We have previously discussed platforms like GoFundMe barring conservative groups and causes after cancel campaigns by activists to cut off financial support for opposing groups. The latest such controversy concerns Riley Gaines who was barred from using the ticketing company Eventbrite for an upcoming event on promoting biological women in sports.
As in the past, the free speech objections made to such censorship is not due to any affiliation or support for the underlying causes. Rather it is an attack on free speech values by platforms that should remain neutral on questions that divide us. These companies can facilitate national debates by allowing citizens to associate and speak on these issues.
While Gaines has become a lightening rod for the controversy over transwomen competing in women’s sports, various international sporting organizations have adopted more strict rules or outright bans on transgender athletes, including a recent ban for track and field competitions.
Once again, the adoption of such bans does not mean that they are correct or wise. Rather, the question is whether Eventbrite should be barring access for groups and individuals in holding such events. For example, would Eventbrite bar the track and field association from holding an event to explain and discuss its recent ban?
Gaines was prevented from promoting her November 3 speech at the University of California, Davis.
Eventbrite sent the following to the group institute in an email:
“Hello,
We’re reaching out regarding your event listing, Protecting Women’s Sports with Riley Gaines.
We have determined that your event is not permitted on the Eventbrite marketplace as it violates our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, with which all users agree to comply. Specifically, we do not allow content or events that – through on- or off-platform activity – discriminate against, harass, disparage, threaten, incite violence against, or otherwise target individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, veteran status, age, or disability. As a result, your event has been unpublished. Please be aware that severe or repeated violations of our guidelines may result in the suspension or termination of your Eventbrite account.
Please reply directly to this email if you have any further questions. We appreciate your understanding and thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Best,
Eventbrite Trust and Safety”
The company has also banned events to discuss policies limiting access to bathrooms as “hateful.”
Critics have noted that pro-Hamas groups are allowed to use the site as are radical far left groups.
For years, many politicians and pundits have dismissed free-speech concerns by noting that the First Amendment only applies to the government. So long as corporations do the censoring, they contend, it is not a free-speech problem.
This obviously is wrong on several fronts.
The First Amendment is not the exclusive measure of free speech. Corporate censorship of political commentaries or news stories are denials of free speech that harm our democratic system.
Second, this is a First Amendment violation. The Twitter files have substantiated long-standing concerns over “censorship by surrogate” or proxy. As with other amendments like the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches or seizures, the government cannot use private agents to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. A federal court recently found precisely this type of agency relationship between the federal government and social media companies.
Transgender policies raise difficult and divisive issues for our nation. We need to be able to discuss these issues and seek common answers or approaches. Many citizens are divided. We can only reach a consensus through dialogue and debate.
What Eventbrite is doing is obstructing such efforts by imposing its own corporate values on its customers. I understand why transgender people would object to these events. I have transgender students who I want to feel safe and valued in our community. Yet, limiting free speech events is not the answer. For social media and event companies, it is important to allow views on both sides to be expressed if we have any hope for a national resolution of these questions.
While everyone is able to see the hypocrisy… clearly lost on eventbrite…
Its their platform so they can do as they please… (to a point)
They are under no obligation to enforce their platform rules equally.
Now there are a couple of interesting things…
1) Eventbrite retains the emails and contact information of the attendees so they can track this data.
2) Turley could do a test case to confirm the bias by creating a webinar for free where he does a lecture on calling Hamas a terrorist organization. It would be interesting to see what happens…
The key thing about the first point…
That data could be subpoenaed by the FBI as a way to track pro-Hamas / pro-terrorists here in the country as part of a watch list. There’s more that they can do behind the scenes as well too if the FBI/DHS considers the viability of a terrorist threat from someone in this pool of individuals.
The second point… Turley or someone similar’s talk could not be flagged. The name of the talk and the speaker, plus marketing could be factors if this gets on the censor’s radar. (Or someone who lodges a complain and calls it to the attention of Eventbrite.) YMMV
-G
Well this is embarrassing.
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/melody-wiseheart-swimming?
And just downright creepy.
Absolutely!
It is weird that the wretches who wring their hands and wail about the glass ceiling holding women back and who pretend that the patriarchy dominates women unfairly are the very ones who demand that men be allowed to ‘compete’ with women in sports, thus crushing actual women’s dreams of athletic triumph altogether.
The Farce is strong in those folks.
They have chosen the hills they are willing to die on. The odd thing is that, these people are on the left, and the hills they are willing to die on include opposing women’s sports, opposing safe spaces for women such as bathrooms and locker rooms.
Yes, even Babylon Bee can’t keep up with this level of absurdity. It is as if many people have lost the ability to observe, think or reason. It’s disturbing.
On the other hand people like Bari Weis and Bill Maher are showing signs of snapping out of the leftist torpor. Watching Harvard students, and others, praise and support Hamas savages maybe scared them a little. Actual danger sharpens attention on the real world for a little while.
Presumably this application of the terms of service can be challenged. It is not discrimination to advocate preserving women’s sports for women. If preserving women’s sports for women is discrimination, then all men should be permitted to participate in women’s sports, not just men who say they are women. Title IX could not exist.
More pandering by Democrats and liberals to psychologically and emotionally impaired persons for their vote instead of trying to improve their mental health care.
Plaintiff Isabelle M. Ayala (f.k.a. Giovanni Ayala) is an unfortunate victim of a collection of actors who prioritized politics and ideology over children’s safety, health, and well-being.
So begins the lawsuit by Miss Isabelle Ayala against the American Association of Pediatrics, et al. Miss Ayala transitioned to male as a child. Full stop. Now, as an adult and detransitioner, she has filed a lawsuit for the harm done to her as a child. For once I hope medmal attorneys screw against the wall a medical association, especially the American Association of Pediatrics.
Riley Gaines is a superb role model for young girls and women. Justice Katina “I am not a biologist” Jackson is a disgrace and should be removed from SCOTUS and debarred as an attorney for sheer stupidity, malice and misinformation. All of her enablers should be tarred and feather for fetishizing and harming children. They should be happy they do not live in Gaza or else they would be thrown from the tops of buildings, burned alive and decapitated like their terrorist antisemitic friends, Hamas.
Female Detransitioner Sues American Academy Of Pediatrics Alleging Fraudulent ‘Affirmative Care’ Model
A first-of-its-kind lawsuit, showcasing the growing movement to expose the painful, life-altering impacts of gender ideology. ….After a single, brief meeting with Dr. Rafferty, Isabelle was recommended for testosterone injections, but her mother refused to give consent. In a follow-up meeting, Dr. Rafferty and his team convinced her mother to drop her objection by misrepresenting testosterone as the only available treatment and suggesting that if she did not receive the hormones, Isabelle would commit suicide. Shortly thereafter, Isabelle was put on life-altering cross-sex hormones. She now suffers from a slew of debilitating conditions from the effects of years of testosterone injection, including vaginal atrophy, physical pain, and the triggering of an auto-immune disease only present in males in her family, among others.
https://www.iwf.org/2023/10/24/breaking-female-detransitioner-sues-american-academy-of-pediatrics-alleging-fraudulent-affirmative-care-model/
Lawsuit brief:
ISABELLE M. AYALA, Plaintiff,
vs.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS; JASON R. RAFFERTY, MD; MICHELLE FORCIER, MD; MEGHAN GIBSON, MD; GILLIAN A. MORRIS, MD; BRITTANY ALLEN, MD; ILANA SHERER, MD; JILL WAGNER, LCSW, JOHN DOES, and LIFESPAN PHYSICIAN GROUP, INC, Defendants
https://www.iwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ISABELLE-AYALA-LAWSUIT.pdf
Bladerdash! If this is a stock company then it is to act soas to maximize shareholder value; the supremes’ have so ruled.
Are we not to have rule-of-law, Jonathan Turley?
David, good point but how did this ideological thinking work for the value of Bud Light or Disney, or Victoria’s Secret?
Well Mr. Benson, do you mean maximizing the share holder value like with Bud Lite. Catering to a very small percentage of society that causes your share holder value to decrease really shows no concern for shareholder value but exactly the opposite. If you somehow think that the majority of the population agrees with you you are seriously delusional.
I agree it’s supposed to act to maximize shareholder value, but is that really what it’s doing when it censors Riley Gaines and freezing out paying customers based on ideological disagreement with the speaker? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say it’s acting according to the political values of its management and disregarding shareholder value?
Kansas Elder — If the stockholders opine so, then they can fire the current management. Sometimes that actually happens, you know.
David – That sometimes happens, true. And many times it doesn’t happen. Management often works to serve its own interests rather than those of the stockholders, and they sometimes getting away with it. A shareholder revolt or a successful tender offer can cure the situation, but those are blunt force instruments and only cover a subset of the situations.
Or the customers can fire the product. That happens more often. Then the shareholders get out while the going is good…sort of good. Or they can sue for breach of fiduciary duty. But customers have the ultimate vote.
Young, I like that first sentence!
it is official. We are living in the Last Days. David Benson is agreeing with Trump supporter, “Young”
“Gird your loins!”
😂
Yes, Estovir, it’s already Holler n’ Hell: https://www.hh100.org/
David and I have agreed on several things and differed on others. I like that.
Estovir,
You should consider this from leftist, former NYT writer and Hillary and Biden voter:
“As a Democrat who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center but probably leaning increasingly right, I am left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger, of the message of the Trump administration because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.”
“So much of the work that happened in that [Trump] administration turns out to have been right. And that’s what is so frustrating for me. The work on the border wall? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. Turned out it was right. Issuing long-term debt to refinance when rates were at zero? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. A structural peace in the Middle East? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message.”
“When are we gonna stop shooting ourselves in the foot? And when are we going to actually see and take the time to look past who is saying things and actually listen to them word for word?”
“If it’s clear that the last two weeks have been a wake-up call, the next question is: Why?”
That quote from Bari Weiss.
So where in the terms of service for the use of Eventbrite does it say that she has to consent to viewing the penis of a man in the girls locker room. Shouldn’t they revise their terms of service to allow for genital exposure before they will do business with you. Soon the same thing will be permissible in the girls locker room in junior high school if the left has its way. Maybe the rules will be that it’s permitted unless it’s standing up and a standing up monitor will be stationed in every girls locker room. A ruler will be forcefully applied for noncompliance. Would you be surprised?
What does a Tranny dress up as on Halloween? I grew up in a house with a mother and 4 sisters. We didn’t have a lot of money. So every year at Halloween I would pick something out of their closets to wear to go trick or treating. Today, it’s Halloween year round. Whether it’s the Walking Dead, Satanists, Trannies, etc. we have actual “costumed” characters living out their fantasies as a “protected class”.
I’d wager that the only people that truly believe in this lunacy are the actual lunatics. Everyone else supporting them do so primarily as a political weapon against conservatives.
That’s what you get for complaining when a guy slings his member around in a girls locker room. It most be hate when you don’t appreciate viewing his gonads as conscripted by the woke powers that be. I must be hateful because I hate the thought of it.
Not to mention the temerity of actually complaining that high school guys are cheating their female classmates out of prizes and college scholarships that are reserved for the best female athletes.
TiT,
Right.
And have the temerity to “feel” unsafe to the point of using the janitor’s closet to change.
Whatever happened to defending a woman from feeling unsafe?
No. It is better to force them into the new confines of wokeness. To force them into taking second place. To force them to lose awards, scholarships all in the name of wokeness.
In the last 15 years I have gone through many different periods of emotional roller coasters about this country.. Anger, apathy, rabid involvement in politics…but with each of these cycles, I get more and more apathetic about the future of this country. I am 67 and am just getting to feel like I am so happy I am at this age, so maybe I can be spared from seeing the last nail go on the coffin. You have to hand it to the left…they are patient, dilligent and laser focused on their mission to tear this country down. And they are winning.
I absolutely agree with you. It is a total roller coaster of feelings. It is astounding to me the people that hate this country by wanting us to be a communist, fascist, marxist country. It makes you wonder if this idea of a perfect union is truly a failure.
The cog towards socialism only goes one way.
GoFundMe accounts were used successfully by DAPL oil pipeline protesters in North Dakota. Ring leaders raked in about $46 million, never to be seen or heard from again.
I don’t know who Eventbrite is. But now I’m going to look them up and be better informed about the issue of the 1st Amendment, free speech, and the attempts to shut down free speech.
stock ticker shows they came out in 2019 at 34 usd IPO, peaked at 38 immediately and have slid down to 8 bucks now ever since
Turley: “It is important to allow views on both sides to be expressed if we have any hope for a national resolution of these questions.”
+++
This particular issue will resolve itself without endless yakking as even the most blockheaded leftist is forced to admit that allowing biological males to compete in women’s events will destroy women’s sports altogether.
Like it or not, you can’t help but notice who is winning these events by a wide margin. It’s pretty much a case of Women Need Not Bother; You Don’t Have a Chance. Maybe men really are better at everything.
I am impressed with how even the most ridiculous and conta-factual delusion can lodge in the public mind and resist correction. But then there are still people who believe that the Earth is flat and that Biden/Obama was the best president ever.
Riley Gaines spouts hate. It is quit reasonable for a private company to decline to do business with her.
Riley Gaines spouts hate.
What hate is Riley Gaines spouting? This should be a very easy question for you to answer. Cite the example(s) and we can discuss the reasonableness of Eventbrite canceling her.
No. She fights for women’s rights.
Turley is a private individual. He should permaban you for spewing hatred against Riley Gaines.
She hates cancer, murder, rape, and women being cheated out of prizes and scholarships by men who couldn’t make it in men’s sports. So yes, in that sense, she does hate. She hates what’s evil, as all human being should.
I challenge you to provide one quote of Ms. Gaines “spouting hate.” One single quote. It is not spouting hate to advocate for the retention of the hard-earned (VERY hard-earned) place of women’s sports as such.
There has, of course, been a great deal of hate spouted at Ms. Gaines, along with assaults and other criminal actions (yes, it’s a crime to chase someone into a closet and refuse to allow them to leave while demanding “ransom”).
“Riley Gaines spouts hate.”
Do you have an argument? Or just more smears?
What’s wrong? Afraid to articulate an argument, because then it’ll be too clear that you’re (yet another) of Anon’s sockpuppets?
Fans of this site might want to check out “Real Time With Bill Maher”.
Maher opposes many WOKE policies but also describes himself as an “Old School Liberal” and a supporter of the Ira Glasser wing of the ACLU (the older version of the ACLU that minimized politics and sometimes defended Conservative plaintiffs).
Some of his guests have included recently Ron DeSantis (Republican primary candidate), writers from the Libertarian site “Reason.com” and liberal guests as well.
Maybe the most honest reporting out there today! It’s a great weekly show to watch.
I wanted to identify my children as African American when they were born. (we a as white as it gets). Wife wouldn’t listen to me. But the kids are climbing the corporate ladder now, getting passed over in the name of diversity. Sad.
We raised our kids telling them they could be anything they wanted. We didn’t lie intentionally, but we did not tell the truth.
Eventually we are going to be forced to quit putting people in boxes.
Diversity is our strength, nazis are evil.
I wish that I used this company so I could stop using this company.
The same folks that demand that Jack make a specific cake have no issue with a company banning a person due to her own views.
-Ask the leftists that demand the cake maker create something that he abhors if we could make Barbra Steisand sing at Trump’s inaugural ball. She is a singer, she performs for the Clintons and therefore she should be forced to perform for anyone else that demands her.
-Ask the Muslim guy to make a cake with an Israeli flag on it.
-Make the Muslim baker create a cake with Mohammed on it.
– Make the gay trans couple create a cake celebrating a detransitioning.
-Make college kids study actual history.
All things that will never happen.
Thank you Dr. Turley for keeping us apprised of the organizations which are the enemies of free speech.
Apparently they are the enemies of real women as well.
These are their rules,
“16.3 Content Rules and Guidelines.
Your Content must comply with our rules and guidelines.
1. Your Content must be accurate and truthful. We reserve the right to remove Your Content from the Services if we believe that Your Content or Your Eventbrite Events violate these Terms, our Community Guidelines, or for any other reason. ”
https://www.eventbrite.com/help/en-us/articles/251210/eventbrite-terms-of-service/
If you sign and agree to their terms then you have essentially given away certain rights. That’s why it’s essential to read AND understand the terms you agree to.
“If you sign and agree to their terms then you have essentially given away certain rights. “
Signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean that whatever they say is part of a legal contract. If they said they could cut your genitals off if you signed on the bottom line, should you lose your genitals?
You might be able to find a federal judge who would enforce such a clause, esp in the DC Circuit.
No, their terms and conditions require any legal action be thru arbitration in a specific state.
🙂
“Signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean that whatever they say is part of a legal contract. ”
Yes it’s a legal contract. It’s their terms and conditions and by signing you agree to them. If you take them to court they will ask “did you agree to their terms and conditions? You say “no” the then you are committing perjury.
If you don’t agree with everything they say….don’t sign. Simple and direct.
You think you are a legal expert but you prove to be a legal dummy. Do not trust any anonymous commenter on the law
Look up contracts of adhesion as one example. Entire contract have been struck down.
Contracts are always favorable to the ones making it. You’re no expert, but the law is pretty clear on what constitutes an agreement.
If you sign it and it explicitly says that you have read and understood the terms and conditions legally there’s not much you can do about it after you sign. You’re legally saying you read and understood everything in that contract or agreement. Since most people don’t read or understand what they agreed to when signing such contracts it’s their responsibility once they sign.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You do not have real-world experience, and you know very little. What you do know is hampered by your delusions. Get some experience.
“Contracts are always favorable to the ones making it.”
You base your comment on your lack of experience and naivete.
When a contract’s interpretation is unclear, the judge will favor the party who didn’t write it.
Go back to the moron’s blog.
Gender and pronoun lunacy has reached a new low. We’ve gone from being expected to accept other people’s gender confusion, dysphoria or fetish to now being required to support, enable and celebrate it.
We should not be expected or required to deny history, culture, science, judgment and common sense to make others feel comfortable in their delusions. We are told that it’s no big deal to use pronouns to make others feel included, but then it doesn’t end there. Once you agree to call a man – pretending to be a women – a women, you are then expected to allow him access to female spaces and opportunities. Further, pronoun lunacy includes literally dozens of possibilities, including the pronoun “fuzzy” who are people who believe they are animals.
We are also now expected to accept phrases like biological male, and transgender female – as just examples of the lunacy. This just expands the lunacy into being asked to accept the ideas that there are different types of men and women – when there are clearly are not.
The answer – and only answer – is to refuse to participate in gender and pronoun lunacy. It’s a slippery slope, and a gateway drug, to what we’re now seeing, and one can not imagine where we go from here.
It’s now time to stop playing the game demanded by considerably less than one percent of the population.
Liked, but you are out of date. It is no longer acceptable to refer to biological males and/or transgender females – they are now to be given full (fake) status as members of the sex they are not.
You know men can get pregnant, right?.. right? Seriously, right?
Show me evidence of a biological male who has conceived a child. Show me evidence of a biological male who has been vaginally raped (one who has a God-made vagina, not a lab-created fake).
Seriously? Seriously? Yeah, riiiiight.