Accountability
GLAAD has a list of the damned, which it laughably calls its “Accountability Project.”
The GLAAD Accountability Project catalogs anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and discriminatory actions of politicians, commentators, organization heads, religious leaders, and legal figures who have used their platforms, influence and power to spread misinformation and harm LGBTQ people.
The Project reveals these individuals’ own words and actions, to help all Americans evaluate whether to vote for them, or quote them, or support their point of view. As journalists, newsrooms and platforms write stories or book guests for interviews and segments, they can check the record, add context to stories, or help decide whether a person with this history should continue to be given unchallenged air time or ink. See the complete list of profiles in the dropdown menu to the right.
The complete list is looooooong.
Let’s see some examples. JK Rowling for instance; part of item 3 of the indictment:
—Doubled down on remarks and support for anti-trans researchers, during Pride month 2020 and as the world endured the historic pandemic, and the U.S. a national reckoning on racial injustice and police violence, in lengthy essay of inaccuracies about transgender people and identity, claiming that as “an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity” she has “deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.”
It’s not even literate, let alone thoughtful or reasonable. Are they letting the kids do all the writing?
Times when you are not allowed to question the trans rights movement:
— During Pride month
— during a pandemic
— during a “national reckoning on racial injustice and police violence”
and, presumably:
— during a time when there is racial injustice and police violence that there is no reckoning for
Times when you are allowed to question the trans rights movement:
— to be determined…
What a strange list. Lots of people I might have expected to be blacklisted are not (yet). Jesse Singal is listed as only “Singal”, no first name. Positions are listed in euphemistic shorthand, like “marriage equality”. I guess people who go to the GLAAD web site know what they mean.
When did “rhetoric” start to mean “bad”? It annoys me, stop it.
latsot:
I think it’s a consequence of American anti-intellectualism. Rhetoric is what those know-it-alls in their ivory towers use to make us real, honest people confused and make us doubt the Lord Jesus Christ.
Same with the term “ideology.” I recently referred to “transgender ideology” and everyone started furiously insisting there WAS no such thing, it was a lie and a slander and sheer ignorance and malice on my part to say so.
An ideology is simply “a system of ideas and ideals.” Humanism is an ideology. It’s not an insult.
The Rowling page appears to have been taken down? Singal’s is still up, though.
And yet, Judith Butler’s ivory tower bullshit (arguably) led to the whole trans movement.
Nullius: You might be over-thinking. I suspect terms like “empty rhetoric” have been used so many times that people have come to think it’s the rhetoric that’s bad, not the empty.
Sastra: Yes, I’ve seen that too. It has become synonymous with ‘dogma’ in certain circles and among some TAs it’s forbidden (and therefore transphobic, naturally) to talk of transgender ideology because trans just is. Handy, though, that there just happens to be no system of ideas one can argue with…
Screechy: I’m getting access denied on the Rowling page. I could see it earlier and others are still there as you say.
I’m not finding Rowling in the drop-down list anymore.
J.K. Rowling might have sent them some legal advice about defamation, which given what GLAAD is about might seem like carrying coals to Newcastle.
Yep, I get “You are not authorized to access this page.” Which seems to indicate they haven’t actually taken it down, they’ve just protected it. Which is sly and malicious of them.
We can report GLAAD to GLAAD for media defamation
https://www.glaad.org/form/report-media-defamation
Ha! I just might have to do that.
Screechy, don’t forget to factor in that a “national reckoning” in one country is sufficient to prevent you from being allowed to voice an opinion on the trans rights movement… in any other nation. Maybe JK will be allowed to worry about it when all the racism and police violence has been fixed, everywhere? She’d better get to work on that.
They’ve made the list, when do they start issuing the stars for the condemned to sew onto their clothes?
It’s more than a little sinister, that ‘Accountability’ project.
AoS:
Truth.
In fact, the concept of accountability has taken a sinister turn, lately. As has “consequences”.
The trouble is that the consequences never seem in proportion to the ‘crime’ and the accounting is done by people with unjustified influence.
Really? Did they include a single word of what Rowling actually wrote?
They refuse to give that an airing, because if they did, millions or billions of trans youth would commit suicide. And be murdered. And be misgendered. And not be allowed to use the women’s bathroom.
You TERF!
iknklast@18,
Billions of trans youth being murdered? That’s terrible! Free speech is important and great, as is hearing out the arguments of various sides, but shouldn’t saving billions of lives take precedence over it?
millions, billions, trillions, …
GLAAD hid the March 22 page archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210322164007/https://www.glaad.org/gap/jk-rowling
I can’t tell if GLAAD hid the page because it was defamatory, or because the direct quotes of Rowling made her look good, or because it linked to this page that is still visible:
https://www.glaad.org/blog/harry-potter-fandom-responds-jk-rowlings-anti-trans-activism-although-it-difficult-speak-out
I am not a lawyer, but that page might be defamation (in US law) if someone could read this as GLAAD making untrue claims of fact (not opinion):
10 billion trans people are murdered every hour.
Dave, that doesn’t look remotely like defamation to me.
Criticizing someone’s “ideas” and “beliefs” as not based in fact or science is pretty solidly in the territory of protected opinion. Gender critical people say it about trans rights activists, and vice versa. Creationists say it about evolutionary biologists, and vice versa. Courts in the U.S. are not going to wade into this area and declare that such-and-such a view is so clearly True and Scientific such that anyone saying otherwise is committing defamation.
Accusing someone of inaccuracies or omissions could conceivably be defamatory in some contexts (“Donald Trump lied when he said I was making up my rape allegations against him”), but given that the piece refers to a specific article it’s highly unlikely this would qualify. Among other things, this appears to be what is sometimes referred to as an “opinion based on disclosed facts.”
For example, “X is a rapist” is (assuming no exculpatory context), probably defamatory. Saying “X is a rapist, of course that’s just my opinion” is murky. If the context implies that the speaker possess certain facts (“I was in the same fraternity as X, and he’s a rapist, of course that’s just my opinion”), then the “just my opinion” part isn’t necessarily a get-out-of-liability-free card. On the other hand, saying “after reading the lawsuit filed against X, in my opinion, X is a rapist,” is an opinion based on disclosed facts — the speaker is making clear what the factual basis is.
As always, the fact that something probably wouldn’t support a defamation lawsuit doesn’t mean it’s not reprehensible, unethical behavior, etc.
And by the same token, the fact that I think a defamation threat would not be very credible doesn’t mean that one wasn’t made, or that the organization didn’t take action to try to avoid a lawsuit. Aside from the irritating fact that not everyone always sees things the way I do, there’s also the pragmatic issue that even very weak lawsuits can be expensive and time-consuming to deal with, especially if you’re sued in a jurisdiction without a good anti-SLAPP law.