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The idea of suing a website might seem abhorrent to advocates of free speech on the internet, but maybe one case shows that it can be justified?
Whitefish Woman's Lawsuit Over 'Daily Stormer' Harassment Proceeding
The Missoulian is reporting [archive] that a Whitefish woman's lawsuit against a Nazi website is going forward.
Montana Public Radio reports that Andrew Anglin, publisher of The Daily Stormer, is being sued by an individual the website targeted because of the mother of Richard Spencer:
The Daily Stormer called for readers to harass her and her family over her dealings with the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Image of part of the complaint (PDF).
Northwestern Montana, however, has had some experience in dealing with neo-Nazis in the neighborhood.
(Score: 2, Troll) by NotSanguine on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:00AM (10 children)
Sure. As I said, your speculation might be true. But that's all it is: speculation.
That and a dollar will get you, well, a dollar.
Personally, I prefer not to speculate. Unless there's an eventual out of court settlement, we'll likely (and we may even if there is a settlement) get a lot more information. The jury (assuming there is a trial) will likely be in the best position to conclude what happened. I don't live in Montana, so I won't be one of those jurors.
I based my comments on the legal documents and published news reports I read. Are they *all* complete hogwash? Probably not. However, I do give the least weight to the legal documents filed as, in our adversarial system, they're usually the most biased.
From a principled standpoint, I will say that there's never a good reason for someone (whether it be an Internet troll, a prosecutor or a guy who just had "his" parking spot stolen) to threaten or harass someone, or incite others to do so. And that part isn't in dispute. Which is, in my mind, reprehensible.
If there was some sort of monetary dispute (as you speculate), the correct venue would be the courts, not despicable threats against a whole family.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:51AM (9 children)
And that's fine. The point of this thread, after all, was to speculate on the matter. And glancing at the actual emails [scribd.com] between Gersh and Spencer does indicate to me considerable support for the speculation. For example, from a November 16, 2016 email:
A realtor with at least two massive conflict of interests (both the previously mentioned personal gain and via potential of donations to a local chapter of the Human Rights Network) claims they are somehow preventing "community" issues (which a later email indicates means public protests right outside the property of Spencer's notorious son, Richard) through this sale. And here, my previous speculation turns out to be sufficient. The personal gain conflict of interest exists because there are numerous ways for Gersh to profit from this transaction (monetarily or through increased status), even if she was sincere in her promises as listed in the email.
(Score: 2, Troll) by NotSanguine on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:31AM (4 children)
Yup. If someone said that to me, I'd be so angry that I'd want to rip their lungs out.
My understanding is that Spencer's mother *asked* Gersh (after all, it was Spencer's mother who made contact with Gerh, not the other way around) to sell the building. It's also my understanding that Spencer's mother specifically requested that Gersh write the public statement.
And yes, if she sold the property, she'd make a commission. How is that a conflict of interest? That's how she earns a living, and she was *directed* by the building's owner to do just that.
I'll go ahead and speculate too now. When Richard Spencer found out that his mother wanted to sell the property, he was pissed. He was counting on selling it himself once she kicked and now she was going to get the money, not him (There's that financial motive). Then he found out that a *JEW* was handling the sale and that just infuriated him. So he bitched about it to his good buddy Anglin and paid him to "fix that jew bitch but good!"
And so, in exchange for some cash, Anglin got his trolls to work, threatening and harassing Gersh and her family.
That's just as plausible as anything you've come up with. And I would have left that whole bit alone, but you just had to keep pushing your completely unsupported by any facts (in fact, the tone and content of the email section you quoted implies a cordial and positive working relationship) bullshit.
By doing so, you are implicitly endorsing the actions of these folks to terrorize, harass and heap abuse on an entire family -- those actions are *not* in dispute by anyone. So you consider that to be acceptable behavior, do you?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:46AM (3 children)
I noted the obvious flaw with that idea, namely, that there are other ways to profit from the situation. Thus, we have the shifty situation where Gersh claims to have some influence over protests that would devalue her client's property combined with a financial interest (both personal and perhaps for the "Love Really Matters" organization which she purported to have an association with in the emails) in pressuring her for a sale, even going as far as to link progress of the sale to the temporary cessation of protests. That goes beyond the usual conflicts of interest that any realtor would have with a client.
This may well become a part of the trial. Blaming the victim does sometimes have some traction in court. Anglin is still going down (since Gersh's husband and child were also targeted by the "troll-storm" and it won't take much exposure to Daily Storm web pages, which inevitably will be part of the evidence, to turn a jury against him), but it could reduce the amount that juries would credit as harm to Tanya Gersh herself and may even generate some sympathy for Anglin who will sorely need it.
So that's why I brought it up as a relevant bit of speculation to both the coming trial and this thread.
In other words, you speculated, I corrected your speculation with my own informed speculation, and now it's bullshit because reasons. I'll note also most con men that I've heard of have a cordial and positive working relationship with their marks. It's pretty much part of the definition of "con".
As to your above speculation, it is quite legitimate. The plaintiff may be able to get access to email and other records of Anglin or the Daily Storm organization (these sorts of trials can get interesting during the discovery phase as a result). That in turn may show collusion with Richard Spencer or other white nationalist figures of note in the troll-storm.
Given that I didn't implicitly do that nor would a reasonable person deduce that from my writings, perhaps we should go back to the adult conversation we were having?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by NotSanguine on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:34AM (2 children)
Yep. I did. In response to your own continued speculation. However, you didn't "correct" my speculation. In response to the only speculative statement I made, your response was:
I'm not sure how that counts as a "correction". You're being disingenuous in trying to alter the sequence of events.
To be clear, that speculation was:
Further, the corpus of your comments in this thread give a very different impression of your motives than you claim.
That's as may be. However, I got a very different impression. As an adult, you should know that how others perceive you is *who you are* as far as they can tell. Perhaps you should attempt to be clearer in the future.
The only *real* facts we have so far is that Anglin and his thugs went after Gersh and her family.
You stated that there could be mitigating factors for Anglin. What could mitigate the impact of such actions? That (to me at least) clearly indicates that you have a bias against Gersh -- and if you're biased against Gersh, you are implicitly siding with threats, harassment and thuggery -- actions which are not in dispute.
I don't know Gersh and I really don't give a rat's ass about her or her family. But *no one* deserves to be treated that way. Not Gersh. Not you. Not Richard Spencer. Not even Anglin. Full stop.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:49PM
As well as the other *real* facts discussed in this thread, like emails, existence of conflicts of interest, etc.
The thing is, ignoring the trigger can make the problems worse. If it turns out that Gersh was preying on the Spencer parents (unpunished, I might add) precisely because their son was a white nationalist, that will legitimize the whole bout of thuggery in the eyes of the people who undertook it. While Anglin and his associates may be unable to exploit the trial competently, eventually someone will come around who can thrive on these lawsuits and whatnot, turning bad publicity into gold. At a glance, Anglin has raised almost $160,000 [wesearchr.com] for his legal defense fund. He's getting support from somewhere.
Going back to the days of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis routinely ran afoul of these sorts of laws. I understand that members of the organization collected dozens of lawsuits and criminal trials for hate speech, rioting, treason, slander/libel, etc. There were even Nazi publishers filling the same niches (and doing the same tricks) as the Daily Stormer today with repeated jail sentences and seizure of equipment and assets. Rather than encourage them to obey the law, these trials had the perverse outcome generating a considerable amount of sympathy, publicity, and funding. For the key example, Hitler was at the time of the "Beer Hall Putsch" (a poorly organized attempted coup of the Bavarian state government) a local problem. During his trial for treason, he achieved national fame.
It's nice that you agree that no one should be treated this way. But from the other point of view it's a straightforward case of tit-for-tat in a scary world where scary Jews make all the rules. Gersh allegedly goes after family so they go after her family because they don't believe playing by the rules would work. I don't buy that punishing the current harassment while coyly ignoring the trigger will undermine support for these beliefs or discourage lawbreaking. They have a different narrative going.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:52PM
O RLY? Is the quote from Gersh's email real for you, or is it not?
If it is, start explaining how it materially differs from the classic "Nice property you have here, shame if something were to happen to it".
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:26AM (3 children)
khallow, fuck you and your government provided salary, you leech upon the system you despise! Get a real job, if you are so smart! Oh, you can't? Then shut the fuck up, and join the government workers union. Oh, you already have? Good job, khallow! Would you like a pension?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:54AM (2 children)
But since some people apparently need to be explicitly told, I don't approve of this retarded troll-storm. Even if somehow Anglin's intentions were pure and Gersh's ignoble, he publicized contact information for innocent people who had nothing to do with the Gersh-Spencer affair, and the resulting storm of threats and whatnot are fairly predictable and thus, should have been anticipated by a reasonable person. So he should and most likely will go down hard for what happened.
(Score: 1, Troll) by NotSanguine on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:37AM (1 child)
Although it wasn't directed at me, you've clarified your statements and sentiments. Thank you.
If I misunderstood you previously, my apologies.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:44PM
Reading further, we have Anglin bragging [onion.link] (.onion link should work for a time) a few days after the fact that the "troll-storm" was working and that he had control over it. At that point, he would have known that there was a lot of threats of violence and had a great opportunity to call for an end to the lawbreaking.
Anglin made no attempt to tell "my people" to tone it down a little and to stop making threats. Early on, it sounds like he could have made the case that he was looking for a peaceful protest, but some bad apples got out of hand. By December 23, he would have heard what those bad apples were doing. And any time after December 23 (almost a year now), he could have edited the above web page to urge his followers to behave. That didn't happen. I think he's going down hard.
Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised to see Daily Stormer disappear and then come up again in a year or two. He probably doesn't have any assets to take and it's not hard for someone to give him enough money to start the site up again.