No Cash For Hate, Say Mainstream Crowdfunding Firms (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Online fund-raising sites are turning their backs on activists looking to offer financial support for James Fields, the man accused of driving his car into counter-protesters at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday. GoFundMe, Kickstarter and other mainstream crowdfunding firms have policies that prohibit hate speech or abuse, the latest example of technology firms making it harder for far-right groups to organize online. Fields is accused of killing one woman and injuring 19 others on Saturday after the rally in Charlottesville turned violent. Supporters of Fields, who was denied bail at a court hearing in Virginia on Monday, have turned to the internet to raise money for his legal defense. GoFundMe, one of the two leading crowdfunding firms, said on Monday it has removed multiple fundraising campaigns for Fields, because the company prohibits the promotion of hate speech and violence.

Comments

Black Lives Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Would this apply to Black Lives Matter? They have been responsible for a lot of hate speech, but maybe this only applies to certain kinds of hate speech.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[MightyMartian]

Because pointing out the greater likelihood of being shot by police if you're black than if you're white is clearly hate speech...

Re:Black Lives Matter

[alvinrod]

I think it's pretty hard to target the Black Lives Matter group because its not really a group as a whole, but a collective of smaller groups that have almost no connection other than they operate under the same banner. It's very similar to the group Anonymous in that there really isn't any central command and anyone at all can decide that they want to operate under the banner.

When you have a structure like that, it's really hard to treat them as a monolith. For example, one city's BLM decided to have a cookout with their local police to try to have a friendly dialog and voice their concerns. Even if you're generally against the movement as a whole, it's pretty hard to condemn trying to come together on good terms and build understanding. On the other hand it's hard to support the BLM member who has allegedly defrauded the University of Toronto for almost $300,000 dollars even if you generally support the movement as a whole.

In general, most things are a mixed bag, but typically you're dealing with an entity that is ultimately answerable to a single person or a small group of individuals so you can still form a cohesive opinion of the whole, but I don't know if that's really possible with BLM since it's completely decentralized. I suppose it's possible to argue that the "good" parts of BLM should rebrand or distance themselves from the "bad" parts, but as a brand BLM is attractive under the idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if you are one of those "good" parts of the movement, you can use the negative publicity as a foil to highlight the positive of your own particular subgroup within the movement.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[El Cubano]

Because pointing out the greater likelihood of being shot by police if you're black than if you're white is clearly hate speech...

Well, that is not hate speech. An example of BLM-related hate speech might be calling for the assassination of law enforcement officers or praising it when it happens, like what happened in Dallas.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[jellomizer]

Such a simplistic approach to the problem.
There are many times that white people have contact with the Police when they are doing something wrong, and normally they will just get a talking to and move along. A minority has a higher chance on getting arrested for the same problem.
Being in a culture where the law enforcement will not treat you justly means the local communities will put the law into their own hands, with often poor results. Thus escalating the minor offence to a bigger one.

In short growing up white you are allowed to make mistakes, if you are black the same mistake will affect you all your life. The ones who make it, normally have to live their life in full consciousnesses that they can't do anything wrong. While for the someone who is white, then most of it will fall under kids will be kids.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[MightyMartian]

And what actions are those? The leaders of the movement have been quick to condemn any violence done in BLM's name. You are literally just making shit up to try to create a false equivalency.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[ShanghaiBill]

BLM doesn't advocate violence in pursuit of their objectives. In fact, they don't even have any objectives. Many activists don't understand that to be effective, you need to have clear actionable goals. As an example of this, look at the two movements that arose in reaction to the 2008 financial bailout: Occupy Wall Street, and the Tea Party. One had clear goals, the other did not. Occupy Wall Street accomplished nothing, and has mostly faded away. Meanwhile, the Tea Party is running the country.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[Grim Beefer]

Black Lives Matter is not a hate group with a mission of violence. I have nothing good to say about any religion, but there' also nothing inherently violent about the Nation of Islam. There's no reason whatsoever to compare any of the things you mention to neo-nazis, unless we accept the tacit assumptions of your poisonous mentality.

In fact, any political movement is almost certainly fine SO LONG AS THEY AREN'T OPENLY ADVOCATING VIOLENCE. Like, seriously, do you REALLY not even see the fucking difference? Seriously? Scary fucking times.

 

Problematic as a precedent

[FooAtWFU]

Some day an innocent man is going to set up a crowdfunding campaign for his defence and is going to get it shut down because he's been pre-emptively judged guilty. It's that old "first they came for the (x)" story, except this time they came for the Nazis, and it's all that more seductive because the Nazis deserve it.

Re:Problematic as a precedent

[bobbied]

THIS!

We all need to be guarding the other's rights no matter how repugnant the other's opinions (or actions) are to us. A right to speak, A right to fair trial, even being treated as innocent until convicted should NOT be abridged. If we don't slow down and realize this, we are going to have no real justice, no real democracy. It will be mob rule, where those who are the angriest and most violent will rule with impunity, in short anarchy will rule with all it's violence and fury and bring with it death and destrcution.

Re:Problematic as a precedent

[michiganbob]

Since when has crowdfunding been a requirement for justice? These sites can deny service to whomever they like. If people don't like it, they're welcome to create their own crowdfunding site.

Re:Problematic as a precedent

[skids]

A right to speak, A right to fair trial, even being treated as innocent until convicted should NOT be abridged.

Nobody is stopping his supporters from writing stuff on a cardboard box and standing at intersections. I don't see a problem here.

Re:Problematic as a precedent

[bobbied]

A right to speak, A right to fair trial, even being treated as innocent until convicted should NOT be abridged.

Nobody is stopping his supporters from writing stuff on a cardboard box and standing at intersections. I don't see a problem here.

Way to miss the point. Are we committed to the US constitution with it's bill of rights or not here? Perhaps the ends (silencing repugnant speech) justifies the means (ignoring the bill of rights)?

I'm not saying the "crowd sourced funding" companies don't have the right to refuse, I'm just pointing out that we just might letting the camel's nose into the tent by just accepting the idea that the accused don't deserve to ask for help with their legal costs. We need to error on the side of caution here and stay as far away from acting like a lynch mob rushing to judgment as we can. I've heard that there *might* be some undisclosed circumstances in play here as well and we need to whoa up and let law enforcement do their jobs, bring the appropriate charges and prove them in court, while letting the accused have the benefit of being presumed innocent until convicted. After all, this IS how the US Constitution says this works... One doesn't get tried in the court of public opinion and condemned by the mob in our system.

Re:Problematic as a precedent

[fightinfilipino]

They're stopping people from providing funds for a lawyer. Perhaps you'll understand some day. Ass-hole.

no they're not. explain to me how supporters are blocked from sending this guy checks or cash. or sending whoever the attorney is checks or cash. answer: they're not.

also explain to me why GoFundMe et al should be forced to facilitate the funding of a murderer? answer: why the fuck should they be?

Re:Meet the new judge

[Anonymous Coward]

So now it's up to crowdfunding sites to decide who can and who cannot get good legal representation?

This isn't about supporting hate speech - it's about giving a guy a proper lawyer so the courts can do what they're supposed to do.

The courts can do exactly what they're supposed to do... appoint a lawyer if the defendant can't afford it. Show me a law that says this is Kickstarter's responsibility.

Free speech vs fair trial

[Anonymous Coward]

There is I think an interesting dichotomy here...

On the one hand, they wish to prohibit 'hate speech' on their platform, so understandingly, like GoDaddy or Google, prohibit fund raising/hosting related to the dissemination of 'hate speech'.

On the other hand, by refusing to allow fund raising for adequate legal representation, they end up putting their finger on the scales of justice by limiting for which causes/persons can raise on the platform.

Re:nobrainer

[phantomfive]

And on the third hand, you might alienate the few remaining Americans who believe that everyone accused of a crime is entitled to a fair trial.

For some reason this group seems very small recently.

So what about funding a terrorist?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was a Muslim guy who drove into a crowd in the street would that be OK?

If there was a doubt about his guilt this could have been used as an appeal to these companies. He's a terrorist who murdered an innocent person and injured many because of his "religion". These sites should not promote or condone terrorism in any form.

Black-on-black gun violence is much more likely.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality that you, and leftists in general, keep ignoring is that if a black person gets shot while in the United States, there's actually a much greater chance that it's another black person who pulled the trigger than it is that it was a police officer (of any race).

Black-on-black gun violence is a huge problem across the US, in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, and L.A., among others.

What's really sad about this problem is that it's leftists who refuse to discuss it, and that's why it is continually perpetuated. As long as it's deemed "unacceptable" to discuss this very real and very deadly problem, and as long as it's deemed "unacceptable" to be perfectly open about who is involved and who isn't involved, then it will continue to happen. But perhaps that's exactly what leftists want, as it generates strife, which gives them more victims to exploit for political means.

Re:Meet the new judge

[oh_my_080980980]

Show me the law that says hiring a lawyer amounts to hate speech....

Re:Where is the evidence?

[MightyMartian]

He was seen marching with a white supremacist group (Vanguard America) and was seen wearing one of their shields early in the protest. Couple that with statements by others who knew him that he espoused white supremacist views, I don't think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to draw the line, unless you're intentionally trying to make a group like Vanguard look less loathsome than they are by making the absurd claim that he had nothing to do with them.

Re:Where is the evidence?

[sqorbit]

He's being charged with the crime of driving a car into a group of people. Nazi or not that's still a crime. If he's guilty of killing someone, it doesn't matter much what his beliefs are.