready to speak up, again and again, to drown out the stale rants of the haters with the voice of a diverse, tolerant democracy.
This case arises out of the events that took place at the Adas Torah [Orthodox] Synagogue … on June 23, 2024 … in Los Angeles’s Pico-Robertson neighborhood.
On June 23, 2024, the Synagogue held its usual religious services: a morning, afternoon, and evening prayer. That same day, the Synagogue also hosted a special “Aliyah Event,” where a real estate company presented opportunities to purchase homes in Israel. According to the complaint, this event held religious significance for many attendees, who view moving to Israel as a fulfillment of a religious commandment. Similar events often include prayer or Torah study and are generally understood by the community as religious in nature.
{Defendants contest the religious nature of the Aliyah Event, largely because Plaintiffs’ claims depend in part on whether they were attempting to enter the Synagogue to exercise their First Amendment rights. The complaint contains detailed allegations regarding the religious nature of the Aliyah Event, e.g. that a common belief among Orthodox Jews is that returning to and dwelling in Israel is a religious commandment. At the motion to dismiss stage, the Court takes Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding the religious nature of the Aliyah Event as true and therefore that attempts to enter the Synagogue to attend that event pertained to an exercise of First Amendment rights. In any event, several Plaintiffs allege that they attempted to enter the Synagogue at least in part for a squarely religious purpose, e.g. to attend prayer services.}
Plaintiffs sued various defendants over various roles in what they characterized as “a mob” that assembled outside the Synagogue; some members allegedly engaged in violence against some of the synagogue-goers. Here, I’ll focus on claims that certain posts were “threat[s] of force” and thus violated the FACE Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994; that law bars interference through obstruction, force, or threat of force not just with reproductive health facilities but also with places of religious worship.
The CodePink social media post at issue claims that “A MEGA ZIONIST REAL ESTATE EVENT IS IN LA THIS WEEK” and asks CodePink’s followers to “HELP US ADVOCATE THE STOP OF HOMES BEING SOLD ON PALESTINIAN LAND!” Neither statement contains a threat on its face.
But CodePink’s social media posts are not limited to these innocuous statements. Plaintiffs allege that in the social media posts, CodePink placed the date of the Aliyah Event and the address of the Synagogue inside an inverted red triangle. This inverted triangle, according to Plaintiffs, is used by “Hamas and its supporters (particularly those on social media) … as a symbol for Hamas and to celebrate its use of violence against Jews and Israelis.” The inverted triangle also purportedly acts “as a target designator to identify Jews and Jewish targets for extermination.” In short, Plaintiffs allege that when CodePink placed the date of the Aliyah Event and the address of the Synagogue inside an inverted red triangle, they were calling on Hamas supporters to take violent action at the synagogue.
This use of the inverted red triangle, as alleged, plausibly constitutes a true threat. A true threat is one in which, “in the entire context and under all circumstances,” a “reasonable person” would interpret it “as a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily harm.” That is exactly how a reasonable person would interpret CodePink’s use of the red triangle. And for multiple reasons.
First, the legal reality is that the Court must take Plaintiffs’ allegations as true and make all reasonable inferences in their favor. So, if Plaintiffs allege that Hamas and their supporters commonly use the inverted red triangle as a call for violence, the Court must assume that is true and infer that other people know about its meaning.
And while the Court certainly does not need to consider conclusory allegations, Plaintiffs do not invent their assertion about the inverted red triangles out of thin air. They cite to a report from the Anti-Defamation League, which describes the inverted red triangle “as a symbol that in certain cases can signify support for violent Palestinian resistance against Israel” and “as a way to call for further violent resistance.”
Second, the context in which CodePink made its social media posts makes it plausible that a reasonable person would understand the meaning of the inverted red triangle and interpret it as a threat. The post was made in June 2024, less than nine months after the widely publicized October 7, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas. At that time, the conflict between Israel and Hamas dominated headlines. Given this backdrop, it is entirely plausible that a reasonable person would recognize symbols associated with Hamas—particularly those linked to violence—and view their use as threatening.
Third, CodePink’s history of violent and disruptive protests makes it more likely that a reasonable person would interpret their use of the inverted red triangle as a threat. Courts consider context when assessing whether a statement qualifies as a true threat, including “whether the victim ha[s] reason to believe that the [alleged threat] maker had a propensity to engage in violence.” Here, Plaintiffs allege that CodePink has a well-documented record of protests that “often result in violence, arrests, and unlawful disruptions.”
For example, Plaintiffs claim that in July 2024, a CodePink member “assaulted Congressman Derrick Van Orden during a CodePink protest.” They further allege that in November 2024, “CodePink operatives” “harassed CNN anchor Dana Bash” at a synagogue while she was attending a religious service.
Given the widespread media attention surrounding pro-Palestine protests after the October 2023 Hamas attacks, it is plausible that a reasonable person would be aware of CodePink’s reputation. That awareness, combined with the use of a symbol like the inverted red triangle, supports the inference that a reasonable person could view the posts as threatening—particularly in light of Plaintiffs’ allegation that “CodePink has long supported terrorists.”
Fourth, CodePink’s use of the inverted red triangle, as alleged, is meaningfully similar to the “GUILTY” posters that the Ninth Circuit held were true threats in Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. American Coalition of Life Activist (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc). There, the Ninth Circuit considered whether anti-abortion protesters violated the FACE Act by displaying, at various press conferences and anti-abortion events, posters that featured the word “GUILTY” along with the names of abortion providers. The court found the “GUILTY” posters to be true threats because they closely resembled earlier “WANTED” posters, each of which named a doctor who was later murdered. The court concluded that, to doctors performing abortions, the posters conveyed the message: “You’re Wanted or You’re Guilty; You’ll be shot or Killed.”
This case bears striking similarities. Like the “GUILTY” posters, CodePink’s social media posts do not “contain[ ] any language that is overtly threatening.” See id. But the threat lies in the context and the symbolism. In Planned Parenthood, the doctors who were named on the “GUILTY” posters were later murdered—demonstrating a deadly pattern where inclusion on the poster signaled imminent danger. The same logic applies here. Plaintiffs alleged that CodePink placed the Synagogue’s address inside an inverted red triangle—a symbol Plaintiffs allege is used by Hamas to identify targets for violence. So, it is not just symbolism; it is a call for action. When that symbol is used to mark a specific location, it suggests that violence will follow. Just as abortion providers reasonably understood the “GUILTY” posters to mean, “You’re Wanted or You’re Guilty; You’ll be shot or Killed”; a reasonable Jewish observer could interpret CodePink’s posts as saying: “You’ve been marked: this place is a target.” In short, like the “GUILTY” posters, CodePink’s posts “connote something they do not literally say, yet both the actor and the recipient get the message.”
And while it is certainly true that CodePink did not direct its social media posts directly at Jewish worshipers, that kind of targeting isn’t required for FACE Act liability. In Planned Parenthood, the defendants didn’t deliver their threatening messages straight to the abortion providers either. Instead, they displayed the “GUILTY” posters at press conferences, published them in pro-life magazines, and showed them at events they organized. The messages were directed at their supporters, not their targets—just like CodePink’s posts here. Just as this did not bar FACE Act liability in Planned Parenthood, it does not do so here.
In sum, Plaintiffs’ have sufficiently alleged that CodePink’s social media posts constitute a true threat. To the extent that CodePink argues that Plaintiffs’ allegations are not true or that the reasonable inferences made in their favor are not accurate, those are arguments better made after the pleadings stage. After all, “it is a jury question whether actions and communications are clearly outside the ambit of First Amendment protection.”
There’s much more going on in the long opinion: Some other claims against defendants were rejected (including threats claims against another defendant, Palestinian Youth Movement, for its different social media posts); I hope to blog separately about that later. But this struck me as an especially interesting passage.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) is happy that ABC decided to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show. But like Fox News political analyst Brit Hume, Cruz is not happy about the role that Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), played in that decision. By threatening TV stations that carried Jimmy Kimmel Live! with fines and license revocation, Cruz warned in his podcast on Friday, Carr set a dangerous precedent that could invite similar treatment of conservative speech under a future administration.
“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said,” Cruz declared, referring to the September 15 monologue in which the late-night comedian erroneously suggested that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college in Utah five days earlier, was part of the MAGA movement. “I am thrilled that he was fired. But let me tell you: If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”
In an interview with right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday, Carr warned that there are “actions we can take on licensed broadcasters” that dared to air Kimmel’s show, including “fines or license revocations.” He added that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Either “these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel,” he said, “or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Hours later, Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliate stations, announced that it would preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! “for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show.” Sinclair, which owns 38 ABC affiliates, likewise said it would “indefinitely preempt” Jimmy Kimmel Live! beginning that night. ABC, which produces the programming aired by those affiliates and owns eight of the network’s stations, fell in line the same night, saying it would “indefinitely” suspend the show.
Cruz likened Carr to a mafioso. “He says, ‘We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,’” the senator noted. “And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar [and] going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”
In fact, Carr’s threat was more explicit than that. “This sort of status quo is obviously not acceptable,” he declared, saying it was “past time” for “these licensed broadcasters” to say, “Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run, Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out, because we licensed broadcaster[s] are running the possibility of fines or license revocations from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”
That rationale for punishing stations that carried Kimmel’s show was absurd on its face. The policy to which Carr alluded applies to a “broadcast news report” that was “deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners” about “a significant event.” While Kimmel’s remarks were certainly misinformed, it is doubtful that he intended to “mislead viewers.” It seems more plausible that he committed to a partisan narrative without bothering to ask whether it was supported by the facts, an example of carelessness rather than deliberate deceit. But whatever you think of Kimmel’s intent, a comedian’s monologue is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “broadcast news report.”
By abusing his power to exert pressure on ABC and its affiliates, Cruz said, Carr was setting an example that Democrats are apt to copy. “Going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat…wins the White House,” the senator said, and “they will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly. And that is dangerous.”
Although “it might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel,” Cruz said, “when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it….It is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, ‘We’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.’”
Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) agreed that Carr’s involvement in kiboshing Kimmel was “absolutely inappropriate.” The FCC’s chairman “has got no business weighing in on this,” Paul said on Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press. “If you’re losing money, you can be fired. But the government’s got no business in it. And the FCC was wrong to weigh in. And I’ll fight any attempt by the government to get involved with speech.”
Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson perceives a similar danger in Attorney General Pam Bondi’s response to online commentary that celebrated Kirk’s murder or justified violence against conservatives more generally. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” Bondi said last week, erroneously asserting a constitutional distinction between “free speech” and “hate speech.” She later claimed she had in mind “threats of violence that individuals incite against others.” But the speech that offended Bondi generally would not meet the First Amendment test that the Supreme Court established in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, which requires advocacy that is both “directed” at inciting “imminent lawless action” and “likely” to have that effect.
“This is the attorney general of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, telling you that there is this other category…called hate speech,” Carlson remarked on his show last Wednesday. “And of course, the implication is that’s a crime. There’s no sentence that Charlie Kirk would have objected to more than that.”
With good reason, Carlson said: “You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of his murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country. And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever. And there never will be. Because if they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think.”
It is encouraging that at least some of President Donald Trump’s allies recognize that freedom of speech is unreliable unless it protects their political opponents. But Trump himself seems oblivious to that point. When asked about Cruz’s criticism of Carr on Friday, Trump described the FCC chairman as “a great American patriot,” adding, “I disagree with Ted Cruz on that.”
Of course he does. For years, Trump has been eager to wield the FCC’s powers against broadcasters who air programming that offends him. During Trump’s first administration, he averred that “network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected that suggestion in no uncertain terms. “I believe in the First Amendment,” he said. “The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment, and under the law the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”
Trump’s views on the subject have not changed. Last week, he cheered Kimmel’s suspension as “Great News for America” and urged NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, two other late-night comedians who are often critical of him. “Do it NBC!!!” he demanded. In case there was any doubt that Trump was not merely offering advice as a businessman or TV critic, he signed that Truth Social missive “President DJT” and later clarified the underlying threat. “You have a network and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump,” he complained to reporters. “It’s all they do….They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.” When network newscasts “take a great story” and “make it bad,” he averred, “that’s really illegal.”
The difference this time around is that the FCC’s Trump-appointed chairman, an avowed free speech champion, has no constitutional compunction about using his powers to bully broadcasters into submission. “They give me only bad publicity or press,” Trump said on Thursday. “I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr.”
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a new cottage industry of rage has arisen. And while anger and horror at this act of violence are understandable, they’re also taking Americans to some dark places, where retribution must be had against anyone who said negative things about Kirk after his death and politicians posture about punishing people who (crassly, but nonviolently) celebrated Kirk’s death. A lot of this seems to hinge on the idea that hateful “rhetoric” is responsible for Kirk’s killing; one particularly prevalent strain of this specifically indicts online speech and social media.
It’s social media that led to Kirk’s assassination, the refrain goes, and it’s social media that’s driving all sorts of political violence.
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But social media platforms don’t kill people. People kill people.
That seems banal to point out, I know. Reductive, perhaps. But so much discourse right now attributes an almost supernatural influence to social media and to online speech and communities. And that’s reductive, too—in addition to being pretty unmoored from reality.
“I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Meet the Press yesterday. Social media companies “have figured out how to hack our brains” and “get us to hate each other,” Cox said.
It’s not just politicians spewing a mind-control theory of political violence. “I think the main problem here isn’t this killer’s ideology,” posted the pundit Noah Blum on Friday. “It’s that the internet radicalizes people to do increasingly greater violence on a scarily regular basis and nobody really knows what to do about it.”
We hear some version of this in the aftermath of many tragic or senseless events. It’s not enough for people to blame disturbed or immoral individuals who do bad things. It’s not even enough to blame the dubious influence of “right-wing extremism” or “left-wing extremism” or “political polarization.” People blame tech companies, sometimes even suggesting they’re directly responsible because they failed to stop hateful speech—or misinformation, or divisive rhetoric—on social media.
But the idea that people—especially young men—would not be radicalized if it weren’t for social media belies most of human history.
I’ve been listening recently to a podcast called A Twist of History. One episode details Adolf Hitler’s attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in 1923. Another episode features a riot during a Shakespearean performance in New York City in 1849, fomented by Ned Buntline, a nativist newspaper pundit with ambitions of fame and notoriety. Both instances featured fringe political elements, violence, and deaths.
History is littered with examples like these: men driven to violence by people in close physical proximity, sometimes with the help of inflammatory political rhetoric printed in pamphlets and newspapers.
The type of violence that people engage in does seem somewhat era-dependent. Sometimes it was more likely to be large group violence, acting as part of political movements or criminal gangs. Sometimes it was more likely to be small group violence, committed by racist clubs, radical activist groups, and so on. (And, surely, many manically violent men throughout history have been killed in wars or bar fights before they had a chance to do other damage.)
Ours is an era of lone-wolf violence, though it is not the first one.
Because of our hyper-connected world, and because of the sensationalistic nature of public shootings, it can feel like things are worse than ever. In another time, we wouldn’t have have heard of every racist lynching, every street gang fight, and so on.
But even from what we can glean, looking back, it seems clear that we’re not living in some exceptionally violent time.
Is the internet capable of radicalizing people?
On some level, the answer is yes,of course. But this is simply because the internet, and social media, are such huge parts of our lives. They are where people spend time, spread ideas, and consume ideologies. They are locusts of just about everything good, and everything bad, about our offline world.
“The internet is culture now, the way television once was for our parents, our grandparents, maybe even us,” Katherine Dee wrote on her Substackthis week. “Every aspect of our lives flows through it. There’s no such thing as ‘very Online’ or ‘not Online.’ It’s all of us, all the time, always.”
People will point to algorithms and profit motives, epistemic closure and endless scroll—all sorts of things that supposedly make social media or the internet generally a unique breeder of polarization and radicalism and misinformation. But we have an ever-growing body of research suggesting that, for the average person, being on social media isn’t making things worse (and, in some ways, could be making it better).
We live in ideologically charged and politically polarized times. A lot of our media and our political debates and our discussions with each other reflect this. But the fact that so much of this comes seeping out on social media may simply be a symptom.
Online speech is the most visible manifestation of any rot in our system or culture. But it does not mean that Facebook, or TikTok, or X, or any of the countless niche forums out there are the cause of the rot.
Yes, the shooter was steeped in internet meme culture, as evidenced by messages printed on his bullets: “an internet-specific brand of trollish nihilism adopted by many recent shooters,” as my colleague C.J. Ciaramella put it. But I think it’s foolish—a combination of determined presentism, tech panic, and lack of imagination—to suggest that Kirk’s shooter pulled the trigger only because of ideas or attitudes that he encountered online.
For one thing, we can’t actually say what spawned the shooter’s idea that assassinating someone was a good idea, or his belief that Kirk was an appropriate symbolic target for his agenda. Maybe people around him offline encouraged it. Maybe voices in his head told him to. At this point, we don’t know.
But if he encountered bad ideas online, it’s because the internet is now where we encounter ideas. If he cloaked his violence in the language of internet memes, it’s because that’s where culture is these days.
In another era, he may have encountered bad ideas at a town hall and dressed up his horrific act in different slogans. But a man with a capacity for such premeditated and dramatic violence is a man with a capacity for such things in any era. And conversely, countless billions of people encounter the same online ecosystem without committing assassinations.
Reaching for modern technology as the explanation reeks of an ideological agenda of its own.
None of this is to say that particular vectors of online radicalization shouldn’t be identified. People can and should study such routes, and consider ways to combat them, just as their predecessors tried to stop people from being sucked into the Ku Klux Klan, the mob, and so on. But looking for particular pathways here (if such a thing can be done) is different from condemning social media and the internet universally. We might as well have blamed the buildings where extremists gathered, or the paper and ink that allowed them to communicate.
“Social media is simply the way we talk and communicate in this day and age, for better or worse,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said yesterday on ABC’s This Week. “What I would focus on is condemning the act of violence. It’s not the free speech that led to this. It’s not the fact that people can talk and communicate online. It’s the actions of an unhinged, evil individual.”
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• Kaytlin Bailey, founder and executive director of the sex worker rights group Old Pros, will be debating Melanie Thompson of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women about whether paying for sex should be a crime. The debate, part of the Soho Forum, is happening live tonight in Manhattan and will also be livestreamed on Reason’s YouTube channel.
• The Trump administration is referring to birth control as an abortifacient (that is, something that causes abortion). “President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” a United States Agency for International Development spokesperson told The New York Times when asked about birth control pills, IUDs, and hormonal implants that had been slated for low-income countries. “The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”
• “Federal regulators and elected officials are moving to crack down on AI chatbots over perceived risks to children’s safety. However, the proposed measures could ultimately put more children at risk,” writesReason‘s Jack Nicastro.
• Korean “comfort women” are suing the U.S. military.
• “OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is supporting a California proposal to impose age verification requirements on app stores and device-makers, adding to the chorus of tech giants praising the measure hours before state lawmakers’ deadline to approve bills for this year,” reportsPolitico.
• A new study pitted some researchers against humans in debates and some against artificial intelligence chatbots. Can you guess who fared better? (The answer is not as straightforward as one might expect.)
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Turning Point USA booth at CPAC | 2014 (ENB/Reason)
NY mandates Title VI coordinators on all college campuses
Legislation combats antisemitism and all forms of discrimination
Hochul: “No one should fear for their safety at school”
College and university campuses throughout New York State will now be required to appoint Title VI anti-discrimination coordinators under a new mandate designed to combat antisemitism and all forms of bigotry, helping to ensure a safer learning environment for students.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation to uphold the protections of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.
“By placing Title VI coordinators on all college campuses, New York is combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination head-on,” Hochul said in a news release about the legislation.
“No one should fear for their safety while trying to get an education,” she said. “It’s my top priority to ensure every New York student feels safe at school, and I will continue to take action against campus discrimination and use every tool at my disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our school communities.”
With the new legislation, coordinators are to collaborate closely with students, faculty and staff to address discrimination on campus and foster a safe learning environment.
The legislation comes at a time when universities nationwide are grappling with how to uphold freedom of expression amid rising campus antisemitism, while also addressing concerns about student safety and institutional policy.
The state legislation is considered one of the first in the nation to mandate Title VI coordinators across all college and university campuses.
“New York, with the largest Jewish community in the country, is leading by example in protecting students from antisemitism and other forms of discrimination,” American Jewish Committee New York Director Josh Kramer said in the news release. “Gov. Hochul’s signature makes clear that Jewish students’ concerns cannot be brushed aside.”
Others gave the legislation high marks.
“For students who have historically faced systemic barriers, this bill requiring Title VI coordinators on college campuses is particularly important,” Assemblymember Michaelle Solages of Valley Stream said in the news release.
“It establishes a clear, standardized process for reporting incidents and guarantees that every complaint will be met with an investigation. This is a significant measure for safety and accountability on our campuses,” Solages said.
“The appointment of Title VI coordinators will assist in ensuring efficient resolution to traumatic incidences that are regularly experienced by college students of all backgrounds,” NAACP New York State Conference Education Committee Chair Christine Waters said in the news release.
“Requiring Title VI coordinators at every college in New York is an important step toward ensuring that all students can learn in safe environments free of discrimination,” Asian American Federation Executive Director Catherine Chen said in the news release.
“Since 2020, the Asian American Federation’s Hope Against Hate Campaign has been raising awareness and taking action to combat hate and bias against Asian Americans—an issue that persists to this day and includes hostility against South Asians and Muslim Americans. The federation stresses that strong anti-discrimination measures are essential to protect our vulnerable youth and create inclusive and fair communities for all students,” Chen added.
“Amid a surge in antisemitism, Jewish students have faced unacceptable discrimination and hate on campuses throughout New York,” UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein said in the news release. “With this new law, students across the state will experience a safer and more inclusive learning environment.”
Anti-Defamation League Regional Director for New York and New Jersey Scott Richman shared that sentiment
“Too often, students on campuses feel the need to hide parts of their identity to avoid intimidation and harassment,” Richman said. “This legislation offers a crucial solution to ensure that colleges and universities are properly resourced to address and combat discrimination and hate on campus.”
An excerpt from yesterday’s long opinion by Judge Diane Gujarati in Alexander v. Sutton(E.D.N.Y.); read the whole thing for more:
The court held that many of these restrictions are unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, or viewpoint-based, and held (among other things) that the removal of one plaintiff from CEC likewise violated the First Amendment:
Although the Second Circuit does not appear to have addressed the constitutionality of Regulation D-210, courts outside of the Second Circuit—referencing Tam and/or Iancu—have held speech restrictions similar to those set forth in Regulation D-210 to violate the First Amendment. See, e.g., Ison v. Madison Loc. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. (6th Cir. 2021) (concluding that school board’s restrictions on “abusive,” “personally directed,” and “antagonistic” speech, facially and as applied, constituted impermissible viewpoint discrimination because “they prohibit speech purely because it disparages or offends”); Mama Bears of Forsyth Cnty. v. McCall (N.D. Ga. 2022) (concluding that school board’s “respectfulness” requirement, which court interpreted to be prohibition against “offensive, rude, insulting, or abusive” speech, was viewpoint-based and thus facially unconstitutional and that “because the Plaintiffs’ facial challenge is successful, the Court need not address their as-applied challenge”); see also, e.g., Marshall v. Amuso (E.D. Pa. 2021) (concluding that defendant had not met burden to show that school district’s prohibitions against speech deemed, inter alia, “personally-directed” and “abusive” did not constitute viewpoint discrimination as applied to plaintiffs, and concluding that defendant had not met burden to show that prohibitions against speech deemed, inter alia, “personally directed,” “abusive,” “offensive,” “otherwise inappropriate,” “personal attack,” “inappropriate,” and “intolerant” were not facially vague or overbroad); but see Moms for Liberty—Brevard Cnty. v. Brevard Pub. Schs. (M.D. Fla.), aff’d (11th Cir. Nov. 21, 2022)….
Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portions of Regulation D-210—namely, the prohibitions against “frequent verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech that serves to intimidate and causes others to have concern for their personal safety”; “derogatory or offensive comments about any DOE student”; and “conduct that would publicly reveal, share or expose private or personally identifiable information about a DOE student or a member of such student’s family without their consent”—are unconstitutional, facially and/or as applied.
As an initial matter, Regulation D-210’s scope appears to extend beyond regulating conduct at CEC meetings or otherwise on government-owned property. See Regulation D-210 at 2 (defining “conduct” as “verbal and physical acts and behavior, including a Council Member’s use of oral and written language, when it occurs at,” inter alia, “other activities when such conduct creates or would foreseeably create a risk of disruption within the district or school community the Council Member serves and/or interferes with the functioning of the [CEC] or the performance of the Council Member’s [CEC] duties”). Accordingly, the Court does not analyze Regulation D-210 under a forum-based approach. {The Court notes that, even under a forum-based approach, the Court’s conclusions with respect to the challenged portions of Regulation D-210 would remain the same.}
Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of Section II(C) of Regulation D-210 is facially unconstitutionally vague. Regulation D- 210 itself does not provide definitions for terms such as “frequent verbal abuse” or “unnecessary aggressive speech.” Indeed, when asked about the definition of “verbal abuse” at the June 18, 2024 oral argument, counsel for the City Defendants acknowledged that there was no definition in the regulation and stated, inter alia, that “there is going to be a subjective component” to the definition of such term, and that “there is a specific investigative process” to determine whether conduct would fall within the scope of “verbal abuse.”
Notably, a determination of the scope of “frequent verbal abuse”—during the investigative process—does not provide a reasonable opportunity to a person of ordinary intelligence—before such person is subject to investigation under Regulation D-210—to understand what conduct Regulation D-210 prohibits. Here, given the lack of clarity with respect to conduct covered by Section II(C), Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of Section II(C) fails to provide people of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it prohibits and that it encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Further, … “frequent verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech” is a “boundless category” that does “not merely forbid well-established categories of unprotected speech, such as fighting words, obscenity, or true threats.”
Plaintiffs have also shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of Section II(C) is unconstitutionally vague as applied to Plaintiff Maron, who was removed as a member of CEC 2 based on, inter alia, a finding that her statement to the New York Post constituted unnecessary aggressive speech that served to intimidate and cause others to have concern for their personal safety. {[O]n February 16, 2024, the student newspaper at Stuyvesant High School published an anonymous full page editorial titled, “Black and White: The Withheld Story of Palestine and Israel” and that Plaintiff Maron told the New York Post, in reference to that editorial, that “[t]he byline should read coward instead of anonymous;” that “[i]f you are going to repeat revolting Hamas propaganda and transcribe your ignorance and Jew hatred, put your name to it;” and that “Principal Yu should address the school and explain to Jewish students why this factually inaccurate bile was published on the school paper anonymously,” and declaring that Plaintiff Maron “do[es] not know the author’s identity” or “whether the author was a student, a staff member, or some other person”).}
Notably, Plaintiff Maron’s comments did not identify the editorial’s author and Plaintiff Maron declares that she did not know the author’s identity or whether the author was a student, a staff member, or some other person. Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of Section II(C) failed to provide Plaintiff Maron a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it prohibited and that the challenged portion of Section II(C) was discriminatorily enforced.
Plaintiffs have also shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of Section II(D) of Regulation D-210 facially violates the First Amendment because it discriminates based on viewpoint. As an initial matter, Section II(D), which prohibits “derogatory” and “offensive” comments about any DOE student, regulates speech on the basis of content. Further, a prohibition on “derogatory” or “offensive” speech disfavors ideas that offend and therefore discriminates based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment….
Further, Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that Section II(E) of Regulation D-210 facially violates the First Amendment. Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that Section II(E) of Regulation D-210 is not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. Section II(E), which prohibits conduct that would publicly reveal, share, or expose private or personally identifiable information about a DOE student or a member of such student’s family without their consent, regulates speech on the basis of content and therefore is subject to strict scrutiny. Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that Section II(E) is not narrowly tailored to achieving even the interest of preserving student privacy identified by Defendants.
Defendants do not explain, and it is not readily apparent, how revealing certain categories of information, such as the “employment status” of a DOE student’s family member—a category of information included in Regulation D-210’s definition of “personally identifiable information”—would necessarily threaten the privacy of a DOE student or subject that student to harassment or “doxxing” by CEC members. Further, the definition of “personally identifiable information” set forth in Regulation D-210 states that the term is “not limited to” the types of information set forth therein. Section II(E) appears to span beyond “the least restrictive means” of achieving the interest of preserving student privacy. Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that a substantial number of Section II(E)’s applications are unconstitutional judged in relation to its plainly legitimate sweep.
The City Defendants appear to invite the Court to extend the law regarding speech of public employees. Here, Plaintiffs do not receive a salary or stipend in connection with their roles as CEC members; Plaintiffs were elected to their respective CECs; and New York Education Law does not appear to classify CEC members as employees.,,,
Here, Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the Community Guidelines fail under either level of scrutiny because the prohibitions are not viewpoint neutral. The Community Guidelines’ prohibitions of, inter alia, “homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, racism, or any other forms of oppressive beliefs or behaviors,” “name-calling,” and “disrespect” are prohibitions against ideas that offend, and therefore discriminate on the basis of viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment.
For the same reason, Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the Community Commitments violate the First Amendment. The Community Commitments set forth various statements to which participants at CEC 14’s meetings are required to agree, including “[w]e reserve the right to remove participants . . . affiliated with hate groups,” which requirement discriminates on the basis of viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment.
Plaintiffs have also shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that a portion of Article IV § 2 of CEC 14’s Bylaws—specifically, the restriction on “[d]iscussion and charges relating to the competence or personal conduct of individuals”—violates the First Amendment. As an initial matter, this restriction appears to cover speech that falls within the designated category for which the limited public forum—CEC meetings—has been opened. Strict scrutiny therefore is accorded to this restriction, and Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the restriction does not pass strict scrutiny. Defendants have not offered a compelling government interest underlying this restriction. And, even assuming there were a compelling government interest, the restriction, which appears to prohibit speech that is core to the purpose of CEC meetings, would not be narrowly tailored….
Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that CEC 14’s practices regarding its official X account discriminate on the basis of viewpoint and/or political association as applied to Plaintiffs, in violation of the First Amendment. Plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that Defendants have prevented Plaintiffs from accessing CEC 14’s official X account on account of their views. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ various declarations provide evidence that Plaintiffs have been blocked or otherwise prevented from accessing CEC 14’s official X account on the basis of their viewpoints and/or political associations.
Alan Gura, Dennis J. Saffran & Nathan John Ristuccia (Institute for Free Speech) represent plaintiffs.
Graffiti, including “anti-Semitic phrases,” was found spray-painted at a Montgomery County elementary school and a nearby building Sunday morning, police said.
Community members in Bethesda, Md., including children, work to wipe away anti-Israel graffiti that had been left at an elementary school and neighboring building over the weekend.
(Courtesy Steve Sanders)
Courtesy Steve Sanders
People cleaning anti-Israel and antisemitic graffiti from an elementary school sign.
(Courtesy Montgomery County police)
Courtesy Montgomery County police
Bethesda Urban Partnership began leading the cleanup efforts early.
(Courtesy Steve Sanders)
Courtesy Steve Sanders
People cleaning anti-Israel and antisemitic graffiti from an elementary school sign.
(Courtesy Steve Sanders)
Courtesy Steve Sanders
Graffiti, including “anti-Semitic phrases,” was found spray-painted at a Montgomery County, Maryland, elementary school and a nearby building Sunday morning, police said.
Montgomery County police said officers were called to Bethesda Elementary School at 7600 Arlington Road around 7:14 a.m. for a report of vandalism that happened “during the overnight hours.” It said similar graffiti was also found at a nearby building at 4900 Del Ray Avenue.
Neighbors and Jewish community members wasted no time in responding.
Montgomery County Council President Andrew Friedson told WTOP he saw “disturbing photos” of the graffiti left outside of the school. The school is also the site for a weekly farmer’s market he often attends on Sunday mornings.
Friedson said he immediately notified the police and Montgomery County Public Schools, as well as Bethesda Urban Partnership, who began leading the cleanup efforts early.
“I will say, there were a large number of residents, including children, who were helping and supporting the efforts from the Bethesda Urban Partnership team and others who are cleaning the graffiti,” he added.
The police department’s second district commander posted about the incident on social media.
Huge thank you to our friends @BethesdaUP. Several sites in the downtown area were marred by hate speech in the early morning hours. BUP cleaned as quickly as possible. If you have information about this event-please contact: https://t.co/GOB9Q72RSHpic.twitter.com/eWQIelTBx8
Montgomery County has seen a number of antisemitic and other forms of hate speech in recent years, including high-profile incidents at Magruder High School and Westbrook Elementary School, both in Bethesda.
“As we are only two weeks away from the start of the school year, it is imperative that we recognize the emotional harm actions like this have on everyone. I understand that this incident may have caused fear or concern, and I ask us all to have the necessary discussions to bring us together, to foster unity rather than division,” said Bethesda Elementary School Principal Lisa Seymour in a statement.
“This action is not only offensive but is divisive and goes against our school district and community values in every sense. Our schools must remain a safe place for all students, families, and staff,” she said.
Police said they have “no suspect descriptions” at this time and they are actively investigating the incident.
In addition to police and the school system, Friedson said the Anti-Defamation League of Greater Washington and Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) were also involved in the response.
“It is appalling that so many families simply trying to enjoy the Bethesda Central Farm Market instead had to be subject to — and then voluntarily step in to help clean — hateful and antisemitic messages accusing Israel of raping women and children,” Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the JCRC, said of the graffiti.
“Unfortunately, these messages — like the recent arson attack on the Jewish Museum in Baltimore — are a stark reminder that antisemitism as an ideology is still pervasive and not so easily erased,” she added. “We hope the perpetrators of this outrageous desecration of school property are apprehended and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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This is the third election cycle in the US—2016, 2020, 2024—where social media is going to have played a really significant role in the election. The US still hasn’t gotten to grips with the fact that our democracy is becoming more and more precarious. It’s becoming more polarized, it’s becoming more hateful, it’s becoming less capable of consensus. With the 2020 election we saw that people no longer even accept elections are real. It’s important that we start to put into place the transparency and the accountability that’s required for these platforms that control the information ecosystem that has such an enormous impact on our electoral cycles.
Why do you think it’s been so difficult to regulate social media and the harm it can cause?
Countries around the world are doing it. The UK legislated the Online Safety Act. The EU legislated the Digital Services Act. Canada has legislated through C-63, and I’m going to give evidence in Ottawa at some point on that. In the US, we have seen social media companies put up their most aggressive defenses that they put up anywhere in the world. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbying on the Hill, in supporting candidates, trying to stop the inevitable from happening.
Something’s gotta work, no?
Ironically, I think the thing that is most likely to eventually move lawmakers is parents, and parents in particular worrying about the impact of social media platforms on their kids’ mental health. And that’s the thing with social media, it affects everything. CCDH looks at the effects of social media, disregulation on our ability to deal with the climate crisis, on sexual and reproductive rights, on public health and vaccines during the pandemic, on identity-based hate and kids. It’s the kids’ thing—really, it just is such an unimpeachable case for change.
My wife and I are having our first soon. I understand what you would do to defend your kids from being harmed. I think that when you’ve got platforms that are hurting our kids at such a scale, it is inevitable that change will come.
The optimist in me hopes you are right. The next generation should inherit a better world, but so much is working against that.
You know, one of the things that really scares me, we did some polling last year that showed that young people for the first time ever, 14- to 17-year-olds—the first generation who were raised on algorithmically ordered short-form video platforms—they are the most conspiracist generation and age cohort of any in America.
Oh wow.
Old people are slightly more likely to believe conspiracy theories. But it goes down as you get younger and then 14- to 17-year-olds, bam, the highest of all of them. We did that by testing across nine conspiracy theories: transphobic conspiracy theories, climate-denying conspiracy theories, racist conspiracy theories, antisemitic conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories about the deep state. And on every single one, young people were more likely to believe it. And it’s because we’ve created for them an information ecosystem that’s fundamentally chaotic.
And is only getting more chaotic.
Look, the way that tyrants retain power is not just by lying to people, it’s by making them unable to tell what truth is. And it creates apathy. Apathy is the tool of the tyrant. It was true with the Soviet Union. It was true with Afghanistan. There’s no secret to the fact that CCDH is senior leadership of people who come from places where we’ve seen this kind of destruction of the information ecosystem lead to tyrannical government. So, yeah, there is this awareness that things could get real bad real fast. And you’re right in saying that we worry about our kids, and we want to make our world better for them.
One of the largest mental health organizations serving LGBTQ+ youth is leaving X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter.
The Trevor Project announced Thursday that the nonprofit is closing its account on X, citing “increasing hate and vitriol… targeting the LGBTQ community.”
“LGBTQ young people are regularly victimized at the expense of their mental health, and X’s removal of certain moderation functions makes it more difficult for us to create a welcoming space for them on this platform,” the nonprofit said in a statement on the platform.
The Trevor Project noted that it will maintain a presence on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Over the past two decades, the Trevor Project has provided a 24-hour crisis line and a social network for LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 13 and 24.
Stakes are “just too high” for the group to continue its relationship with X, a spokesperson for the organization told HuffPost. The spokesperson noted that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people have seriously considered suicide, and that the figures are even higher for trans and nonbinary youth, as well as youth of color.
“The content we share on social media is intended to uplift and affirm LGBTQ young people, shedding light on stories to deepen public understanding of their experiences,” the spokesperson wrote. “In response to mental health resources and messages of hope and support, we’ve seen anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and commentary on our posts that can negatively impact LGBTQ young people.”
Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought the social media company, at the time known as Twitter, and claimed the platform would prioritize “free speech.” He has since received heavy criticism from watchdog groups for failing to moderate hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community, as well as racist, antisemitic and other “extreme hate speech,” according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The platform has become a haven for accounts promoting hateful content and false information about queer and trans communities. In April, Musk quietly removed parts of X’s hateful conduct policythat protected users against misgendering or deadnaming. The billionaire has also promoted “What is a Woman?” ― a documentary by Daily Wire contributor Matt Walsh that attempts to cast doubt on the existence of trans people.
More recently, the conservative advocacy group Prager University Foundation spent $1 million on a day-long takeover of X to promote its film “Detrans: The Dangers of Gender Affirming Care,” which has been criticized as a misleading treatment of the subject (and which Ian Kumamoto, writing for HuffPost’s opinion section, called “pure anti-trans propaganda”).
The Trevor Project said that the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ content on X, as well as the rise of legislation targeting queer and trans youths’ access to gender-affirming health care and participation in school activities, has made the platform an unwelcoming environment for LGBTQ+ young people. Statehouses across the country have introduced a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills this year, prompting the Human Right Campaign to declare a “state of emergency” for the LGBTQ+ community this summer.
The Trevor Project is one of dozens of organizations, including multiple groups focused on the LGBTQ+ community, that have left the platform under Musk’s leadership.
This past spring, 29 LGBTQ+ community centers across the country deactivated their X accounts, calling on the social media network to do more to protect its users from hate speech.
“Twitter has become increasingly unsafe in recent months for LGBTQ and BIPOC people with anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans, anti-Black and anti-semitic tweets on the rise,” Denise Spivak, the CEO of CenterLink, an international nonprofit network of hundreds of LGBTQ+ organizations, told Mashable at the time.
A protest and fight broke out outside a pub in Eugene, Oregon, during a drag queen storytime event — adding to the growing list of attacks against drag events and the LGBTQ community across the country.
The event featured an 11-year-old performer as the guest of honor at Old Nick’s Pub on Sunday, The Register-Guard reported. There were roughly 200 protestors and supporters outside the pub —some armed. Several hours into the demonstration of the drag story hour, authorities said a fight broke out between the two groups, where rocks and smoke bombs were briefly thrown. The Eugene Police Department responded to the outbreak by shutting down the street.
“These protests are absolutely ridiculous, especially because these people claim to be supporting children,” Emily Chappell, owner of Old Nick’s Pub, told HuffPost. “[The protestors] have been manipulated by a targeted hate campaign in this country whose agenda is demonizing queer people and spaces in support of anti-LGBTQ legislation they want to push through this fall. It’s sad, really.”
Drag Story Hour (DSH) is a nonprofit organization that uses drag as a traditional art form to “promote literacy, teach about LGBTQ lives, and activate children’s imaginations,” Jonathan Hamilt, executive director of DSH, told HuffPost. It started in 2015 with drag queens reading to children in libraries and has since expanded to include literary and creative programming for children led by drag queens all over the world.
Republicans have routinely expressed disapproval and intentions to ban drag queen storytime events, claiming they expose children to sexually explicit material. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in June that the state’s child protective services should investigate parents who take their kids to drag shows, calling them “not age-appropriate.” That same month, Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R) echoed similar opinions in a tweet, likening the events to “perverted sex shows.”
Hamilt countered these conservative beliefs by explaining that the organization has received praise from parents and teachers.
“Let’s be clear: DSH provides age-appropriate programming, and we routinely receive praise from parents and educators who are delighted that we offer children safe spaces to express themselves and support one another,” he said.
Chappell said her pub has held other LGBTQ-friendly events and drag queen story hours, noting that they have positively impacted queer youth, making them feel safe, seen, and supported by the community.
“I have gotten hundreds of letters from people who support us, saying our events make their child feel safe and secure in a world that wants to demonize being gay,” Chappell added.
She credited conservative beliefs about the sexualization of drag queen story time to an overall lack of understanding of drag.
Rich Kuntz, also known as Gidget, reads to children during Drag Queen Story Hour on March 21, 2019. The LGBT+ Center Orlando canceled a weekend drag queen story hour for children after receiving online threats.
Sarah Espedido/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
“There is nothing sexual about lip-syncing to uplifting songs and reading stories in an elaborate costume. They do it at Disney every day. While drag can present as sexual at adult-themed events, [the Oregon pub] event is not adult-themed, and neither are any of the drag queen storytimes I’ve ever heard about,” Chappell explained.
Alleged members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group, hurled slurs and yelled about “pedophiles” towards patrons attending an all-ages drag show at a bar in California in August. Recently, an LGBTQ center in Florida canceled their drag queen story hour event scheduled for Saturday after receiving threats from hate groups mere days after the protest in Oregon.
The protest outside of Old Nick’s Pub was far from surprising to Chappell, who said her business received numerous phone calls and messages the week prior filled with hate speech and threats. Protestors accused the event of sexualizing the child performers, reports The Register-Guard. Proactive measures were taken to ensure safety, with the business adding $2,000 worth of security to the event. The pub is raising money to fund extra security for future events in light of the recent incident and the growing number of received threats.
“We are indeed planning on having extra security at all of our LGBTQ events and some others that these hate groups have already said they are going to target,” Chappell said.
Rather than addressing real threats in the country, such as the epidemic of gun violence, Hamilt said right-wing politicians are spreading dangerous conspiracy theories and inciting violence against drag performers and the LGBTQ community. “This is part of a coordinated campaign to deny the rights of LGBTQ people, who already endure disproportionate rates of suicide and homelessness, and legislate us out of existence,” he said.
“Any attempt to criminalize our work is rooted in tired homophobic and transphobic hate and misinformation, and we refuse to give in to politicians who are too bigoted and boring to comprehend our vision for a world in which every child can be safe and fully expressing who they are,” said Hamilt.
Chappell said that the pub continues to receive threats even after the event, but they will not be backing down.
“Their goal is to get us to stop operating and stop hosting all ages events,” Chappell said. “They want to destroy safe spaces for queer youth. And we will not let them win.”
Recently, PayPal released an update to its terms of service that said it would fine people using its service for spreading disinformation. It faced an immediate free speech backlash on social media. Former PayPal President David Marcus tweeted this policy was against everything the company believed. He seemed to think it was “insanity” for payment companies to refuse service “if you say something they disagree with.” Elon Musk tweeted his agreement.
The company quickly reversed itself, saying the release was a mistake.
But the controversy led libertarian lawyer Eugene Volokh to look more carefully at PayPal’s terms of service and he was horrified to discover that PayPal has a long-standing acceptable use policy that forbids “the promotion of racial intolerance or other forms of discriminatory intolerance.” As a good First Amendment lawyer he pointed out that “sharply criticizing a religion or government officials could be construed as the promotion of hate—and could theoretically violate that policy.” To protect himself from this danger and to protest this form of censorship he closed his PayPal account and urged others to do the same.
Good luck finding an alternative. The reality is that payment companies have always had acceptable use policies, and for good reason.
For one thing, they have legal responsibilities to stop money laundering and terrorist financing. So, they have to know who their customers are and what they are spending their money on. They also have a specific legal obligation to block unlawful internet gambling transactions. Payment companies also have policies against the use of their systems for illegal transactions and most of them take special precautions against copyright violations and child porn.
Beyond these legal issues, payments systems restrict who they do business with for ethical and brand reasons. Amex doesn’t allow its services to be used by pornographers, even though pornography is protected by the First Amendment. Neither do Stripe, Amazon Pay, or Square.
Visa and Mastercard allow their member banks to provide service to legal pornography merchants, but they also allow the banks to refuse this business and many of them do. This tolerance has its limits, however. The payment networks recently cut ties with Pornhub after revelations that it didn’t do much to control depictions of rape on its site.
Both payment systems have broad brand protection clauses in their contracts with merchants and banks. They can withdraw service from “brand-damaging” transactions and reserve the right to unilaterally define what those transactions are.
Some of these payment company restrictions seem idiosyncratic, to say the least. Amazon Pay, for instance, won’t pay for “occult services.” So, witches and warlocks stay away!
But many of them seem right. In particular, the bans on hate speech that mimic PayPal’s. Amazon Pay prohibits “hate literature.” Square rejects “hate or harmful products.” Swipe bans a company or individual “that engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic.”
Visa and MasterCard could ban such merchants under their brand-protection programs, even without an explicit prohibition. What reputable business would want to be associated with companies or groups promoting hate speech? Responsible payment card companies flee contact with such people and they are right to do so.
Of course, enforcement can often be controversial. In 2019 PayPal applied its policy against hate speech to Gab and Infowars, which brought cries of censorship from conservative activists. But displeasing some critics comes with the territory. Controversies over standards enforcement are an inevitable part of being in the payment business.
I talked about these issues with former general counsel for the National Security Agency and current partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP Stewart Baker on his October 17 Cyberlaw podcast (around 32:40). He’s more suspicious of payment card hate speech standards than I am but we agree that a good step forward would be transparency. Payment card companies should be required to disclose their standards, explain their disconnection decisions, and provide adequate opportunities for challenging them.
Laws providing for this kind of transparency for social media companies are already on the books in some U.S. states and in Europe. Existing financial regulations should be supplemented to require similar transparency rules for payment card companies, to be enforced by the powerful regulators that already supervise financial institutions.
Transparency has another advantage. It can reveal behind-the-scenes government pressure on card companies to withhold service. This apparently happened in December 2010 when Wikileaks began to release the contents of confidential diplomatic cables. Senator Joe Lieberman, then-Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, publicly called for card companies to disconnect Wikileaks. But PayPal said that it received secret pressure from the State Department. Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal soon suspended Wikileaks’ accounts.
Government agencies should not exert shadowy pressure on payment companies to disconnect disfavored companies and groups. A little sunlight on such hidden agency nudges would be a good disinfectant and transparency requirements would provide it.
