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Hear The Roar: BetMGM Brand Continues Rapid Growth In NJ Online Gambling – Play NJ

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Once upon a time, BetMGM was PlayMGM and the New Jersey online gambling market was much smaller and simpler.

But with the advent of legal online sports betting in New Jersey, the competition and the market expanded. There are, at last count, 29 brands hosting 49 total gambling sites.

Its perhaps not the best time to change things up, but thats just what BetMGM did in 2019.

Last year at this time, we were preparing for the launch of BetMGM in New Jersey, said Adam Greenblatt, CEO of Roar Digital, the company behind BetMGMs new look. That launch coincided with the introduction of our new digital technology.

Now, the BetMGM brand is rapidly expanding across the country. Its making moves in the West and Midwest and has sportsbook apps up and running in Colorado, West Virginia, and Indiana.

But it got its start in New Jersey.

Roar Digital, the joint venture of MGM Resorts InternationalandGVC Holdings, is pleased with the results so far. Standing idly by and watching the competition do its thing, however, is not part of the plans.

In an interview with Play NJ, Greenblatt summed up the past in two words: pretty phenomenal. The future looks similarly bright.

On Sept. 5, 2019, Roar unveiled the product upgrade for the BetMGM sportsbook and Borgata Sports apps. Both operate under the MGM-owned Borgata.

But BetMGM isnt just a sports betting brand. There is BetMGM online casino and BetMGM poker, too

And going live with a new look and a new platform in New Jersey was the first phase of a much bigger national plan.

The BetMGM sportsbook has gone live in four states total, with additional markets on the radar. The NJ timing coincided with the start of the 2019-20 NFL betting season. And as Greenblatt likes to say, weve had a busy old time focusing on different aspects of the business.

The busy list includes:

The original PlayMGM online casino and poker app launched in 2017. For Greenblatt, launching in New Jersey before the other markets has its advantages. For one, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, in terms of its expertise and sophistication, is probably ahead of most jurisdictions.

The DGE, according to Greenblatt, is probably the leading jurisdiction when it comes to digital and online gambling.

Having got product through the DGE and live in New Jersey, thats helpful to us, to point to and use as a reference point when we go to other states for licensing and for product approvals, said Greenblatt.

You cut your teeth in Jersey and then roll out in other states.

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Like other operators, BetMGM has little to complain about when it comes to Julys NJ sports betting results. The market as a whole combined for $315 million in total bets.

The return of the MLB, theNBA, andNHLafter a 100-plus day shutdown certainly helps. The global pandemic pushed sports to the sidelines way back in March.

And Borgata was one of the big beneficiaries with just shy of $3 millionin total sports revenue. That was good enough for third-best in the market, right behind Meadowlands and Resorts.

The majority, or $2.3 million of it, came via the BetMGM Sportsbook and Borgata Sports apps.

And its looking more and more likely Borgata will soar past $10 million in revenue for the year. The number currently sits at $8.9 million.

Greenblatt is really liking what he sees.

I mean, we are hoping now, in the NBA playoffs, well see a few more upsets to keep fans engaged in the latter part of the playoff series, said Greenblatt. But its been superb for us.

He pointed out the week-on-week increase in the number of active players in bet count along with a higher degree of engagement.

And with the 2020 NFL season kicking off onSept. 10, the outlook is looking even more promising,

When Atlantic City casinos were forced to close back in March as a result of the global pandemic, gamblers took their play to NJ online casinos.

As a result, NJ online casino revenue set several new all-time highs from April to June.

Now, heres the interesting part. The majority of AC properties started welcoming back guestsJuly 2and3, granted at 25% capacity.

Borgata, for its part, waited until July 26 to hold its reopening.

Even so, instead of taking a step back, the NJ online casino business prospered with an all-time monthly high of $87.4 million.

Whether players got accustomed to gambling at home or just decided not to return to AC, the license holders online business did not take a step back. Borgata reported $15 million in total revenue, good enough for a 17.5% market share. Borgata and its online brands now sit right behind the online juggernauts of Golden Nugget AC and Resorts Digital in terms of revenue and market share.

BetMGM is one of four brands contributing to Borgatas online casino result. The others are:

Greenblatt is quick to point out that 25% capacity limits and indoor dining prohibitions at AC casinos have to be taken into account. Then there is the uncertainly regarding the COVID-19 situation. Those two factors play a role in how well online casinos are doing now compared to how well they will do a year from now.

At the same time, he is optimistic about what the future holds.

Frankly, I have great confidence in the resilience of that digital gaming product, and what weve also seen [from] new players, said Greenblatt.

In his view, the growth of BetMGM online casino just means customers are starting to enjoy the online product even more. And that growth will work in tandem with the retail experience.

The BetMGM brand has come a long way over the last 12 months. And things will not be slowing down anytime soon.

There is a fall launch target for the BetMGM online casino in neighboring Pennsylvania. And for 2021, theOhio,Massachusetts,Iowa, andVirginiasports betting markets are all on the radar.

Greenblatt sums up the business plans by saying were certainly not sitting on our hands.

And as far as New Jersey goes, increasing market share is part of those plans.

FanDuel andDraftKingsare the kings of the NJ sports betting land, but BetMGM is focusing on future growth. Greenblatt noted in mature sports betting markets, most players will have an average of two to three betting apps on their phones.

So we are still seeing a little bit of early market stickiness at this point, said Greenblatt.

He used the words fairly measured in reference to New Jersey growth.

Our product has improved dramatically to the point where I think we offer a differentiated and competitive sports product. And with brand credibility, I think that bodes well for us to make incremental and sequential gains against FanDuel snd DraftKings in sports in New Jersey.

But he doesnt want to set an expectation that the current market shares will shift suddenly in BetMGMs favor. Far from it.

More progressive in our favor, is how Greenblatt sees things playing out

And just think about this: From 2017 to 2019 and now 2020, BetMGM has come a long way. And look where its headed.

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Hear The Roar: BetMGM Brand Continues Rapid Growth In NJ Online Gambling - Play NJ

Healthcare, Gambling, Finance: Study shows top industries that had the most effective Instagram influencer-marketing campaigns in the last quarter -…

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

The COVID-19 pandemic affected almost all the industries from every vertical. Many brands had to cut down their budgets on advertisements and influencer-marketing saw a drastic fall because of production and cost issues. However, since July 2020, Influencer-marketing seems to have rebound to some extent.

Socialbakers is a social media marketing company, and recently, it has issued some data that reveals the top ten industries that had the most efficient influencer-marketing campaigns amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the data (first shared by BI) that was collected from more than 8000 brands, the efficiency of partnerships between brands and influencers on Instagram was analyzed from April till July 2020. Socialbakers define efficiency as the difference between the engagement of an influencers sponsored post for the brand and the average engagement of that brands Instagram content (on its own, without an influencer.)

The efficiency index of 1.00 or more is considered as a successful brand-influencer partnership. Socialbakers report suggests that during this period, the highest efficiency index of 4.99 was calculated for the healthcare industry.

Fast Moving Consumers Goods (FMCG) - The food industry had an efficiency index of 2.55, Household goods had an index of 2.46, and it was followed by Gambling with an index of 2.30. The finance sector saw the efficiency index at 2.29, the Telecom industrys index was 2.28, Home and living at 1.67, Retail industry was at 1.63, the Beauty sectors index was at 1.62, and FMCG Corporate was at 1.60.

On the other hand, the industries that had the lowest efficiency index in influencer-marketing campaigns includeAirlines with the lowest index of 0.08, Auto industry at 0.35, Sporting goods with an efficiency index of 0.43, Retail food industry at 0.59, the Travel industry at 0.73, Software sector at 0.76, Industrial at 0.78, Fashion industry at 0.80, Services at 0.89, and Accommodation industry at 0.97.

In the last few months, it has been noticed that brands have started hiring influencers again for their campaigns and sponsored posts. Although many industries are still not fully functioning or have a lot of restrictions and limitations like Travel and Tourism, still, it seems that things are getting back towards some normalcy.

However, it looks like it is going to take some more time for everything to revive completely. All the industries need some more time to thrive again after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Illustration: Freepik

Read next: Customer Journey Mapping: How Consumers Are Finding New Products and Services

Healthcare, Gambling, Finance: Study shows top industries that had the most effective Instagram influencer-marketing campaigns in the last quarter -...

Global Online Gambling Market 2020 includes Attractiveness and Raw Material Analysis and Competitor Position Grid Analysis to 2027 – Reported Times

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Aug 25, 2020 2:58 AM ET iCrowd Newswire Aug 25, 2020

Fior Markets has come with the titleGlobal Online Gambling Market Regions, Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2020 to 2027presents industry states and prognosis for 2020 to 2027 time period. The report covers various aspects corresponding to the global and regional markets in a detailed chapter-wise format. The report contains a globalOnline Gamblingmarket overview with regard to the historic and current scenario with regard to the historic and current scenario as well as market analysis by kind, applications, and areas. The report sheds light on classifications of the market such as product types, applications, key regions, top manufacturers, and various other segments. The research demonstrates insights into the market share and size of key segments along with the forecast period and analyzes the factors that lead to the emerging demand for products/services in key regions.

NOTE: Our analysts monitoring the situation across the globe explains that the market will generate remunerative prospects for producers post COVID-19 crisis. The report aims to provide an additional illustration of the latest scenario, economic slowdown, and COVID-19 impact on the overall industry.

DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE REPORT:https://www.fiormarkets.com/report-detail/418131/request-sample

The Report Covers The Following Data Points:

The report offers a thorough analysis of the globalOnline Gamblingmarket based on product portfolio, applications, price, production processes. Then, market dynamics such as the chances, market risk, and key driving forces are highlighted in the report. Top key players have been aggregated on the basis of various aspects such as productivity and manufacturing base. The overall report explores the competitive landscape, segmentation, geographical expansion, and revenue, production, and consumption growth of the global market. The research document covers an overview of the cost structure of products available on the market and their manufacturing chain.

Major market players present in the market and profiled in the report are:Bet365 Group Ltd., William Hill PLC, Paddy Power Betfair PLC, Ladbrokes Coral Group PLC, Betsson AB, 888 Holdings PLC, The Stars Group Inc., Sky Betting and Gaming, GVC Holdings PLC, and Kindred Group PLC.

What Is The Regional Coverage of The Report?

The research study covers all big geographical, as well as, sub-regions throughout the world. The report focuses on market size, value, product sales, and opportunities for growth in these regions. Each of these regions is analyzed on the basis of market findings across major countries in these regions for an understanding of theOnline Gamblingmarket. The Key regions are extensively analyzed with respect to every parameter of the geographies in question, comprising,North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and the Middle East and Africa.

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Moreover, the report displays well-defined SWOT estimation, revenue proportion, and speaks to information. The record analysis document covers an overview of the cost structure of products available on the market and their manufacturing chain. The report also contains data regarding producers and distributors, downstream buyers, and the cost structure of manufacturing the globalOnline Gamblingmarket. Additionally, insights into market experts opinions have been taken to understand the market better. A thorough evaluation of the restrains included in the report portrays the variation to drivers and gives room for strategic planning.

BROWSE COMPLETE REPORT AND TABLE OF CONTENTS:https://www.fiormarkets.com/report/online-gambling-market-by-type-sports-betting-casinos-418131.html

About the report:The globalOnline Gamblingmarket is analyzed on the basis of value (USD Billion), volume (K Units), export (K Units), and import (K Units). All the segments have been analyzed on global, regional and country basis. The study includes an analysis of more than 30 countries for each segment. The report offers in-depth analysis of driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining the key insight of the market. The study includes porters five forces model, attractiveness analysis, raw material analysis, and competitor position grid analysis.

Customization of the Report:The report can be customized as per client requirements. For further queries, you can contact us on[emailprotected]or +1-201-465-4211. Our executives will be pleased to understand your requirements and offer you the best-suited reports.

Contact UsMark StonePhone:+1-201-465-4211Email:[emailprotected]Web:www.fiormarkets.com

This content has been distributed via CDN Newswire press release distribution service. For press release enquires please mail us at [emailprotected].

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Global Online Gambling Market 2020 includes Attractiveness and Raw Material Analysis and Competitor Position Grid Analysis to 2027 - Reported Times

5 of the best gambling apps to play real money poker games – European Gaming Industry News

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Online poker is one of the most popular games in the world, appealing to everyone from casual beginners on a budget to serious professionals playing for thousands each hand. It is therefore no surprise that there are numerous online platforms and mobile apps all attempting to attract the millions of poker players.

However, some poker websites and apps are much better than others, so if you are looking to join a new platform, here are five that are definitely worth considering.

Where better place to start than the worlds largest poker site? PokerStars apps for Android and iOs function every bit as good as the desktop equivalent. Players have the options of cash games, tournaments, sit-and-gos, lottery-style spin-and-gos, and Zoom Poker, which allows you to play in a private room with your invited friends.

PokerStars have strived to improve the player experience in recent years and now offer personalized avatars, a large selection of table designs, preset bets, a search feature, a chat feature, and the ability to play quick hands. There is also a web cashier to make quick deposits.

Android and iOS of iPhone users can play up to four tables simultaneously, while iPad users can play up to five tables.

Given PokerStars global reach, you will need to download the app that is relevant to your location: if youre in mainland Europe, then download PokerstarsEU, and UK-based players need PokerStarsUK.

Partypoker has invested plenty of time and money in revamping the app in recent years, and the result has been one of the best apps in the poker industry.

Among its many great features include a new portrait layout so you can play with one hand; a new lobby to find all the games within the app, which can be filtered according to personal preferences; a new interactive chat; and Diamonds partypokers in-game currency which can be used to access special features within the app.

Partypoker also offers one of the best multi-table experiences as well as a hand-replayer function, which is a great feature to help players refine their strategies.

With its many player-friendly features and range of games, partypoker has created one of the best gambling apps in the business.

Part of gambling giant 888 Holdings which also includes 888 Casino and 888 Sport, 888 Poker remains at the forefront of the online poker world thanks in large part to its excellent and popular mobile app.

The lobby is intuitive and easy to navigate, while players have the option to choose from a number of preset avatars. 888 Pokers app also has a bet slider, quick seat option, a chat feature, a web cashier, and large action buttons to reduce the risk of costly mistakes being made by a slip of the thumb.

888 Poker is the platform and app of choice for thousands of casual and professional players and as such the company hosts numerous online tournaments that can be played through the mobile app.

As the official online poker platform for the World Series of Poker, you better believe that GGPoker has one of the best apps in the business. If its a good enough platform for Daniel Negreanu, Bryn Kenney, and Felipe Ramos, then its good enough for the rest of us!

That being said, you dont have to be a professional chasing hundreds of thousands of dollars to enjoy the many benefits of the GGPoker app and site. The app has a social media function that allows you to upload any moments you want directly to your social accounts.

The multi-table experience has been refined and simplified with a swiping feature, so you can now play up to four tables at one time and switch between those tables with a simple swipe of your device.

With lots of games, a slick interface, and the choice of some of the top pros, GGPoker is undoubtedly one of the best poker apps around.

For casual players more interested in less serious and lower stakes games, Unibet Poker has a great app and a thriving poker community.

There are more than 100 preset avatars to choose from, plenty of cash games, multi-table tournaments, daily promotions, and access to lots of other casino games beyond poker.

Beginners and players who may be intimidated by competitive sites like GGPoker and partypoker, then Unibet Poker offers a great alternative.

How WeChat Censored the Coronavirus Pandemic – WIRED

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

When the novel coronavirus was first discovered in China last winter, the country responded aggressively, placing tens of millions of people into strict lockdown. As Covid-19 spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, the Chinese government was just as forceful in controlling how the health crisis was portrayed and discussed among its own people.

Politically sensitive material, like references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, have long been forbidden on Chinas highly censored internet, but researchers at the University of Torontos Citizen Lab say these efforts reached a new level during the pandemic. The blunt range of censored content goes beyond what we expected, including general health information such as the fact [that] the virus spreads from human contact, says Masashi Crete-Nishihata, the associate director of Citizen Lab, a research group that focuses on technology and human rights.

Citizen Lab's latest report, published earlier this week, finds that between January and May this year, more than 2,000 keywords related to the pandemic were suppressed on the Chinese messaging platform WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users in the country. Many of the censored terms referenced events and organizations in the United States.

Unlike in the US, internet platforms in China are responsible for carrying out the governments censorship orders and can be held liable for what their users post. Tencent, which owns WeChat, did not comment in time for publication. WeChat blocks content via a remote server, meaning its not possible for research groups like Citizen Lab to study censorship on the app by looking at its code. We can send messages through the server and see if they are received or not, but we can't see inside of it, so the exact censorship rules are a bit of a mystery, Crete-Nishihata says.

For its latest report, Citizen Lab sent text copied from Chinese-language news articles to a group chat it created on WeChat with three dummy accounts, one registered to a mainland Chinese phone number and two registered to Canadian phone numbers. They used articles from a range of outlets, including some based in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as Chinese state-controlled publications. If a message was blocked, the researchers performed further tests to identify which words triggered the censorship. Some of the blocked messages had originally been published by Chinese state media. In other words, while a person or topic may be freely discussed in the government-controlled press, its still banned on WeChat.

Read all of our coronavirus coverage here.

The Citizen Lab report demonstrates the extent to which the Chinese government tried to control the narrative from the beginning. As residents in Wuhan remained in lockdown, WeChat blocked phrases about Li Wenliang, a local doctor who warned colleagues about a new infectious disease before it was disclosed by the government, and who became a popular hero for free speech after he died of Covid-19 in February. WeChat also blocked its users from discussing an announcement by Chinese officials that they had informed the US government about the pandemic for the first time on January 3, almost three weeks before they said anything to their own citizens. And it censored mentions of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when the organization was coupled with the word coronavirus.

By March, Covid-19 had become a global pandemic, and WeChat began blocking some mentions of international groups like the World Health Organization and the Red Cross. It also censored references to outbreaks in other countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Citizen Lab found that the majority of blocked words related to international relations were about the United States, the subject of the third portion of the report.

Voter Advocacy Orgs Sue Trump Administration for Executive Order Threatening Social Media Censorship – EFF

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

San Francisco The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined forces with Protect Democracy and Cooley LLP to represent five advocacy organizations suing President Trump and others in his administration for an unconstitutional executive order threatening their ability to receive accurate information free from government censorship. The plaintiffs are Common Cause, Free Press, Maplight, Rock the Vote, and Voto Latino.

Our clients want to make sure that voting information found online is accurate, and they want social media companies to take proactive steps against misinformation, said David Greene, EFF's Civil Liberties Director. Social media platforms have the right to curate content however they likewhether it is about voting or notbut President Trumps executive order punishes platforms for doing just that. Misusing an Executive Order to force companies to censor themselves or others is wrong and dangerous in the hands of any president. Here its a transparent attempt to retaliate against Twitter for fact-checking the presidents posts, as well as an obvious threat to any other company that might want to do the same.

Trump signed the Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship in May, after a well-publicized fight with Twitter. First, the president tweeted false claims about the reliability of online voting, and then Twitter decided to append a link to get the facts about mail-in ballots. Days later, Trump signed the order, which tasks government agencies with concocting a process for deciding whether any platforms decision to moderate user-generated content was done with good faith. If found to be in bad faith, the order then asks for social media companies to lose millions of dollars in government advertising, as well as their legal protections under Section 230. Section 230 is the law that allows online serviceslike Twitter, Facebook, and othersto host and moderate diverse forums of users speech without being liable for their users content.

In the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California today, the plaintiffs argue that the executive order is designed to chill social media companies from moderating the presidents content in a way that he doesnt likeparticularly correcting his false statements about elections. In fact, since the order, Trump has tweeted multiple falsehoods about voting without any flagging by Twitter.

Voters have a constitutional right to receive accurate information about voting alternatives without government interference, especially from a self-interested president who is lying to gain an advantage in the upcoming election. So when Trump retaliates against private social media companies for fact-checking his lies, its not only a First Amendment violationits the kind of behavior youd expect to see from a dictator, said Kristy Parker, counsel with Protect Democracy. In the midst of a global pandemic, when far more voters than usual may opt to vote by mail to protect their personal health, the presidents authoritarian actions are especially egregious.

We joined this cause to protect voters access to accurate information about voting during the pandemic, free from unconstitutional governmental meddling that is being done to advance a particular political viewpoint, said Michael Rhodes, who chairs Cooleys global cyber/data/privacy and Internet practices. We want all voters to be able to make informed and independent political choices and that requires protecting online platforms ability to curate information without fear of reprisal from the federal government.

For the full complaint in Rock the Vote et al. v. Trump:https://www.eff.org/document/rock-vote-v-trump

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Voter Advocacy Orgs Sue Trump Administration for Executive Order Threatening Social Media Censorship - EFF

Kuwait relaxes book censorship laws after banning thousands of titles – The Guardian

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

After banning almost 5,000 books in the last seven years, Kuwaits government has relaxed its book censorship laws in a move that has been welcomed by writers and free speech activists.

Kuwaiti state media reported that the countrys parliament had voted 40 to nine in favour of lifting the Ministry of Informations control over books imported into the country. Previously, the ministry had blacklisted more than 4,000 books since 2014, with titles including Victor Hugos The Hunchback of Notre Dame and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez falling foul of its censorship committee. All books published in the country had to receive prior approval from a 12-member committee that met twice a month before they could be released, with offences ranging from insulting Islam to inciting unrest and committing immoral acts.

The new rules mean importers and publishers will only have to provide the Ministry of Information with book titles and author names, with the importer alone bearing responsibility for the books contents. According to the National, only an official complaint from the public will spark legal action against a book, with a ban only to be implemented by the courts, rather than the Ministry of Information.

The International Publishers Association said the ruling put an end to the mandate of the Kuwaiti book censorship committee.

Congratulations to those in Kuwait who have successfully encouraged this change in favour of the freedom to publish, said the chair of the IPAs freedom to publish committee, Kristenn Einarsson. This is an important step forward and I hope that more positive changes will follow.

Kuwaiti-American author Layla AlAmmar told the Guardian that the change was a major and positive step in the right direction.

Abolishing the committee is a major accomplishment that is worthy of celebration, and the credit for it rightly goes to writers and activists like Bothayna al-Essa and Abdullah al-Khonaini, who lobbied tirelessly for this cause, she said.

AlAmmar said that, in the nearly 15 years that the committee was in place, almost 5,000 books were banned in a largely arbitrary fashion and that the law had throttled an already fledgling publishing industry and market where piracy is rampant.

Campaigners have both welcomed the news and shared reservations. The Ministry of Information is no longer the judge when it comes to books and I believe this is a most important achievement, Essa told Gulf News. We will continue to work towards achieving greater freedoms.

But Khonaini said: The freedom of expression is already restricted in Kuwait on multiple levels. This law doesnt fix it. The amendment shifts the power of censorship away from the executive branch to the judicial branch. We still need to work on the prohibition section in the law, which needs a stronger political lobby and mature political and societal awareness.

AlAmmar pointed to the case of International prize for Arabic fiction winner Saud al-Sanousi, who went to court to get a ban on his book annulled. It remains unclear what the fate of the banned books is: does the ban automatically lift? Must they pass through some other authorising committee or bureaucratic procedure before their sale is allowed? None of this has been addressed, she said.

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Kuwait relaxes book censorship laws after banning thousands of titles - The Guardian

Buffy’s Amber Benson on censorship, the musical, and Tara’s death – digitalspy.com

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Rainbow Crew is an ongoing interview series which celebrates the best LGBTQ+ representation on TV. Each instalment showcases talent working on both sides of the camera, including queer creatives and allies to the community.

Next up, we're speaking to Amber Benson about her game-changing role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

That's true for more reasons than I could ever list here, but when Buffy said this to Dawn, younger me also found these words strangely comforting. Being a teenager is never easy, no matter who you are, or where you come from, but it's safe to say that all the loneliness everyone feels is amplified even more when you're queer. And hearing someone else acknowledge that on screen shifted something inside of me.

Buffy didn't choose to be a Slayer, just like I didn't choose to be gay, but there's a strength to be drawn from being different and embracing what makes you special. Of course, that's easier said than done. For the longest time, I fought to deny this part of myself with even more strength than Buffy battling another apocalypse.

But then something magical happened. A new character called Tara Maclay appeared on the show and for perhaps the first time ever, I saw my own shy, queer insecurities reflected directly back at me on screen.

Looking back at her first day, Amber Benson recalls walking onto the 'Hush' set in season four and coming across the Gentlemen on wheeled platforms:

"Someone was pulling them, and they just couldn't get it to work right. So for two hours, it was everyone trying to get the Gentlemen to float properly [laughs]. I was like, 'What have I walked into?'"

It's fitting that in an episode where people lost the power to speak, Tara's debut ended up giving a voice to countless queer viewers watching at home. As her role gradually became more prominent, this shy young character shifted the show and TV as a whole towards something more inclusive, and that was thanks in large part to her relationship with Willow.

Sure, there had been other LGBTQ+ romances on TV before, but it's safe to say seeing Tara and Willow fall in love saved more lives than even Buffy herself ever could. Almost twenty years on, Benson tells me that both she and co-star Alyson Hannigan "feel honoured" still by how fans react to their story:

"I'm so lucky," says Amber. "It's the thing I'm most proud of as an actor. I look back at Buffy, and I'm like: we did something that wasn't just television. I think that was a beautiful thing. I think it changed the landscape a bit."

"I look back at Buffy, and Im like: we did something that wasnt just television."

Before Willow fell under Tara's spell, TV was pretty much a full-on Hellmouth when it came to any kind of positive queer representation. Sure, some important strides were made in the '90s, but they often came at a cost.

Shows like Friends often reinforced cringeworthy stereotypes, and even when Ellen DeGeneres came out in her sitcom, the subsequent backlash led to its eventual cancellation. Readers who grew up during this time will recall that queer characters were even rarer in genre TV. Looking back, Xena and Gabrielle must have slipped a disc carrying the whole queer fantasy fandom on their shoulders.

And then Tara arrived. Just by proudly loving Willow on TV, Amber's character told fans that; "If you find somebody to love, it doesn't matter what your gender or sexual orientation is. If you find somebody, you're lucky. That's a beautiful, wonderful thing, and everyone should have that opportunity."

Back in the early noughties, it was still rare to see two women share this kind of affection on screen; "You just didn't see that." So while Tara and Willow's relationship was groundbreaking for a number of reasons, Benson admits the network was still "very, very wary" about showing the physicality of their love.

"Standards and practices were like, 'Hmmm. No. We don't want them touching. We don't want them kissing', which I always thought was kind of absurd, because you have a show where people are having sex on gravestones. Really? You can't have two women just holding hands? [laughs] I don't understand. It seems a little hypocritical there, guys?"

Benson and her co-star Alyson Hannigan were naturally both "very upset" about this. "We felt it was disrespectful to the relationship, how they were censoring things on the show." However, it's important to remember that Tara's relationship with Willow still made an impact regardless, just by virtue of existing:

"One of the guys in the art department came over to us, and he was gay. He was like, 'Look, in the grand scheme of things, yes, it would be awesome if you could show the physical aspects of the relationship. But what's important is that you guys are going into people's houses every week, and introducing them to a wonderful, loving relationship two people that just both happen to identify as female, who are together, and love each other. You're changing people's perceptions.'"

At a time when queer people were almost non-existent on screen, even a censored version of this relationship still mattered. Just ask 14-year-old me. And that made it even more special when the network did finally relent and start to show the physical aspects of Tara's love for Willow.

"To be in bed together, and to kiss, and to hold each other, and to hold hands. I think all of that was really important and really necessary."

"You have a show where people have sex on gravestones. You can't have two women just holding hands?"

As the relationship evolved, Tara grew too. Benson recalls how her character started out "very shy, very insecure," at first. "We really worked on portraying that in a physical way. She's almost holding herself. She was so hunched, and almost protecting herself. And by the end, she was standing straight, and her stammer had mostly gone away. She was very integrated into the Scooby Gang."

When Giles left in season six, Tara became "the moral centre of the group," and Benson thinks "that could only have happened because Tara took that journey from a shy, insecure person, to a loved human. The relationship changed her."

That's what real love does. It changes you for the better. But when you're a young queer kid living in a small town somewhere, it's easy to start thinking you'll never find love like that. Most queer storylines back then punished LGBTQ+ characters for daring to be themselves, or just neutered them completely.

And it's also worth noting that when Buffy first aired, stigmas surrounding AIDS were still prevalent, which led many queer teens to wonder if they would even survive long enough to experience the love they deserve. But by showing Tara and Willow physically enjoy their relationship on screen, it taught young people like myself that we too were worthy of love.

The best example of this can be found in 'Once More With Feeling', otherwise known as 'That wacky Broadway nightmare' or 'The Best Buffy Episode Of All Time'. As a now integral part of the Scooby Gang, Amber's character was given her own song called 'Under Your Spell' where she sang of how Willow's love helped set her free.

"I heard that song, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I got the best song on the whole album!'" Benson laughs. And for what it's worth, she's not wrong either. "I love everybody's songs, but my song is a magical, little song. People listen to that song at their wedding. They play that song when they walk down the aisle."

But what these couples might not realise is 'Under Your Spell' is also a rather "naughty song". Even over Zoom, it's clear how much Benson loves that aspect of the song, and she even sings a couple of these double entendres to me, like "Spread beneath my willow tree" and "You make me come plete".

Younger me would have lost his mind hearing Amber sing what was basically the soundtrack to my youth, and honestly, even now, I had trouble containing my excitement.

"You can't work with a group of people for three years, and not feel like they're your family."

However, it's also important to recognise how these little moments actually celebrated queer sex pre-watershed at a time when most TV shows failed to even acknowledge its existence.

Amber says filming the musical was her biggest highlight on the show, even if it was "probably the most intense thing" to shoot. And that's saying a lot given how Benson's time on Buffy came to an end.

Countless words have been written about Tara's death and perhaps even more tears have been shed since 'Seeing Red' first aired in 2002. Looking back on that episode, Benson remembers "everyone was very emotional" on set:

"We had a cake. It said 'RIP Tara'. There was a little gravestone. I cried. Sarah [Michelle Gellar] cried. My last stuff was with Sarah. It was very, very emotional. You can't work with a group of people for three years, and not feel like they're your family."

For many watching back home, Tara was their "family" too, which is why fans were so devastated by how her story came to an end. As traumatised viewers might recall, Tara was killed by a stray bullet just after she and Willow had finally got back together, cutting their reconciliation short.

Outrage ensued amidst a wave of frustration and sadness. Not only did fans love the character dearly, but many felt that Tara's death was actually some form of punishment because of the queer love scene that preceded it.

Executive producer Marti Noxon has since expressed regret over Tara's demise, but to this day, her death is still referred to as a quintessential example of the 'Bury Your Gays' trope.

Speaking about the moment she found out Tara's fate, Benson remembers Joss Whedon taking her aside while filming season five's finale:

"He was like, 'Hey! Guess what? It's so exciting! We're going to kill your character!'"

"I was like, 'Oh oh, yes. That sounds awesome yeah.'" [laughs]

However, as time went on, it became clear that Whedon's excitement for this might have faded somewhat. Amber tells us that Joss "kept putting it off," and in fact, Tara's death was actually supposed to happen at the beginning of season six.

"I truly believe that if he'd understood the impact of Tara's death, Joss would never have done it."

"He just kept pushing it further back. It kept getting pushed further and further down the line [laughs]. I think there was a part of him that didnt really want to do it."

But what does Amber think about it all now? No-one was affected by this decision more than Benson herself, but she doesn't bear any ill will towards Joss and the writing team. In fact, Amber even defends their choices, although she believes hindsight would have helped them "find a different way to deal with Tara's death".

"I feel like Joss did such a beautiful job with her," says Benson. "I truly believe that if he had understood the impact of Tara's death, Joss would never have done it that way. He's not vindictive or hurtful."

According to Amber, Joss was looking at this decision "from a story point of view", planning Tara's fate to support Willow's addiction storyline:

"How do we get Willow to become dark Willow? Well, she has to lose the most important thing in her life. It's her lover, her person... What Joss was trying to do was really impactful and beautiful. I just think how it happened was a little intense, and there could have been a better way had we all had a conversation about it."

Despite there being a general "lack of thoughtfulness" on TV back then, Amber maintains that the intention was never to "screw" with people. "If we were doing this now, I guarantee you, Joss would be super-aware of the conversation around 'Bury Your Gays'."

Since leaving Buffy, Benson has become a prolific writer with multiple books to her name. One story in particular, The Witches of Echo Park, may even follow in Buffy's footsteps and make the move to TV. A pilot has already been written, and Amber plans to work behind the scenes as showrunner alongside her friend Mo Perkins.

Given her success as an author, I was keen to know if Amber would have handled Tara's story differently if she'd been involved in the writers' room all those years ago.

"I understood why it needed to happen," Benson reflects. "And looking back, there was probably a better way to do it. A way to maybe not kill her. Maybe sending her to another universe. Who knows? There's all kinds of ways to get rid of somebody for a while."

"We could talk all we want about Tara's death, but the fact she existed transcends all that."

Amber jokes that "Buffy's died like five times," so it would have been easy to 'kill' Tara without really killing her. While there was some talk of bringing her character back in the final season, Benson says the dates conflicted with another job, and in hindsight, she feels that this was for the best.

Joss planned for The First to take Tara's form, torturing the friends she left behind on Earth, but Amber didn't want her character to return as a villain. "I think that would have been hard for people... If the show had gone on, we could have gone a different way to bring her back. Kind of like what they did in the comics. I thought that was really lovely."

These comic book cameos were mostly flashbacks, but Amber has a perfect idea for how Tara's life could have continued if she'd survived:

"I picture her being a very cosy lady. I think she would be that mum that was very invested in Dawn. Like, 'Whats going on with Dawn? Dawn's moving to Los Angeles to go to UCLA? Guess what, Willow? We're moving to Los Angeles, so we can be near Dawn!'"

"She'd be that kind of mum. She'd totally be into macram, probably with a scrapbook."

Despite everything that's happened, it's comforting to imagine Tara living out the rest of her days in domestic bliss. After all, "We could talk all we want about Tara's death, and how awful it was, but the fact that she existed, that that relationship existed, transcends all of that."

And Amber's right. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it, but characters like Tara and Willow help make life a little bit easier to bear, especially for young queer people who might feel alone and unseen. Buffy was a hero we can all aspire to be, but so was Tara. In her own way, she saved the world too.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is currently available to stream or download on Amazon Prime Video. It's also currently available via All 4 in the UK.

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Kuwait eases censorship laws after banning 5000 titles in last 7 years – The Indian Express

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

By: Lifestyle Desk | New Delhi | Published: August 26, 2020 6:24:56 pmAuthors have welcomed this decision. (Representational image)

According to a report in The Guardian, the Kuwait government has become more lenient with its censorship laws pertaining to books. This comes after it banned almost 5,000 books in the last seven years. The report further states that the countrys parliament voted in favour of Ministry of Information exercising no control over imported books. The same report further states that under the new rules, publishers need to give book titles and names of authors to the Ministry. In the past, books like One Hundred Years of Solitude, Hunchback of Notre Dame were banned.

Congratulations to those in Kuwait who have successfully encouraged this change in favour of the freedom to publish, Kristenn Einarsson, the chair of the International Publishers Associations freedom to publish committee was quoted as saying.

The freedom of expression is already restricted in Kuwait on multiple levels. This law doesnt fix it. The amendment shifts the power of censorship away from the executive branch to the judicial branch. We still need to work on the prohibition section in the law, which needs a stronger political lobby and mature political and societal awareness, Khonaini said.

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Kuwait eases censorship laws after banning 5000 titles in last 7 years - The Indian Express

Film and Publications Amendment Act: Protecting, not censoring, our citizens in the digital age – Daily Maverick

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

(Image: Adobestock)

Human beings are innately wired for progress. It is in our evolutionary DNA. History has shown that, often, much is sacrificed in the name of advancement.

At the start of the Second Industrial Revolution, few would have predicted that the burning of fossil fuels would have such deleterious effects on our environment. Through lobbying the global world, via policy summits, 13,000 scientists explicitly called for bold and drastic transformations inclusive of economic and population policies. These policies led to legislative change, resulting in enormous positive effects that just may save the world we live in.

Enter the digital revolution with its interesting dynamic, pitting the hard-won right to freedom of speech against the imperative for social cohesion and the protection of personal dignity the age-old debate in democratic nations around balancing rights and responsibilities.

The penetration of new technologies and the reliance on digital forms of information and entertainment in South Africa is undeniable. In the first quarter of 2020, daily newspaper circulation declined by 14% over the previous year, with weekend newspapers declining by 17%, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation of South Africa. At the same time, according to statistics from the DataReportal, mobile connections in South Africa increased by 3.1 million between January 2019 and January 2020, to 103.5 million. Internet penetration stood at 62% (an increase of 3.1% year-on-year) and social media penetration at 37% (an increase of 19% year-on-year).

This trend is not new, as media convergence sees consumers opting to access their news, information and entertainment online. At the same time, a significant power shift has occurred. The gatekeeper role of curated information, once held by traditional media, is starting to dissolve with ordinary citizens being able to share their opinions far and wide using social media.

Enter a whole new debate: fact versus fake news. A certain high-powered state leader on Twitter being a prominent case in point.

In South Africa, a strong Constitution has won global acclaim for its ability to balance rights and responsibilities. Our legislation and regulations take their tenor from this solid basis. The Films and Publications Amendment Act of 2019 (FPAA) is no different, recognising that no right can be absolute insofar as it holds the potential to infringe on a contrasting right.

In simple terms, as an example, the freedom of one citizen to express their opinions online has, in the past, come into direct conflict with the rights of fellow citizens when these opinions constitute hate speech. The right of a child to not be exposed prematurely to content of an adult nature comes up against uncontrolled posting of sexually explicit images on mobile applications.

The FPAA activates a system of consumer advisories, employed to provide the public with advance knowledge of the types of content they are likely to encounter in a film or game.

This balancing act between rights and responsibilities is by no means a simple equation, due in part to the diverse and nuanced nature of human existence. In recent weeks, a draft set of regulations developed to align with the Films and Publications Amendment Act of 2019 has been published for public and industry inputs, after the Amendment Act was assented to by the president in September 2019. The Amendment Act and the regulations, once finalised, will come into operation simultaneously.

So, in the wake of this new and improved legislation designed to protect us and our children, articles and social media posts proliferate that misrepresent its intention and its consumer protection elements, which go to the heart of the Film and Publications Amendment Act.

Fact or myth: The Films and Publications Amendment Act (FPAA) and draft regulations

The intent of the Act has always been to ensure that citizens of South Africa are protected from content in films, games and certain publications that could cause them moral, emotional or psychological harm. Precepts of the act, and the regulations that implement them, create that fine balancing act between the rights and responsibilities of citizens. The Amendment Act brings the law in line with advancements in digital technologies to protect against harmful content online.

Censorship versus classification

Often accused of being a law that seeks to censor, this misunderstanding stems from opponents not taking into consideration the mechanism by which content is mediated. It completely overlooks the fact that in a democratic South Africa we do not ban content, unless the content is unlawful and damages social cohesion in the country (i.e. hate speech, incitement of imminent violence, propaganda for war, child pornography, etc). This unlawful content is set out in the Constitution, to which the FPAA is aligned.

Instead, the FPAA activates a system of consumer advisories, employed to provide the public with advance knowledge of the types of content they are likely to encounter in a film or game. The content is not banned or censored unless it contains illegal content it is, rather, allocated a consumer advisory prior to distribution. This is a very important and fundamental distinction.

The process of the classification of content is informed by Classification Guidelines which are used to assign ratings and classifiable elements to every film and game prior to their distribution in the country. Using this consumer advisory as a guide, the public chooses what content they or their children expose themselves to. These Classification Guidelines are subjected to a substantive review and to public scrutiny every five years to ensure alignment to new laws and new child development theories, so that they correspond with social values and the best interest of citizens.

An age rating, for example, alerts a parent that the content might cause developmental, emotional or psychological harm to their children under that age. An SV element on the other hand warns survivors of sexual violence that the content may contain portrayals of sexual violence and might thus trigger their previous trauma. A P element assigned would warn about prejudicial themes against a certain religious, racial or interest group. This is a somewhat oversimplification, as the Classification Guidelines take into consideration the artistic or pedagogical intent of the creator and the impact of the format in which the content is distributed (e cinema or DVD).

Films and games, which are distributed by a person who conducts the business of such, are classified before legal distribution can take place. The FPAA allows the public to lay a complaint against, or object to, any publication (except for newspapers, magazines and broadcast content which is exempt regardless) such as a book or piece of art. This content is then assigned a classification retrospectively.

The FPAA affirms that commercial digital content, distributed on online platforms such as Over-The-Top (OTT) and Video on Demand (VOD) falls into the ambit of its pre-classification for legal distribution.

Commercial digital content vs social media

Another common misperception is that the FPAA seeks to control social media content. While the content shared on social media does potentially contain content that can cause harm, the FPAA does not in fact relate to social media generally. It does, however, make inroads into protecting the public from specific types of social media content that directly harms the dignity of a citizen. This content is referred to in the FPAA as revenge pornography and aims to provide recourse for survivors of cyber bullying perpetrated online, when intimate images are shared without the consent of the person depicted in the content.

The chicken-and-egg debate about South Africas high rate of violence vis--vis the type of content we consume illustrates the question of impact of content consumption on the population.

Prior to the FPAA being signed by the president, a distributor of physical content (i.e. cinema-style exhibitions, DVD or CD) needed to ensure that the content is assigned an age rating and element classification before it is distributed.

Mechanisms are now being put in place through the FPAA draft regulations to provide greater clarity and direction on how content that is distributed online for commercial gain is classified. This gives the public the option to consume content or not, based on the consumer advisory that is assigned to the online content.

This amendment to the law now places it beyond doubt that viewers of online commercial films and games will be protected through consumer advisories in the same way that they have been protected from content distributed through traditional methods previously. The onus is placed on the distributor of such online content to ensure that a classification rating is assigned and displayed when content is viewed.

Importantly, this excludes content that is not shared for commercial gain online and on social media platforms.

The nature of online distribution channels is vastly different from traditional distribution channels: the FPB is consulting stakeholders from the creative and distribution industry to simplify the process of classifying commercial online content. This includes the possibility for these online service providers to self-classify, based on the South African classification system, or apply for the accreditation of a recognised and aligned international classification system that industry has been trained to use.

After three weeks of interaction with industry in this regard, the majority of our creative sector has welcomed the robust and sincere dialogue with the FPB on the draft regulations to implement the FPAA in the interest of protecting the public while easing the administrative burden on distributors.

Better safe than sorry

These are some of the misunderstandings of the FPAA clarified.

Reflecting on other advancements in humanitys relentless quest for progress that have resulted in both positive and disastrous impacts on society, proactively trying to counter such negative effects makes good sense.

The chicken-and-egg debate about South Africas high rate of violence vis--vis the type of content we consume illustrates the question of impact of content consumption on the population.

Does our content reflect our social values and mores, or does immersing our children in such content ramp up the normalisation of violent actions? Equally, we see the devastation to personal dignity caused as a result of various forms of cyberbullying, such as revenge pornography, and in its most extreme form suicide.

Should we as a nation rather be safe than sorry? DM

Lynette Kamineth is the Communications and Public Education Manager at the Film and Publication Board, the content regulator and agency of the Department of Communications. She uses her expertise to highlight the work being done by the organisation to protect the children of South Africa from exposure to potentially harmful content.

Laurie Less is the Shared Services executive at the Film and Publication Board. She was previously the Executive Manager at Wits University Clear-AA, a specialist M&E centre and in various government agencies. In the development sector she worked as a senior programme manager for both Swedish SIDA and the Open Society Foundation of South Africa.

Pandelis Gregoriou is Manager of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the Film and Publication Board. An attorney of the High Court of South Africa, he obtained a BA and LLB degrees from Wits University. He has worked at the South African Human Rights Commission as its Head of Legal Services, leading the execution of the protection mandate of the institution.

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Film and Publications Amendment Act: Protecting, not censoring, our citizens in the digital age - Daily Maverick

Chinas wrath on Hong Kong is causing artists to self-censor – Reclaim The Net

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

The new national security law by the Hong Kong government has been sending shock waves through artists living in the city, especially the ones that have covered the pro-democracy protests in some fashion.

The law, which has been enacted since June, is supposedly to punish terrorism, secessionism, or collusion with foreign forces. The punishment terms including a probability of a lifetime in prison have caused massive unrest among a huge number of artists across Hong Kong as they know its mostly being used to punish those who dont submit to Chinas wrath.

Fearing that they may potentially violate the law, many artists have started fleeing the country, leaving the city, or simply self-censoring themselves. Whats more, pro-democracy books have already been taken off the shelf everywhere and you can no longer find shops and retail outlets where imagery and decorations related to the protest are publicly displayed.

Ive chosen to leave. For the moment, I want to protect myself, said Lau Kwong Shing, an illustrator known for his fine-line drawings around the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. Shing is not the only artist to feel so. As a matter of fact, nearly 2,000 artists and cultural workers said to Reuters that they were experiencing a climate of fear and self-censorship due to the new law that was passed.

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Other artists, such as Him Lo, are strategically shifting their artworks to museums in Europe and elsewhere to ensure that they are preserved. Im worried artworks will be seized, said Lo. We also have artists such as Childe Abaddon who are climbing the ladder of success through their publications are now being apprehensive to release updates and newer editions.

Abaddons Voices contained a number of protest works submitted by anonymous contributors. It was lucky that we put out the book before. The book sold well, but we wont consider publishing any more, said Abaddon. Considering the current security laws and the gravity of the situations, artists across Hong Kong are backing down from creatively showcasing their viewpoints.

Hong Kongs government, however, says that the new law is put in place to respect and protect human rights. The legitimate rights of Hong Kong citizens to exercise their freedom of speech, such as making general remarks criticising government policies or officials, should not be compromised, said the Hong Kong government in a statement.

Nonetheless, artists have already started self-censoring themselves to ensure that they stay safe and do not get entrapped under the law and serve prison time. With mass surveillance of social platforms in the region, many artists think its only a matter of time until they get caught for dissent.

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Chinas wrath on Hong Kong is causing artists to self-censor - Reclaim The Net

Here are 5 excuses liberals have put forward in defence of modern day book burning, and why it makes them look like total morons – OpIndia

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Bloomsbury India decided to withdraw a book on the Delhi Riots on Saturday after being bullied into the decision by a left-wing outrage mob, comprising of liberals, Congress supporters and Islamists. Later, it was revealed that Left Historian William Dalrymple had contributed prominently towards that decision. The book, Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story, was authored by Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar and Dr Prerna Malhotra.

Since they announced their decision to withdraw their book, Bloomsbury India has come under significant criticism from people across the spectrum with multiple authors withdrawing their books from the publication house in protest. However, liberals continue to defend them even when they engaged in blatant censorship of freedom of expression.

Liberals are now coming up with ridiculous explanations in order to justify Bloomsbury Indias decision to withdraw the Delhi Riots book. They now claim that censoring the book is not a freedom of expression issue at all. Their justification for the deliberate censorship of contrarian political opinion is that the book is supposedly hate speech and lies. Here, we shall look into the various arguments given by the outrage mob to justify censorship.

Liberals have made it clear that they wish to exercise a monopoly over what constitutes truth and they want us to trust their words over our own eyes. Lies is not a free speech issue, declared Swara Bhasker. Amusingly enough, she has not even read the book because it was not even released. How could she then know if it contains lies or not? What happened to the famous liberal dictum of Watch the movie before outraging?

Rana Ayyub demonstrated the intimate relationship between Islam and Communism. She claimed that it was an issue between the oppressor and the oppressed and one of freedom of speech. Meanwhile, her almost sudden rise to fame in western media circles is rather intriguing and only reveals the pits that journalism has fallen to in the West.

It is a bit rich coming from someone whose book Gujarat Files was trashed by Supreme Court as based on surmises, conjectures and suppositions.

Arfa Khanum Sherwani, journalist at leftist propaganda website The Wire, justified the withdrawal of the book by calling it a work of propaganda. It is ironical indeed.

Times Next Gen Leader Gurmehar Kaur was the most honest among all of them. She said quite clearly that freedom of expression is a virtue worth protecting. In fact, according to her, freedom of expression is a tool of oppression. The rest of her statement is borrowed from the SJW mob in Universities in the United States that regularly censors Conservative speech.

Make no mistake, what Gurmehar Kaur is really saying is that people must not be allowed to speak as they see fit and liberals should have the authority to dictate what speech is permissible. Hate Speech is, of course, a convenient term invented to disguise their lust for power under a cloak of virtue. What she is effectively condemning is free speech itself.

Then, there was the usual snobbery. It is important to realise here that they feel no shame at all about censoring contrarian political opinion. They consider it a victory whenever they manage to bully a platform into withdrawing its support for non-left speech. Liberals are quite like Radical Muslims in that way.

While the rest of the world looks on with horror at the devastation wreaked by Islamic Terrorism, Radical Muslims actually celebrate it with great pomp and vigour. It is the same with liberals. While everyone feels bile rising through their throat watching the distasteful tactics of the Left, liberals wear it as a badge of pride.

All of this again goes on to demonstrate that liberals do not care about principles, they only care about power. They will advocate action that enhances their power even if it is seemingly inconsistent with the principles they claim to espouse. A justification, no matter how twisted, can always be produced later on to claim that their actions were never in contradiction with their principles.

The reason for this is simple, liberals do not seek to convince anyone. They only wish to ensure that their absolute control over power is not threatened. And in order to achieve that objective, they will go to any extent necessary. Principles are minor inconveniences that can always be rectified to suit ones objective.

Thus, quite clearly, liberal support for freedom of expression comes with various terms and conditions. The most important one, of course, is bending the knee and serving their nefarious agenda.

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Here are 5 excuses liberals have put forward in defence of modern day book burning, and why it makes them look like total morons - OpIndia

Artists Ai Weiwei and Fang Fang’s depictions of the Wuhan lockdown – DW (English)

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

A drone flies over the roof of Wuhan's huge train station, which is seems to be cowering under a gray sky. The viewer sees barren train tracks and then a group of stationary trains comes into focus. The message is clear: No wheel is turning anymore. Life has come to a standstill.

To stop the spread of the unfamiliar virus, China's authorities completely shut down a metropolis of 11 million people.

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei

Wuhan was the first city to undergo the lockdown to help prevent the global spread of COVID-19, which Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's film shows with emotional images. Theartist, who now lives in Cambridge, England, directed his 115-minute documentary remotely from Europe: "We are releasing Coronation, our film about Wuhan, China, as a tribute to all the doctors and nurses who are fighting COVID-19," he wrote onTwitter.

His team in China analyzed almost 500 hours of film material for the documentary, Ai Weiwei told DW. Drone shots of Wuhan were used for this, as well as shots from hospital security cameras and video clips of the medical staff treating COVID-19 patients. According to the filmmaker, "ordinary citizens" were responsible on location for the shooting of Coronation.

While the rest of the world was still lulled in a sense of security, Coronation shows how Wuhan's streets were already deserted.

In short sequences, the trailer shows the courtyard of a hospital as well as hectic scenes in hospital corridors and intensive care units. Nursing staff express their commitment to their work. A just-deceased person, wrapped inan airtight package, is hoisted onto a stretcher. A person wearing a gas mask and bright yellow protective gear drives silently on an electric scooter through the streets spraying disinfectant. People wearing masks stand in line waiting to be tested for the coronavirus. Meanwhile, rotating spotlights project the insignia of communist China onto the facades of skyscrapers, rendering the whole scene quite bizarre.

In Coronation, Ai Weiwei punctuates political intentions. As stated on his website, the film addresses the "specter" of Chinese state control from the first to the last day of the lockdown. The film illuminates the "brutally efficient" and militarized response on the part of the state to control the virus, the website says.

A still from Ai Weiwei's new documentary

"They made a good decision to seal off Wuhan," Ai Weiwei told DW.At the same time, he criticizes the authorities' methods: "The method of sealing the city should not have been through literally sealing off people's doors, placing people in detention, or hiding the truth about the situation. This has caused a great panic."

The government should have also told people the truth about the situation, he said. "Before the authorities sealed off Wuhan on January 23, there was a month or two when they knew the coronavirus was human-to-human transmissible. They covered up the number of infected and the death toll," Aistressed.

There may have been several reasons for this, the artist pointed out: the National People's Congress scheduled for February, for instance. Or the signing of an important trade agreement with the US that was also imminent. The state wanted to prevent bad news from being spread, he said, and this can only happen through strict censorship.

Ai Weiwei is not the first chronicler of the events. Chinese writer Fang Fang previously recorded the fate of the people in the lockdown in an online diary, which was then published in English in May 2020 as Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City.

She described the freedoms that people in Wuhan lost without being asked and the mistakes the authorities made. She wrote about the panic, the helplessness, the fears and the tension especially in the early days of the lockdown. She criticized the "incompetent cadre."

Chinese writer Fang Fang faced backlash as critics said she was providing fodder to countries that have slammed China's handling of the pandemic

Writing each evening, she filled her blog with new posts that spread quickly before the censorship cracked down.

In the view of Western experts, China's leadership lost a great deal of trust among its own people through its coronavirus crisis management. For one thing, Beijing learned nothing from previous epidemics, political scientist Maximilian Mayer told DW. "It was also surprising for many Chinese just how comprehensive the government's possibilities for control actually are," he said.The Chinese state uses all the tools available to that end, including the employment of drones, artificial intelligence and other intelligent surveillance systems, Mayer said.

Much of this is now also evident in Ai Weiwei's film Coronation. "China was not a role model in this case," the artist said. Instead,he added, the leadership intensified the surveillance and controlling of its people,restricted freedom of speech, and further undermined the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive branch.

Translation: Louisa Schaefer

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Artists Ai Weiwei and Fang Fang's depictions of the Wuhan lockdown - DW (English)

Jessie and Austins aunt vs TikTok the debate around censorship of Bodies in the Suitcase video – HITC

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Back in June, two bodies were found in suitcases by teenagers on a Seattle beach and now the victims aunt wants the viral TikTok video removed.

Gina Jaschke has done an exclusive interview with the BBC in which she speaks about her niece, and argues that the video must be removed from the app. However, TikTok disagrees, claiming that it does not violate their guidelines.

Seattle Police have opened a murder investigation on the case and are appealing for information.

Back in June, three teenagers were making TikTok videos on a beach in Seattle when they made a shocking discovery.

Whilst socialising on the beach, they saw that there were a pair of suitcases that had washed up onto the shore. Upon opening the cases, they found two dead bodies.

The teens uploaded the video to TikTok, which quickly went viral, and the news rapidly spread around the world. The video has now has now had a huge 5.5 million likes.

It does not contain any graphic scenes, but does show the teens opening the suitcase. Watch the TikTok video at your own discretion here.

The bodies were later revealed to belong to Jessica (Jessie) Lewis, 35, and her partner Austin (Cash) Wenner, 27.

Jessica was a mother to four children, and their families are offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can provide information, reports The Metro.

Both were revealed to have gunshot wounds, and Seattle Police opened an ongoing murder investigation on June 19th. They are currently appealing for information.

A new BBC interview with Jessicas aunt reveals that she desperately wants the TikTok video to be removed.

Gina Jaschke said: That video went viral and theres nothing we can do to change that.

She then goes on to say that she wants to thank the kids who found the bodies, because wihtout them they may have never found out what happend to Jessica and Austin.

However, she then addresses the fact that she thinks the video should be removed:

I wouldve thought by then that they would know better to put it down. That these bodies that were found in these bags, in these suitcases, that smelt awful, that they have faces now that they could see. And they were people. And I thought that they would have known too that they were people. And they would have taken it down of of respect for that.

However, the video still remains on TikTok, and the social media site argued it does not violate their guidelines as it did not include any visuals of the remains.

Watch the full BBC interview here.

In other news, Twitter: Fans ask 'Does Bryce Hall have Covid' following huge LA birthday party!

Go here to read the rest:

Jessie and Austins aunt vs TikTok the debate around censorship of Bodies in the Suitcase video - HITC

Proud Boys – Wikipedia

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Gavin McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994 but was pushed out in 2008 after several years of turmoil following a New York Times interview in which he talked about his pride in being white. After leaving, he began "doggedly hacking a jagged but unrelenting path to the far-right fringes of American culture", according to a 2017 profile in the Canadian Globe and Mail.[41]

The Proud Boys organization was launched in September 2016, on the website of Taki's Magazine, a far-right publication for which Richard Spencer had once served as executive editor.[42] It existed informally before then as a group centered around McInnes, and the first gathering of the Brooklyn chapter in July 2016 resulted in a brawl in the bar where they met.[18] The name is derived from the song "Proud of Your Boy" used in the soundtrack of the Disney film version of Aladdin (1992), which had become a running theme on McInnes' podcast hosted by Anthony Cumia's Compound Media. McInnes had heard the song at a children's talent show in December 2015 and took immediate dislike to the perceived "fake, humble, and self-serving" nature of the lyrics.[18]

The organization has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center[36] and NPR's The Takeaway,[35] and Spencer, McInnes, and the Proud Boys have been described as hipster racists by Vox[43] and Media Matters for America.[44][45] McInnes says victim mentality of women and other historically oppressed groups is unhealthy: "There is an incentive to be a victim. It is cool to be a victim." He sees white men and Western culture as "under siege" and described criticism of his ideas as "victim blaming".[41] Their views have elements of the white genocide conspiracy theory.[22][23][24] The group is part of the "alt lite" and it is "overtly Islamophobic".[46]

In early 2017, McInnes began to distance himself from the alt-right, saying their focus is race and his focus is what he calls "Western values"; the rebranding effort intensified after the Unite the Right Rally.[20][21][47] In 2018, McInnes was saying that the Proud Boys were part of the "new right".[48]

The organization glorifies political violence against leftists, re-enacting political assassinations, wearing shirts that praise Augusto Pinochet's murders of leftists, and participating directly in political violence.[25][30] McInnes has said "I want violence, I want punching in the face. I'm disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough."[25][42] He stated, "We don't start fights [...] but we will finish them."[49] Heidi Beirich, the Intelligence Project director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that this form of intentional aggression was not common among far-right groups in the past; she said: "'We're going to show up and we're intending to get in fights,' that's a new thing."[50] In August 2018, Twitter shut down the official account for the group, as well as McInnes' account, under its policy prohibiting violent extremist groups; at the time, the group's profile photo was a member punching a counter-protester.[51] In late November 2018, it was reported, based on an internal memo of the Clark County, Washington Sheriff's Office, that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.[13] Two weeks later, however, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Oregon office denied that the FBI made such designations, ascribing the error by the Sheriff's Office to a confusion over the FBI designating the group as such, as a designation made by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and other outside agencies.[32]

The organization is opposed to feminism and promotes gender stereotypes in which women are subservient to men.[41][42] The organization has a female-member-only auxiliary wing named "Proud Boys' Girls" that supports the same ideology.[52] The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) states that McInnes and the Proud Boys are misogynistic and states that they call women lazy and less ambitious than men (and venerat[e] the housewife"); McInnes has called for enforced monogamy and criticized feminism as a cancer.[46]

Some men who are not white have joined the Proud Boys, drawn by the organization's advocacy for men, anti-immigrant stance, and embrace of violence.[53] The ADL states that the Proud Boys' "extreme, provocative tactics coupled with overt or implicit racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and misogyny and the fact that the group is so decentralized, inconsistent, and spread out suggest the group should be a significant cause for concern".[46]

The Proud Boys say they have an initiation process that has four stages and includes hazing. The first stage is a loyalty oath, on the order of "Im a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world"; the second is getting punched until the person recites pop culture trivia, such as the names of five breakfast cereals; the third is getting a tattoo and agreeing to not masturbate; and the fourth is getting into a major fight "for the cause."[30][19][54][55][56][57]

The Proud Boys have adopted a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow piping as their unofficial uniform.[58] Fred Perry was previously associated with the Mod subculture and skinhead groups,[58][59] including the British National Front.[60] Fred Perry's CEO John Flynn denounced the affiliation with the Proud Boys in a statement to CBC Radio, saying "We don't support the ideals or the group that you speak of. It is counter to our beliefs and the people we work with."[59]

Women and transgender men are not allowed in the organization.[61][42]

The Proud Boys discourages its members from masturbating and watching pornography so as to motivate them to get "off the couch" and meet women.[56] McInnes added no masturbation to the group's core ideas after interacting with Dante Nero, a relationship expert and comedian with a podcast on Riotcast, who came to serve as a sort of "pope" for this idea within the organization.[62]

Gavin McInnes founded the group and served as its leader. In November 2018, shortly after news broke that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalistsa claim later disavowed by an FBI official, who said they only intended to characterize the potential threat from some members of the group[34]McInnes said that his lawyers had advised him that quitting might help the nine members being prosecuted for the incidents in October. During the announcement he defended the group, attacked the reporting about it, said white nationalists don't exist, and at times he said things that made it appear he was not quitting, such as "this is 100% a legal gesture, and it is 100% about alleviating sentencing", and said it was a "stepping down gesture, in quotation marks".[37][38]

As of November2018[update], the group named its leaders as Enrique Tarrio, designated as "chairman", and the "Elder Chapter", which consists of Harry Fox, Heath Hair, Patrick William Roberts, Joshua Hall, Timothy Kelly, Luke Rofhling and Rufio Panman.[63][3] Jason Lee Van Dyke, who was the organization's lawyer at the time, had been briefly named as chairman to replace Gavin McInnes when he left the group, but the organization announced on November 30 that Van Dyke was no longer associated with the group in any capacity, although his law firm still holds Proud Boys trademarks and is the registered agent for two of the group's chapters.[64] In December 2018, arrest warrant was issued for Van Dyke over his death threat to a person he previously sued.[65]

Although McInnes had earlier said that any Proud Boy member who was known to have attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 was kicked out of the organization, the new chairman, Enrique Tarrio, admits to having attended the event.[57]

In February 2017, McInnes arrived at New York University to give a speech, accompanied by a group of about ten Proud Boys. Minor scuffles broke out between Proud Boys and antifa protesters, and the NYPD said that eleven people faced criminal charges. One member of the Proud Boys who encouraged others to fight the "faggots wearing black that won't let us in" was later arrested for punching a reporter from DNAinfo.[66][67][25]

At the 2017 March 4 Trump rally in Berkeley, California, Kyle Chapman was recorded hitting a counter-protester over the head with a wooden dowel. Images of Chapman went viral, and the Proud Boys organized a crowdfunding campaign for Chapman's bail after his arrest. After this, McInnes invited Chapman to become involved with the Proud Boys, through which he formed the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights.[50]

On April 15, 2017, an alt-right rally was organized in Berkeley by the Liberty Revival Alliance, which did not seek or receive a permit, and was attended by members of the Proud Boys, Identity Evropa (an American neo-Nazi group)[68][69][70] and Oath Keepers (an anti-government, far-right group);[71][72][73][74][75] many of these people traveled to Berkeley from other parts of the country. The rally was counter-protested and violence broke out. 21 people were arrested.[76][77]

In April 2017, a concert organized by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police to protest Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx attracted several people wearing Proud Boy clothing. One of them, Thomas Christensen, got into an argument with another attendee, and ended up stabbing him with what the prosecutor called a "folding dagger" with a 3-inch blade. Christensen was arrested on charges of aggravated battery.[78] In August 2019, Christensen was convicted at a bench trial; the judge rejected Chrsitiansen's statement that he acted in self-defense. After the trial, a friend confirmed that Christiansen was a member of the Proud Boys.[78]

In 2017 Proud Boys joined a caravan to ride through Islamberg, New York, a community of around twenty black Muslim families who moved upstate to escape the racism and violence of New York City, and which has been a target of conspiracy theories from various Islamophobic hate groups and right-wing terrorist plots.[79][80][81]

In 2017 and 2018 Proud Boys participated in several rallies organized by Patriot Prayer in Portland, Oregon and nearby Vancouver, Washington.[82][83][84] Scenes of violence from one of these rallies was turned into a sizzle reel for the Proud Boys and was circulated on social media.[2][85]

On July 1, 2017, five Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members who self-identified as Proud Boys disrupted a protest organized by indigenous activists, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at a statue of Edward Cornwallis, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia. Indigenous activists had previously protested at the site and called for the removal of the statue because of Cornwallis's actions against Natives, including ordering a bounty for scalps of Mi'kmaq people. The Proud Boys carried the Canadian Red Ensign flag from the time of Cornwallis and one of them said to the indigenous protesters, "You are recognising your heritage and so are we."[15]

General Jonathan Vance, the head of the CAF, announced an investigation,[86][87] Rear Admiral John Newton, Commander of the Maritime Fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy, was "personally horrified" by the incident and said the Proud Boys were "clearly a white supremacist group and we fundamentally stand opposed to any of their values."[88] The CAF's investigation concluded by August 2017,[89] Later that month, Newton announced the CAF had taken "appropriate measures to address individual shortcomings" and that four of the members had returned to duty, warning, "Any further inappropriate behavior could result in their termination from the Canadian Armed Forces."[90] In 2018, the statue was removed from the site by the City of Halifax.

In June, McInnes disavowed the planned Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[41] However, Proud Boys were at the August 2017 alt-right event, which was organized by white supremacist Jason Kessler.[91] Kessler had joined the Proud Boys some time before organizing the event.[92][93][94] McInnes said he had kicked Kessler out after his views on race had become clear.[41] After the rally, Kessler accused McInnes of using him as a "patsy" and said: "You're trying to cuck and save your own ass."[21] Alex Michael Ramos, one of the men convicted for the assault of DeAndre Harris which took place at the rally, was associated with the Proud Boys and Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights.[95]

In October 2018 McInnes gave a talk at the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He stepped out of his car wearing glasses with Asian eyes drawn on the front and pulled a samurai sword out of its sheath. Police forced him inside. Later, inside the event, McInnes and an Asian member of the Proud Boys re-enacted the 1960 murder of Inejiro Asanuma, the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party; a captioned photograph of the actual murder had become a meme in alt-right social media.[42] The audience for the event was described by The New York Times as "a cross-section of New Yorks far-right subculture: libertarians, conspiracy theorists and nationalists who have coalesced around their opposition to Islam, feminism and liberal politics."[96]

Anti-fascist activists had started protesting outside the club before the event and had reportedly engaged in vandalism. Following cross-provocations between the opposing sides, the Proud Boys charged towards the protesters, who threw a bottle in response, resulting in a fight.[96][97] NYC police present at the protest reportedly did not respond.[42][98]

On November 21, shortly after news broke that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalistsa claim later disavowed by an FBI official, who said they only intended to characterize the potential threat of some members of the group[32]McInnes said that his lawyers had advised him that quitting might help the nine members being prosecuted for the incidents in October and he said "this is 100% a legal gesture, and it is 100% about alleviating sentencing", and said it was a "stepping down gesture, in quotation marks".[37][38]

The fallout from the incident left the group in internal disarray.[96] After McInnes nominally left the group, the "Elder Chapter" of the group reportedly assumed control. Jason Lee Van Dyke, the group's lawyer, was appointed as the chapter's chairman.[63][99] Van Dyke was previously known for suing news media and anti-fascist activists for reporting on the group, and for making violent online threats with racist language.[100][101] The group then publicly released its new bylaw online, with the names of its "Elder Chapter" members listed and redacted. The redaction was later discovered to be botched, as the list of names can be accessed by selecting over the black bar of the released document.[63] A day later, the chapter announced that Van Dyke was no longer leader of the group, and Enrique Tarrio is the group's new chairman.[3]

Video evidence from three separate videos showed conclusively that the Proud Boys had instigated the fight after the Metropolitan Republican Club event. John Miller, New York City's deputy police commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, said that "incidents like [the post-MRC fight] make it more likely" that the Proud Boys would be "higher on the radar" of authorities.[96]

Ten men connected to the Proud Boys were arrested in connection with the October 2018 incident.[102] Seven Proud Boys pleaded guilty to various charges including riot, disorderly conduct and attempted assault.[102][103] Two of the men who accepted plea deals were sentenced to five days of community service and did not receive jail time.[104] In August 2019, two of the Proud Boys, Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman, were convicted following a jury trial of attempted gang assault, attempted assault and riot; the jury deliberated a day and a half of deliberations before rejecting their claims of self-defense.[102] Hare and Kinsman were each sentenced to four years in prison.[105] The final defendant is awaiting trial.[102][103]

The four anti-fascist victims of the beating are not cooperating with prosecutors, even to the extent of revealing their identities, and are known only as "Shaved Head", "Ponytail", "Khaki" and "Spiky Belt". Because of their non-cooperation, the Proud Boys could not be charged with assault which requires evidence of injury and were instead charged with riot and attempted assault, which merely require an attempt to cause injury. Without the victims to testify, the bulk of the evidence in the trial came from videos of the incident, including footage shot by a video documentarian, and video from security cameras.[102][103]

In January 2019, Reggie Axtell, a member of the Proud Boys, threatened Ted Wheeler, Portland, Oregon's Democratic mayor, in a Facebook video post. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Axtell said in the video that Wheeler's "days are fucking numbered ... I promise you this, Ted Wheeler: Im coming for you, you little punk." Axtell also said that he would "unmask every [anti-fascist] son of a bitch that I come across", referring to a campaign initiated by Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, Proud Boy Tusitala "Tiny" Toese and former Proud Boy Russell Schultz to tear off the bandanas of anti-fascist (antifa) demonstrators and taking pictures of their faces, thereby "demasking" them. The announcement of the campaign came shortly after an altercation that took place when Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer members attempted and failed to invade a chapter meeting of the left-wing organization Democratic Socialists of America. The groups clashed with anti-fascist activists nearby after being denied entry to the meeting, and said that they had been attacked.[106][107][108]

Roger Stone, the long-time informal advisor to Donald Trump, has close connections to the Proud Boys. According to University of Nevada researcher Samantha Kutner, during McInnes' time as head of the group, Stone was "one of only three approved media figures allowed to speak" about the group. A photo of Stone, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and two Proud Boys in the Fox News greenroom was posted by Stone on Instagram in May 2018.

In February 2018, the Proud Boys posted a video on Facebook which they described as Stone undergoing a "low-level initiation" into the group. As part of the initiation, Stone says "Hi, Im Roger Stone. Im a Western chauvinist. I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world," making him a "first-degree" member, which Kutner characterizes as being a "sympathizer". Stone denies being a member of the group. In July 2020, Facebook announced it had shut down the accounts and pages linked to Stone and Proud Boys. This network of over 100 Facebook and Instagram accounts spent more than $300,000 on ads to promote their posts and included false personas.[109]

Stone has used members of the Proud Boys as his personal bodyguards. In March 2018, when Stone attended the Republican Dorchester Conference near Salem, Oregon, he was concerned about his safety and used members of the Proud Boys to be his private security; Stone was photographed with the Proud Boys members. In September 2018, Stone was escorted to and from the right-wing Mother of All Rallies by Proud Boys. Stone says that the Proud Boys are "volunteers" and are necessary due to the number of death threats he has received.

In late January 2019, when Stone was arrested by the FBI on seven criminal counts in connection with the Mueller investigation, Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the Proud Boys, met Stone as he left the courthouse in Florida. Tarrio, who wore a "Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong" t-shirtsold by a company owned by Tarriotold a local TV reporter that the indictment was nothing but "trumped-up charges", and was later seen visiting Stone's house. The next day, in Washington D.C., a small number of Proud Boys demonstrated outside the courthouse where Stone pleaded not guilty to the charges, carrying "Roger Stone did nothing wrong" signs and others that promoted the InfoWars conspiracy website. The Proud Boys got into an argument with anti-Stone hecklers[110][4][111] Tarrio was later filmed behind Donald Trump in February 2019, during a televised speech in Miami, where he was seen wearing the same message on a t-shirt.[112]

Although McInnes has supposedly cut his ties with the Proud Boys in November 2018, stepping down as chairman,[37][38] in February 2019 he filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in federal court in Alabama, over the SPLC's designation of the Proud Boys as a "general hate" group.[39][113] The SPLC says on its website that "McInnes plays a duplicitous rhetorical game: rejecting white nationalism and, in particular, the term 'alt-right' while espousing some of its central tenets," and that the group's "rank-and-file [members] and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists. They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings like the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville".[36][113] McInnes is represented by Ronald Coleman. In addition to defamation, McInnes claims tortious interference with economic advantage, "false light invasion of privacy," and "aiding and abetting employment discrimination".[114]

The SPLC filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in July 2019.[115]

The day after filing the suit McInnes announced that he had been re-hired by the Canadian far-right media group The Rebel Media.[40]

In February 2019, Slate magazine reported that Square, Chase Paymentech, and PayPal had pulled their payment processing services from 1776.shop, an online far-right merchandise site associated with the Proud Boys. 1776.shop lists itself as a project of Fund the West LLC, a Miami business registered to Henry Tarrio. In the past, Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of Proud Boys, has said that he is the "business owner" of 1776.shop, raising the probability that "Henry Tarrio" and "Enrique Tarrio" are the same person. Henry Tarrio is also the registered owner of "Proudboys LLC", which uses the same address as Fund the West.[116]

On May 17, 2019, Bill Burke of Ohio filed a $3 million lawsuit against the Proud Boys, Kessler, and multiple other people and groups associated with the Unite the Right rally. Burke was seriously injured in the August 2017 Charlottesville car attack which followed the event.[117][118] The 64-page initial complaint alleges that the named parties "conspired to plan, promote and carry out the violent events in Charlottesville". According to Burke, his physical and mental injuries have led to "severe psychological and emotional suffering".[119][120]

A Proud Boys rally called "Demand Free Speech"[121] took place on July 6, 2019, in Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza and Pershing Park, drawing about 250 people.[122][123][124] McInnes, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos appeared, but former Trump advisor Roger Stone and Jacob Wohl did not. A counter-protest/dance party across the street drew more people than the main rally. Police said there were only minor skirmishes between the far-right and antifa, and no arrests were made.[122][123][124]

Republican candidate Omar Navarro, a perennial challenger for Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters' congressional seat, withdrew from speaking at the event, tweeting that his ex-girlfriend DeAnne Lorraine, a self-described "MAGA relationship expert," had threatened him, using cocaine and having sex with members of the Proud Boys.[121] In response to Navarro's tweets, the Proud Boys issued a video featuring former Infowars staff member Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean the star of a viral video showing him beating up an antifa protester in which they "banished" Navarro from the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys' chairman, Enrique Tarrio, described the group as "pro-drugs". Other speakers who had been scheduled for the rally, including Pizzagate promoters Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, had already cancelled their appearances, for reasons not apparently related to Navarro's charges.[121]

In July 2019, it was reported that on several occasions Proud Boys had gone to the homes of their critics and menaced them. In June 2018, Vic Berger, who posts videos online mocking far-right figures, including Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, reported that he was visited at his home by a Proud Boy who told him that "Youre really hurting the Proud Boys. You need to stop making these videos." Berger later said he had come into possession of an internal Proud Boy document which called for Proud Boys to find the addresses of their opponents and those of their relatives and "SHOW THEM THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES!!!"

Then, on June 29, 2019, a group of Proud Boys showed up at 11 p.m. at the Philadelphia home of Gwen Snyder, who tracks the movements of the Proud Boys. Snyder wasn't home at the time, so the group spoke to a neighbor, telling them that Snyder needed to stop posting on Twitter the names of Proud Boys and other information about them; "You tell that fat bitch she better stop", one of the group allegedly said. Snyder reported the threat to the Philadelphia police, giving them security camera footage of the incident. Prior to the menacing of Snyder, an anonymous Proud Boy posted on Telegram, an encrypted Russian messaging app, a comment which called for action against "Philly's biggest shit stains."[125]

After Major League Soccer (MLS) ruled that the Emerald City Supporters (ECS), anti-fascist fans of the Seattle Sounders Football Club, could not the fly the flag of the 1930s anti-Nazi Iron Front paramilitary group at Sounders' matches, eleven members of the Proud Boys met the group of about 100 people as they marched into the stadium on August 4, 2019 to taunt and yell expletives at them. There was additional police coverage, with the only incident occurring when the Proud Boys attempted to enter a bar which is a known place for ECS members to gather. The MLS had categorized the Iron Front flag as "political imagery", which is forbidden under league rules, however a number of groups in Seattle and elsewhere are challenging the League's ruling.[126]

The Proud Boys and radio talk show host and former InfoWars staff member Joe Biggs organized a demonstration held in Portland on August 17, 2019 which members of numerous far-right groups attended.[127][128] The rally, which was sometimes subtitled "Better Dead Than Red",[129] was intended to promote the idea that the "antifa" anti-fascist movement should be classified as "domestic terrorism". It received national attention, including a Tweet from President Donald Trump.[130][131] The event drew more counter-demonstrators than participants with at least one group urging its members in advance not to attend and ended with the Proud Boys requesting a police escort to leave.[128]

In September 2019, Haverford Township, Pennsylvania announced that one of its volunteer fire companies, the Bon Air Fire Company, had been permanently relieved of duty at the end of business the previous day because of its unwillingness to dismiss a leader in the fire company, Bruce McClay Jr., who was in the "initiation" process of joining the Proud Boys; McClay had offered his resignation, but the fire company had declined to accept it.[132][133] Four days after the township cut ties with the Bon Aire Fire Company, the fire company reversed its decision and accepted McClay's resignation, saying its initial decision to refuse it was a "mistake"; this cleared the way for the township to re-open the company.[134]

Read the original post:

Proud Boys - Wikipedia

Heres What Happened When A Group Of Proud Boys Attacked A …

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

An Air Force veteran and MMA instructor headed towards the entry of Seattles Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in the late afternoon on June 15.

The man, who asked to be referred to as Maximus X, was donning a large American flag. He was also surrounded by a group of men wearing polo shirts with prominent logos that read Proud Boys. (RELATED:Before And After Photos: Heres What Seattles CHAZ Has Done To The City)

The Proud Boys are a far-right extremist group of brawlers who gained notoriety for their violent exchanges with members of Antifa in Portland and Seattle. Maximus told Daily Caller reporters that he was only trying to enter and leave the autonomous zone safely, which is why these far-right fighters were accompanying him.

As the group neared the entrance to CHAZ, they began to generate quite a buzz. They were allowed to enter and tense altercations quickly broke out. Many of the Proud Boys were clearly armed, as were many protesters pushing for them to leave the area.

Following tense moments with choice words exchanged between the two groups, Maximus and his security detail exited CHAZ safely. Maximus drove away and the Proud Boys began walking up the street just outside of CHAZ.

A few individuals were spotted tailing the group of Proud Boys and the group appeared to notice.

While the reason for the confrontation that took place soon after remains unclear, two Daily Caller reporters arrived on the scene just as the Proud Boys were attacking a lone male. The group took his phone and smashed it to pieces, and as the man fought to retrieve it he was repeatedly beaten about the head and face.

The man tried to fight back, but was left bleeding and phone-less after the minutes-long attack concluded.

The group of Proud Boys escaped in an unmarked van before police were able to arrive on scene.

Originally posted here:

Heres What Happened When A Group Of Proud Boys Attacked A ...

Proud Boys | Southern Poverty Law Center

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions: rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists. They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings like the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. Indeed, former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped to organize the event, which brought together Klansmen, antisemites, Southern racists, and militias. Kessler was only expelled from the group after the violence and near-universal condemnation of the Charlottesville rally-goers.

Other hardcore members of the so-called "alt-right" have argued that the western chauvinist label is just a PR c--- term McInnes crafted to gain mainstream acceptance. Lets not bullshit, Brian Brathovd, aka Caeralus Rex, told his co-hosts on the antisemitic The Daily Shoah one of the most popular alt-right podcasts. If the Proud Boys were pressed on the issue, I guarantee you that like 90% of them would tell you something along the lines of Hitler was right. Gas the Jews.

McInnes himself has ties to the racist right and has contributed to hate sites like VDare.com and American Renaissance, both of which publish the work of white supremacists and so-called race realists. He even used Takis Magazine a far-right publication whose contributors include Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor to announce the founding of the Proud Boys. McInnes plays a duplicitous rhetorical game: rejecting white nationalism and, in particular, the term alt-right while espousing some of its central tenets. For example, McInnes has himself said it is fair to call him Islamophobic.

"Its such a rape culture with these immigrants, I dont even think these women see it as rape. They see it as just like having a teeth [sic] pulled. Its a Monday. I dont really enjoy it, but thats what you do. I wouldnt be surprised if it doesnt have the same trauma as it would for a middle-class white girl in the suburbs because its so entrenched into their culture. Gavin McInnes, Get Off My Lawn, June 19, 2018

"Muslims have a problem with inbreeding. They tend to marry their first cousinsand that is a major problem here because when you have mentally damaged inbreds which not all Muslims are, but a disproportionate number are and you have a hate book called the Koranyou end up with a perfect recipe for mass murder." Gavin McInnes,Get Off My Lawn, April 24, 2018

We brought roads and infrastructure to India and they are still using them as toilets. Our criminals built nice roads in Australia but aboriginals keep using them as a bed. The next time someone b------ about colonization, the correct response is Youre welcome.Gavin McInnes, 10 Things I like About White Guys, Takis Magazine, March 2, 2017

Well look at the canary in the coal mine called Britain. We see guys get away with raping children regularly, and they have excuses like I didnt understand the word no. We have a woman raped several times in one night. All these guys seem tothey dont all get away but they seem to get away way too often. And then you have people being jailed for rude tweets and comments when theyre white, sopeople in America say Muslim are what? One or two percent of the population? Theres never gonna be sharia law here. And I say have a look at Britain. Have a look at Europe. Thats where were headed.Gavin McInnes, Get Off My Lawn, November 4, 2017

Maybe the reason Im sexist is because women are dumb. No, Im just kidding, ladies. But you do tend to not thrive in certain areas like writing.Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, June 28, 2017

I just realized something. Cory Booker is kind of like Sambo. Hes kind of shucking and jiving for the white man. Cory Booker grew up rich in an all-white suburb. Hes basically a white guy. His parents were very wealthy executives at IBM .But he wants to be a black dude, so he pretends that hes down with the brothers and he acts outraged about racism all the time for white people. That gets him votes from whites.Gavin McInnes on his CRTV show Get Off My Lawn, January 17, 2018

The white liberal ethos tells us blacks arent at MIT because of racism. They say blacks dominate the prison population for the same reason. They insist America is a racist hellhole where people of color have no future. This does way more damage to black youth than the KKK. When you strip people of culpability and tell them the odds are stacked against them, they dont feel like trying. White liberals make this worse by then using affirmative action to correct societys mistakes. When blacks are forced into schools they arent qualified for they have no choice but to drop out. Instead of going back a step to a school they can handle, they tend to give up on higher education entirely. Thanks to the Marxist myth of ubiquitous equality, this mismatch leaves blacks less educated than they would have been had they been left to their own devices.Gavin McInnes, America in 2034, American Renaissance, June 17, 2014

Im not a fan of Islam. I think its fair to call me Islamophobic.Gavin McInnes, NBC interview, 2017

Palestinians are stupid. Muslims are stupid. And the only thing they really respect is violence and being tough.Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, March 8, 2017

Why dont we take back Bethlehem? Why dont we take back Northern Iraq? Why dont we start our own Crusades? Thats what the Crusades were. They werent just someone picking on Muslims for no reason they were a reaction to Muslim tyranny. We finally fought back.Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, March 8, 2017

Buying woman parts from a hospital and calling yourself a broad trivializes what it is to be a woman. Womanhood is not on a shelf next to wigs and makeup. Similarly, being a dude is quite involved. Ripping your vaginal canal out of your fly doesnt mean you are going to start inventing shit and knowing how cement works. Being a man is awesome. So is being a woman. We should revere these creations, not revel in their bastardization.Gavin McInnes, Transphobia is Perfectly Natural, Thought Catalog, August 8, 2014

I am not afraid to speak out about the atrocities that whites and people of European descent face not only here in this country but in Western nations across the world. The war against whites, and Europeans and Western society is very real and its time we all started talking about it and stopped worrying about political correctness and optics.Kyle Chapman, who formed the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, a wing of the Proud Boys, Unite America First Peace Rally, Sacramento, California, July 8, 2017

Put something on the table! Give us a reason to accept you, because you know what? Sharia law aint it. Raping women aint it. Cutting off clits aint it. Throwing gay people of roofs aint it. You are a disgrace.Pawl Bazile, a production director of Proud Boys magazine, on Muslims, March against Sharia rally, New York City, New York, June 10, 2017

Canadian Gavin McInnes has been flaunting his contempt for PC culture for decades. Before entering the fray of right-wing politics, McInnes co-founded VICE Magazine, a publication that came to epitomize hipster culture in the late 1990s and 2000s. While the magazine tended to dabble in provocative and taboo topics generally under a veneer of irony McInnes took pleasure in stepping over the line. In 2002, for instance, when a New York Press reporter asked McInnes what he thought about his neighbors in New Yorks Williamsburg neighborhood, he responded, Well, at least theyre not n------ or Puerto Ricans. At least theyre white.

While presenting his observation as a joke and revenue-generating ruse (incendiary political statements garnered endless publicity for us, helater told Gawker), McInnes seems to have meant its underlying sentiment sincerely. I love being white and I think its something to be very proud of, he told The New York Times a year later, revealing an ideology that would later form the foundation of the Proud Boys. I dont want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life. McInnes also started writing for VDare.com, a white nationalist hate site. In one 2005 article, he railed against Canadian multiculturalism and lamented that Jared Taylor, the editor of the race-science newsletter American Renaissance, had not been invited to speak at the University of Ottawa. Ten years later, McInnes would welcome Taylor onto his own show, where the white nationalist spent more than an hour explaining why he believes white people are better than African Americans.

McInnesleft VICEin 2008, citing creative differences, and pursued a variety of other media projects. But his relationship with mainstream outlets started to erode in 2014 as he began to swap irony for earnestness. As part of an American Renaissance series featuring race-realist commentators on the future of American race relations, McInnes offered his predictions alongside fellow contributors like John Derbyshire, Paul Gottfried, Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor. In his piece, McInnes wrote that while he didnt harbor any hate for minorities, he did for white liberals who subscribed to a Marxist myth of ubiquitous equally and refused to acknowledge innate disparities between people of different races a notion he supported using the long-discredited work of Charles Murray. McInnes insisted he held out hope for the future of American race relations: once were all forced to live side by side, well quickly realize were incompatible, and agree to disagree, he concluded. The blind utopians at The New York Times will be crushed and the rest of us realists will be dancing in the streets.

Only months later, McInnes published an article titled Transphobia is perfectly natural that prompted his then-employer, the ad agency Rooster, to indefinitely sever ties with him. Were all transphobic, he wrote in the Thought Catalog piece. We see there are no old trannies. They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before theyre 40 and nobody notices because nobody knows them. They are mentally ill gays who need help, and that doesnt include being maimed by physicians. McInnes has also referred to transgender people as gender n------ and stupid lunatics. McInnes repugnant rhetoric extends to women, too. Hes written that through trial and error, I learned that women want to be downright abused by men, and, in a tweet, that Every guy Ive ever known to be involved in a domestic was the result of some c---trying to ruin his life.

With former business partners turning him away, in the spring of 2015 McInnes formed a partnership with the Canadian far-right video channel Rebel Media and, a couple months later, launched The Gavin McInnes Show with Compound Media. On both platforms, he regularly chatted with right-wing guests (his first show featured the far-right provocateur and former Breitbart reporter Milo Yiannopoulos) and carved out an ideological space for frustrated young men to rally around: western culture is superior to all others, racism is a myth created by guilty white liberals, Islam is a culture of violence, and feminism is about de-masculinizing men, he told his audience. A group of like-minded men at Compound Media who bonded over their shared frustration with PC culture began to meet in New York City dive bars. From these gatherings, the Proud Boys were born, and McInnes officially introduced the group in Takis in September 2016.

There are three degrees of membership within the Proud Boys, and to become a first degree in the pro-West fraternal organization a prospective member simply has to declare I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world. To enter the second degree, a Proud Boy has to endure a beating until they can yell out the names of five breakfast cereals (in order to demonstrate adrenaline control) and give up masturbation because, in theory, it will leave them more inclined to go out and meet women. Those who enter the third degree have demonstrated their commitment by getting a Proud Boys tattoo. Any man no matter his race or sexual-orientation can join the fraternal organization as long as they recognize that white men are not the problem. Women have their own contingent called the Proud Boys Girls.

Members are identifiable by more than ink: they sport yellow-trimmed black Fred Perry polos and yell the tongue-in-cheek catchphrase Uhuru! a Swahili word they picked up from a YouTube videoin which an activist talks to white people about reparations. Their name comes from an Aladdin song, Proud of Your Boy. They adhere to a list of libertarian-leaning principles, including opposition to the drug war, racial guilt, and political correctness, and support for small government, closed borders, and Venerating the Housewife.

The oddball humor that tinges Proud Boys culture, and creates a set of references incomprehensible to those on the outside, has attracted a surprisingly large number of men. There is an obvious overlap between their views and those of President Donald Trump, whose election in 2016 played a clear role in increasing Proud Boys membership. A red MAGA hat is nearly as prominent at Proud Boys gatherings as their Fred Perry polos, and, in fact, one of their first public outings was at a pro-Trump art show called #DaddyWillSaveUS where McInnes displayed photos of himself as a white slave. Its a favorite mythical reference of his as well as neo-Nazis and white nationalists; oneepisode of his Rebel Media showcentered on the notion that thehistory of slavery is rife with white slaves.

The Proud Boys took off after the presidential election. Each of their official Facebook and Twitter pages had over 20,000 followers at the end of 2017. The website Rewire estimatesthere are roughly 6,000 members. Group meetings, according to McInnes, usually consist of drinking, fighting, and reading aloud from Pat Buchanans Death of the West.

For McInnes and the Proud Boys, much like Buchanan, pro-Westernism is indistinguishable from outright opposition to Islam. McInness Rebel Media videos feature titles like Donald Trumps Muslim ban is exactly what we need right now, 10 examples of the Koran being violent, and Islam isnt dope. Its sexist. Hes also hosted Pamela Geller, among the most prominent figures in todays anti-Muslim movement, on his newest show on the conservative online outlet CRTV, Get Off My Lawn. People in America say Muslims are what? One or two percent of the population? Theres never gonna be sharia law here, he said during the interview before assuring viewers that Britain, where Muslims are raping children regularly and where women are raped several times in one night, is the canary in the coalmine. In aninterview with NBC, McInnes admitted Im not a fan of Islam. I think its fair to call me Islamophobic.

The Proud Boys pro-western posture allows them to position themselves somewhat counterintuitively as a tolerant and progressive social force. If Islamic backwardness, as they imagine, threatens gay people and women, then they serve as their guardians by protecting and promoting western values. Their opposition to Muslims and Islam, improbably, stands as a marker of their own tolerance. In that way, their ideology is similar to many European far-right groups like the French National Front and Danish Party for Freedom who push hardline anti-immigration policies at the same time they call for greater tolerance in the form of secularism and gender equality, all the while attempting to distance themselves from overt racists. According to the sociologist Rogers Brubaker, the concurrent embrace of intolerance and inclusion is not only a rhetorical strategy but a political one, employed to reach out to new constituencies and gain mainstream acceptance from people who might otherwise hold an aversion toward extremist groups.

Proud Boys do their best to muddy right-wing taxonomies. Despite the pains theyve taken to distance themselves from open white nationalists and antisemites, Proud Boys have been present at high-profile alt-right events, including the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. [J]ust dont f------ wear your Fred Perry, or decide to belt: Proud of Your Boy, McInnes limply warned followers before the event. [I]f you decide to rub elbows with those people [while] in colors, you very well could find yourself disavowed.

But they did show up, which McInnes evidently expected. In the first episode of his Compound Media show after the August rally, McInnes said he had been just combing through all the media reports going, Dont say Proud Boys, dont say Proud Boys, dont say Proud Boys, hoping the lunatic Nazi who allegedly killed Heather Heyer wasnt a member of his group. He wasnt, but the white nationalist Jason Kessler who has been filmed undergoing his second-degree Proud Boy initiation was the rallys principal organizer. Less than two months earlier, Kessler had been a guest on The Gavin McInnes Show, where he promoted Unite the Right and, in a chummy interview, laid out the ideological overlap he and McInnes shared. Whats really under attack is if you say, I want to stand up for white people. I want to stand up for western civilization. I want to stand up for men. I want to stand up for Christians, to which McInnes nodded in agreement and added other examples: Im against immigrationIm against jihadis. Im against radical Islam.

After Charlottesville, in a move to protect the fratty and innocuous Proud Boys brand hes worked so hard to cultivate, McInnes ejected Kessler from the organization and insisted he had never really been a Proud Boy. Im suspicious of you, coming to Proud Boys meetings saying youre not alt-rightand I think you were there to try to recruit guys, McInnes told Kessler when they spoke on his show two days after the rally. It was only after the violence in Charlottesville, whenany doubts about the true nature of the movement were stripped away, that Mcinnes attempted to earnestly distance the Proud Boys from the alt-right label. Before that, he seemed content to let the Proud Boys brand appear more ideologically ambiguous, profiting off the alt-rights rising popularity until things got ugly.

Although McInnes has attempted to distance his organization from the violence of Charlottesville, violence is firmly entrenched in Proud Boy dogma. McInnes was filmed punching a counter-protestor outside of the Deploraball in January 2017, and after a speaking engagement at New York University the next month turned violent, he wryly declared, I cannot recommend violence enough. Its a really effective way to solve problems. In fact, in early 2017, the Proud Boys added another degree to their membership hierarchy: in order to enter the 4th degree, a member needs to get involved in a major fight for the cause. You get beat up, kick the crap out of an antifa, McInnes explained to Metro. Though he claimed in the interview he was ready to get violent and beat the f--k out of everybody, he later backtracked in a Proud Boys Magazine piece, assuring the public the fraternal group was opposed to senseless violence. We dont start fights, we finish them, McInnes wrote.

Around the same time, Proud Boys member Kyle Chapman announced he was forming a new tactical defense arm of the Proud Boys with McInnes full approval called the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK). The paramilitary wing positions itself as a defensive organization formed to protect right-wing activists at political demonstrations. Chapman, who has an extensive criminal history, first gained renown within the alt-right when he was photographed hitting a counter-protestor over the head with a stick at a March 4, 2017, pro-Trump rally in Berkeley, California.

Now referring to himself as Based Stick Man, Chapman has been making the rounds of far-right rallies around the country, doing little to create rhetorical distance between the Proud Boys and outright white nationalism. I am not afraid to speak out about the atrocities that whites and people of European descent face not only here in this country, he told a crowd at the JulyUnite America First Peace Rally in Sacramento, but in Western nations across the world. The war against whites and Europeans and Western society is very real. Its an idea he brings up over and over again. Whites are being discriminated against en masse, he told a reporter at The Atlantic. On social media, hes used the tags #ItsOkayToBeWhite and #WhiteGenocide both of which originated in white nationalist web forums.

Chapman openly encourages fellow Proud Boys and others on the far right to sacrifice for their beliefs. You are also gonna have to come to the realization that you may have to bleed to keep this going, he told the crowd in Sacramento. Youre maybe gonna have to do some time in jail and you very may well have to dieIm willing to die. Are you guys willing to die? he asked, and was met with cheers.

Similar calls have come from Augustus Invictus born Austin Gillespie a former Florida attorney and Senate candidate Chapman named his second-in-command in FOAK. Invictus ideology is a bizarre mix: he holds many mainstream libertarian beliefs but also claims Nazi and antisemitic thinkers (from the likes of Carl Schmitt and Francis Parker Yockey) as his chief intellectual influences and paganism as his faith. During his Senate run in 2016, journalists discovered that the candidate had slaughtered a goat and drank its blood as part of a pagan ritual. In campaign material, he criticized the federal government for abandoning eugenics programs. Hes also an admitted Holocaust denier.

McInnes welcomed Invictus onto his show on July 28, 2017, where the conversation repeatedly dipped into Invictuss interest in armed revolution. He explained that hed fallen out with his fellow attorneys because they took offense to his suggestions that maybe lawyers should be hanged in a revolution andif people get in our way, shoot them. With regard to journalists, he continued, Ill tell them, youre the first ones that are gonna be hanging from a lamppost in the event of revolution. McInnes only nodded along and, in response, offered up his own frustrations with liberal journalists.

Like some former members of the Proud Boys, Invictus eventually left the group for more hard-core parts of the white nationalist movement. Two months after the interview, Invictus severed his ties with FOAK and, by implication, the Proud Boys, explaining in a Facebook video that he was frustrated with Chapmans lack of professionalism. He has since focused on strengthening his relationship with the alt-right, becoming a board member for Kyle Bristows white nationalist legal outfit, Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas.

The turn toward violence and the blurring borders between alt-lite and alt-right is typified by Brien James, the state representative for the Indiana Proud Boys and a member of FOAK. James gained his racist skinhead credentials in the Outlaw Hammerskins and the Hoosier State Skinheads before becoming one of the founding members of the Vinlanders Social Club (VSC), a racist gang known for its extreme violence. Since its creation in 2003, the VSC has been linked to at least nine murders nationwide. James once bragged that his Joint Terrorism Task Force file was a mile long, and allegedly nearly beat a man to death for refusing to Seig Heil at a party.

James no longer considers himself a white nationalist but does identify as a member of the alt-right. In June 2017, he posted a video on YouTube in which he painstakingly attempted to categorize the groups that fit under the alt-rights umbrella, drawing distinctions between white nationalists and what he calls constitutional nationalist organizations that put America first and are ostensibly racially inclusive. He explains that the Proud Boys and American Guard an organization James founded as a modern version of the nineteenth-century anti-nativist group the Bowery Boys fall into the latter category. But American Guard appears to draw a large portion of his membership from the racist skinhead VSC. And, even though James has stated that he refuses to mingle with National Socialists, he marched alongside them in Charlottesville. A video captured by Charlottesville Weeklyshows James in an American Guard t-shirt trudging behind a man yelling Black lives dont matter and Hitler did nothing wrong at the August rally.

Proud Boys have become a staple at anti-Muslim and other far-right demonstrations, like when a group of Halifax Proud Boys disrupted a July 2017 ceremony held to mourn the murders of indigenous people by declaring the land a British colony and singing God Save the Queen. Both rank-and-file and FOAK memberswere in attendance at the anti-Muslim hate group ACT for Americas March Against Sharia rallies held in 28 cities around the country on June 10, 2017. At the New York City event where Chapman harassed counter-protesters local Proud Boy Pawl Bazile gave a speech contrasting his own Italian forebears with Muslim immigrants. Give us a reason to accept you, he yelled, because you know what? Sharia law aint it. Raping women aint it. Cutting off clits aint it. Throwing gay people off roofs aint it. You are a disgrace. He also referred to Burkas as a ghost costume.

Only weeks after the rally, the New York chapter gathered for an event they called Islamberg Exposed: Ride for Homeland Security. The Proud Boys, along with radical anti-government groups including the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, caravanned through the small, upstate New York African-American Muslim community of Islamberg, which they described as a suspected ground for recruiting, housing, and training terrorists, as well as a place away from the public eye for stockpiling weapons. In a film Bazile made of the ride through, one of the participants claimed to have conducted night-vision reconnaissance in the town, and allegedly witnessed training like breaking-neck-practicing and hand-to-hand combat training. Participants featured in the film, including Lisa Joseph from ACT for America, referred to the community as a no-go zone: fictitious Muslim neighborhoods that are so dangerous even the police refuse to enter. Unsurprisingly, the outing turned up nothing to suggest anything nefarious happening in the community.

While its hard to imagine anyone but a racist would spend their weekend menacingly parading through a Muslim neighborhood, Proud Boys continue to forswear that label. A number of journalists whove written about the group have received cease-and-desist orders from Proud Boys lawyer Jason Van Dyke insisting they do not now, nor have they ever, espoused white nationalist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, or alt-right views.

The statement is especially remarkable coming from Van Dyke, a member of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter and known neo-Confederate. Van Dykes affair with far right extremism stretches back until at least his college days, when Michigan State University police searching his dormfound extremist literature, including The Turner Diaries and Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In 2000, the university suspended Van Dyke for several semesters after he was arrested for domestic violence, possession of a banned weapon and firearm safety violations.

Van Dyke's penchant for violence appears on his Twitter page, where in 2014 he made death threats against another user. Alongside a picture of a noose, he wrote, Look good and hard at this picture you f------ n-----. Its where I am going to put your neck. Your kiddies are quite a nuisance, he wrote to another, My advice: run and hide. If I find you, I WILL kill both you and your family. After the musician Talib Kweli drew attention to the tweets, Van Dyke tweeted a picture of an AR-15 with the caption, Stupid Talib is trying to get a lynch mob on IG to attack my home, job, & family. It wont end well for the attackers. Twitter banned him in response.

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Proud Boys | Southern Poverty Law Center

Who are Boogaloo Bois, antifa and Proud Boys? – BBC

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

More than three weeks since the death of George Floyd, anti-racism protests are continuing across the US.

While in many cases peaceful, the protests have also featured scenes of police brutality, looting and violence.

Politicians, law enforcement and commentators on the left and right have accused a number of fringe groups of encouraging and participating in acts of violence.

BBC News has been examining these groups on social media platforms.

This relatively new anti-government subculture is perhaps the most dangerous of the bunch. Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old US Air Force sergeant from California, has been charged with the murder of two officers during the George Floyd protests, one in Oakland and another in Santa Cruz.

Before being arrested, he wrote in his own blood the terms "boog" and "I became unreasonable" on a car. Both terms are commonly used by the movement.

Rooted in a bulletin board dedicated to firearms on 4chan - called the /k/ board - Boogaloo Bois is a loose, leaderless movement.

The group's name is a reference to a poorly-reviewed 1984 film, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. The phrase "Electric Boogaloo" has since become an online meme meaning a low-quality sequel.

But Boogaloo Bois use it to refer to armed conflict with authorities, something akin to a second US Civil War.

Relatively small on 4chan in its early days, the movement has since considerably grown in size, notably helped by dozens of Facebook groups and pages with tens of thousands of members and followers. In order to evade Facebook restrictions on the word "Boogaloo", alternate terms like "Big Igloo", "Boog" and "Big Luau" are also frequently used.

Like other online movements born out of 4chan, Boogaloo Bois are steeped in the vernacular of internet memes and in-jokes.

Some in the movement refer to themselves as "boojahideen", a parody of the term "mujahideen" which is frequently used to refer to radical Islamist militants.

Followers have a variety of views and levels of seriousness towards the movement, but most could be described as extreme libertarians and sign up to two fundamental beliefs: A desire for an armed overthrow of the government, and an unwavering commitment to gun ownership.

Boogaloo Bois were overwhelmingly opposed to coronavirus lockdowns, which they saw as an alarming sign of tyranny. When anti-lockdown gatherings were held in several states in April and May, some armed members of the Boogaloo movement were seen in the rallies, often wearing Hawaiian shirts - a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hawaiian luau celebrations.

Black Lives Matter protests have caused a divide in the group. While the majority of members support the protests and are anti-police, some in the movement's more radical circles are conflicted.

Facebook groups and pages post footage of armed members in Hawaiian shirts attending the protests carrying Boogaloo flags, claiming they are there to protect the protesters from police. Some even suggest that the demonstrations might trigger the "Boogaloo" that they've been waiting for.

Videos and hashtags sympathetic to the group have also appeared on TikTok in recent weeks. They are often posted by young men with firearms who call for an uprising. One video features captions such as "becoming more and more willing to die" and "cops showing at your door will be targeted first".

Some members are capitalising on the protests to engage in acts of violence against authorities. Three Boogaloo members were charged with terrorism offences in Nevada this month for alleged attempts to "spark violence" in protests.

Facebook has since limited the reach of Boogaloo-themed groups and pages. Several have been removed - or "got Zucced", as members call it - in the last few days.

Antifa, short for "anti-fascist", is a loose affiliation of mostly far-left activists.

They include anarchists, but also communists and a few social democrats. What sets them apart is their willingness to use violence - they say, in self-defence or to defend their communities.

The movement, which at one point almost entirely disappeared in the US, saw a surge of interest after the election of Donald Trump. They routinely clash with the far right.

During the recent protests, there's some evidence that they've been involved in property damage and looting. Authorities in Texas, for instance, say three alleged looters in Austin were antifa affiliates.

But right-wing activists and President Donald Trump have made much bigger claims - that they are the driving force behind the violence.

While US presidents can designate individuals or groups as foreign terrorists, legal experts have questioned whether Mr Trump has the authority to label antifa a "domestic terrorist organisation".

There's little evidence for the sweeping claims. Antifa activists are relatively rare - their numbers are tiny compared to the size of the US protests.

Founded in 2016 by Canadian-British right-wing activist Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys is a far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group with a history of street violence against its left-wing opponents, notably antifa.

The group's name is a reference to a song from the musical version of the Disney film Aladdin. Members often wear black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts along with red "Make America Great Again" hats.

A member must declare that he is "a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologise for creating the modern world".

The Proud Boys and affiliated groups have faced off against antifa in a number of violent street rallies in the last two years, most notably in Oregon, Washington and New York. Two members were jailed last year for beating up antifa activists in New York.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a prominent civil rights group, describes the Proud Boys as a hate group.

Although Mr McInnes quit the group in November 2018, he filed a lawsuit against the SPLC three months later. Enrique Tarrio is the group's current chairman.

Proud Boys members are vehemently opposed to BLM protests. Describing attempts to bring down statues of Confederate leaders as a left-wing plot to "destroy American history", members have been seen "guarding" statues of historical figures in a number of states.

Following the establishment of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, a police-free district in Seattle, Proud Boys members - some armed - turned up to confront what they called "authoritarian behaviour" by the protesters.

Photos and videos of clashes between the group and antifa members near the zone have gone viral.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have all banned the group from their platforms. But accounts associated with the movement have popped up again during the protests. This week, 358 Facebook accounts and 172 Instagram accounts tied to Proud Boys were removed.

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Who are Boogaloo Bois, antifa and Proud Boys? - BBC

Proud Boys: Who Are They? Proud Boy Magazine

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

The Proud Boys are amens organizationfounded in 2016 byVice Mediaco-founder Gavin McInnes. McInnes has described the Proud Boys as a pro-Westernfraternal organizationfor men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.

Proud Boys values center on the following tenets:

Minimal GovernmentMaximum FreedomAnti-Political CorrectnessAnti-Drug WarClosed BordersAnti-Racial GuiltAnti-RacismPro-Free Speech (1st Amendment)Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment)Glorifying the EntrepreneurVenerating the HousewifeReinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism

Though these are our central tenets, all that is required to become a Proud Boy is that a man declare he is a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world. We do not discriminate based upon race or sexual orientation/preference. We are not an ism, ist, or phobic that fits the Lefts narrative. We truly believe that the West Is The Best and welcome those who believe in the same tenets as us. We have an international reach, with members spanning the globe.If you have any questions or would like get in contact with your local chapter, feel free to contact us directly via our staff page.This, after all, the one and only Proud Boy Magazine. For Proud Boys, by Proud Boys. UHURU!

If youre interested here are some additional articles and video clips to shed some more light on our movement. In fact, here are a few Gavin has written for this website.

We Are Not Alt-Right

Clarification on the 4th Degree

Proud Boys: Who Are They? Proud Boy Magazine

Back the Blue brings patriots and Proud Boys to rally – Wallowa County Chieftain

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Danzig

ENTERPRISE A crowd estimated by Wallowa County Sheriff Steve Rogers at about 200 people packed the Wallowa County Courthouse grounds and lined adjacent North River Street on Saturday, Aug. 22, for a Back the Blue rally.

The rally also included local members of the Proud Boys.

Were here to support law enforcement, rally organizer Janet Furbish said. Our police officers and community policing are key parts of our community.

Furbishs sister, Laura (Collins) Ledgett, said there are bad police officers that need to be weeded out, just like in any profession.

But for the most part, theyre really good guys, she said. Were a small town, a small community and if we dont have their backs, who does?

The rally started with a parade through downtown Enterprise and continued with a gathering at the courthouse. Attendees waved blue-and-white flags as passing vehicles, from Cooper Minis to log trucks, honked on their way by.

The reason that I did this rally is that I was told to sit down and shut up every time I tried to open up any kind of dialogue, Furbish said.

The rally had a family-friendly, celebratory air feel, providing free cookies and bottled water for participants. Many rally attendees also signed flags that Furbish presented to representatives of each law enforcement agency in Wallowa County the Wallowa County Sheriffs Office, Enterprise Police Department, Oregon State Police, and the U.S. Forest Service at the close of the rally.

When the BLM (Black Lives Matter) protest was going on right after the George Floyd thing happened, I wanted to talk with people and I tried asking, How do we open dialogue? Where do we go from here? Furbush said. I was told, Sit down and shut up, you racist, you bigot. I could never get a dialogue started.

Furbish said that she had gotten a lot of pushback when she first proposed the rally, and had even gotten death threats via Facebook Messenger, but declined to name the senders. Threats and negativity made her even more determined to do the rally.

This was a way for me to do something, she said. To have my voice. And Im so happy its turned out so well.

The crowd was largely composed of local, Wallowa County residents. They were joined by three men who carried the flag of the Proud Boys clubs, and who said they lived in Wallowa County. Mason Walker, who is Black, said that he has lived in Joseph for about six years, and was heading up an effort to establish an Eastern Oregon Proud Boys chapter.

Right now, there are only three of us here who are members of the organization, he said. So we are still officially part of the Portland chapter.

Walker said the group has received negative publicity in the past.

In the major metropolitan areas theres been clashes with Antifa and BLM. But thats not the agenda, he said. The agenda is to uphold the Constitution, protect the members of your community and be for freedom of speech. Our club stuff is mostly talking about how we keep our families safe, how we back one another, if theres ever an issue, and how we can be more active in our communities.

The Proud Boys organization was classified as a terrorist organization by the FBI, but was reclassified as a far-right nationalist group in 2018, according to the Washington Post. The Southern Poverty Law Center website designates them as a hate group that spouts white nationalist themes, and are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric.

Were not anti-anything anything, except that we are anti-racism, and anti-sexism, Walker said. Its good for men to have something to fall back on. Masculinity is so masked nowadays that men are afraid to be men, and they are afraid to need support from other men.

In Enterprise, only a single counter-protester was present and throughout the rally silently held a sign that said Disarm, Defund, Disband on the northwest corner of River and Main streets. He said that he preferred not to comment any further than what his sign said.

Sheriff Rogers said that he thought the rally was a great event.

Its nice to feel appreciated once in a while, he said.

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Back the Blue brings patriots and Proud Boys to rally - Wallowa County Chieftain

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