Yes, Even If You Think Project Veritas Are A Bunch Of Malicious Grifters, FBI Raid Is Concerning

from the press-freedom-matters dept

I am no fan of Project Veritas. They appear to be a group of malicious grifters, deliberately distorting things, presenting them out of context to fit (or make) a narrative. Even so (or perhaps, especially so), we should be extremely concerned about the FBI's recent raid on Project Veritas' founder James O'Keefe and two of his colleagues.

The FBI and DOJ say they're investigating the apparent theft of a diary belonging to Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley, which later ended up in Project Veritas' hands. But, as we've discussed for many years, there are serious 1st Amendment questions involved when the government is raiding the homes of journalists and seizing their computers, phones, and other records. I'm assuming that some of you are going to say that this shouldn't matter because O'Keefe and Veritas aren't "real journalists," and we'll get to that argument later. But the simple fact is that after many years (and multiple administrations lead by both parties) in which the DOJ felt free to collect journalist records, earlier this year, we were told that the DOJ was finally going to no longer sweep up journalist records (though even then it noted that didn't apply in cases where the journalists themselves were targets of a criminal investigation -- as was the case here).

However, unless there's really strong evidence indicating that Project Veritas was involved in the actual theft of the diary, if the organization was merely the recipient of that diary, then these raids raise many, many concerns about violations of press freedoms and the use of law enforcement to intimidate the press.

Many others seem to be similarly concerned, as this is raising a lot of alarm bells for those who work on press freedom issues:

“This is just beyond belief,” said University of Minnesota law professor Jane Kirtley, a former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “I’m not a big fan of Project Veritas, but this is just over the top. I hope they get a serious reprimand from the court because I think this is just wrong.”

The ACLU is also quite concerned:

“Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all. Nevertheless, the precedent set in this case could have serious consequences for press freedom. Unless the government had good reason to believe that Project Veritas employees were directly involved in the criminal theft of the diary, it should not have subjected them to invasive searches and seizures. We urge the court to appoint a special master to ensure that law enforcement officers review only those materials that were lawfully seized and that are directly relevant to a legitimate criminal investigation.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists is equally worried:

“While we do not endorse some of the tactics Project Veritas employs, the FBI’s recent raids on the organization’s founder and his associates represent a concerning overreach by law enforcement,” said CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The government must provide a clear link between members of Project Veritas and alleged criminal activity before searching their homes for information about source material. Conducting raids without this kind of link sets a dangerous precedent that could allow law enforcement to search and confiscate reporters’ unpublished source material in vague attempts to identify whistleblowers.”

But, yes, as mentioned earlier, I'm sure some people are saying that Project Veritas and James O'Keefe aren't "real" journalists. And, I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea that O'Keefe makes a mockery of actual journalism with his out of context and extremely misleading releases. But, part of having a "freedom of the press" means not allowing the government to determine who is and who is not press. Because that power alone creates massive limits on a free press. If the government can unilaterally decide that certain organizations are not "really" journalists, then that enables them to punish any news organization they want. Think how a Trump administration might use that power against the NY Times or CNN.

It's okay to call out Project Veritas for their ridiculous and misleading reporting. You can personally believe that they are doing dangerous work. But the government cannot unilaterally declare them not to be press in order to raid homes and seize notes -- because if they can, they can do that to any journalist.

Another bit of pushback I heard on this was that mere "receipt of stolen goods" is, itself, a crime, and that somehow makes it okay to raid O'Keefe and his colleagues. Again, though, that would set a hugely dangerous precedent. Remember, the Nixon administration went after the NY Times and the Washington Post for receiving the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. Tons of whistleblowers and leakers hand over documents to journalists that they have no legal right to copy or take (and they may face legal consequences in doing so). But the media who receives those works should not be subject to raids and intimidation from the government. Even if they're a bunch of ridiculous grifters intent on publishing utter nonsense.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, ashley biden, doj, fbi, free speech, james o'keefe, journalism, raids, reporting, source protection
Companies: project veritas

James O'Keefe Sues Twitter For Defamation... For Shutting Down His Account

from the this-is-not-going-to-go-well dept

You may have heard recently that James O'Keefe, the guy behind "Project Veritas" -- a propaganda outlet whose brand of highly edited, surreptitiously recorded videos are often followed by actual media having to come in and debunk the misleading bits -- had his Twitter account shut down recently. He immediately threatened to sue Twitter, and last week he actually did so.

The crux of the lawsuit is that because a reporter claimed that Twitter told him O'Keefe's account was banned for "operating fake accounts," that's defamation. The lawsuit notes that back in February, Twitter also banned the Project Veritas account. In that case, it was because one of Project Veritas' videos allegedly revealed "private information" which violated its rules. In that case, the private information (according to the lawsuit) was that the video showed the house number of a Facebook executive who they were trying to interview. In the lawsuit, O'Keefe's lawyers try to make a big deal of the fact that real media organizations sometimes show where people live as well, leaving out the fact that this does not matter one tiny bit. Twitter sets the rules on its own platform, and when it's making decisions on the rules, they often involve context (and that context may include Project Veritas' long history).

But the key part of the lawsuit is the claim that because a Twitter spokesperson told the media that O'Keefe violated its policy against "fake accounts," and O'Keefe claims he didn't operate fake accounts, this is defamatory. The arguments in the case are going to make some of you laugh:

The false accusation that Mr. O’Keefe operated “fake accounts” is particularly damaging for Mr. O’Keefe because Mr. O’Keefe is a journalist. As such, his reputation for transparency and accurate reporting is fundamental to his profession.

That is... uh... not quite what many people would call Mr. O'Keefe's reputation.

By accusing Mr. O’Keefe of “operating fake accounts,” Twitter was directly attacking Mr. O’Keefe’s fitness for his profession by accusing him of “misleading others” and by effectively running a disinformation outlet akin to the much-discussed “Russian interference”/disinformation bots that plagued the 2016 election and which inspired some political operatives to engage in similar tactics in 2017....

Indeed, Twitter’s entire “fake accounts” policy, which it accused Mr. O’Keefe of violating by stating that he “operat[ed] fake accounts,” stems from the Russian disinformation campaign.

Thus, by claiming Mr. O’Keefe operated “fake accounts,” Twitter was saying Mr. O’Keefe could not be trusted as a journalist because he was “misleading others” via disinformation in the manner the Russian government is widely accused of doing to interfere in the U.S. political process.

That all sounds nice. But if you actually read the Twitter policy in question, it's a lot broader than O'Keefe's lawyers make it out to be. It's quite broad and has to do with a lot more than Russian disinfo accounts. Here's just part of it:

You may not use Twitter’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on Twitter.

We want Twitter to be a place where people can make human connections, find reliable information, and express themselves freely and safely. To make that possible, we do not allow spam or other types of platform manipulation. We define platform manipulation as using Twitter to engage in bulk, aggressive, or deceptive activity that misleads others and/or disrupts their experience.

Platform manipulation can take many forms and our rules are intended to address a wide range of prohibited behavior, including:

• commercially-motivated spam, that typically aims to drive traffic or attention from a conversation on Twitter to accounts, websites, products, services, or initiatives;
• inauthentic engagements, that attempt to make accounts or content appear more popular or active than they are;
• coordinated activity, that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts, automation and/or scripting; and
• coordinated harmful activity that encourages or promotes behavior which violates the Twitter Rules.

In other words, it's quite broad. And lots of people have been caught up in similar account bans over the past few years, including the Krassenstein brothers who became famous for their anti-Donald Trump tweets, as well as a weird (and somewhat silly) "non-partisan" political party. So, for anyone arguing that this policy is used just against "conservatives," the evidence certainly suggests otherwise. It also does not at all suggest that anyone dinged under this policy is engaged in Russian-style disinformation campaigns.

Like so many of these lawsuits, this one appears to be more performative than serious. It's not difficult to predict how this will end up.

Filed Under: content moderation, defamation, fake accounts, first amendment, free speech, james o'keefe, policies
Companies: project veritas, twitter

Latest 'Google Whistleblower' To Prove Anti-Conservative Bias Doesn't Prove Anything And Appears To Be Bigoted Conspiracy Theorist

from the pick-your-heroes-carefully dept

So, we had just pointed out that the "fired ex-Googler whistleblower" whom everyone was pointing to last week as "proof" of "anti-conservative bias" at Google, didn't look so good when you got to see the details (which included statements that certainly read to be pretty supportive of white nationalists, rather than support for, say, the free market and lower taxes). You'd think that peddlers continuing to push this theory with the next person would take more time in the vetting process. But... of course, if it's Project Veritas we're talking about, it appears the only vetting they like to do is "can we spin this the way we want so that idiot suckers will buy it?" And that's what's happened.

The usual folks in our own comments who insist there's anti-conservative bias at Google have been yelling at me for the past few days, claiming that I'm "ignoring" this proof because I just can't take it or something. Or... more accurately, because it's total garbage. First, let's talk about the "whistleblower." If you thought the last guy was bad, well, get a load of Zach Vorhies:

What O’Keefe’s video leaves out, though, is that his much-hyped insider is not as credible as he claims. On social media, Vorhies is an avid promoter of anti-Semitic accusations that banks, the media, and the United States government are controlled by “Zionists.” He’s also pushed conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate, and the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism.

Seems credible, no?

Okay, okay, but maybe these "950 documents!" really prove something. Well, rest assured, they did not. As Matthew Feeney from the noted leftist bastion (that's sarcasm for the slow ones), the Cato Institute pointed out, there's "a whole lot of nothing" in the documents. One folder is labeled "Censorship" and all it has are screenshots of emails without any context. It shows someone sending an email to Google CEO Sundar Pichai arguing that Breitbart shouldn't get to use AdSense, but that's it. One random employee -- out of 100,000 or so employees sending an email to the CEO? And there's no evidence that AdSense has barred Breitbart (trust me, we'd have heard about it).

One of the leaked documents also isn't new and is completely misrepresented. Project Veritas had already posted it back in June and totally misrepresented it then. They claim it shows "election interference" regarding Ireland's election in which abortion rights were up for referendum. Project Veritas -- because they have to misrepresent basically everything -- claimed it proved that YouTube was trying to influence the election by suppressing searches on phrases like "abortion is murdering." What they leave out in all the hype and bluster, is that the document also contains many, many phrases on the other side of the debate, including "repeal the 8th," "pro choice," "woman's right to choose" and more. In other words, the document is not YouTube putting its finger on the scales, but, just as the company explained at the time, an attempt to have the top results on YouTube be focused on more authoritative neutral content providers, rather than those pushing one side or the other. That's... kinda reasonable? And also the very thing that "conservatives" keep demanding of the company -- to be "neutral."

Indeed, so much of these documents seem to be evidence of Google trying to figure out how to deal with liars, trolls, and propagandists peddling nonsense. And PV turns that into "proof" of anti-conservative bias. Sorry, dudes. Unless you're admitting that "conservative" only means liars, trolls and propagandists peddling nonsense...

Amusingly, among the documents, which were released the very same day a laughably bad complaint was filed against YouTube for discriminating against LGBTQ+ folks, was a document about how YouTube was trying to improve its machine learning algorithms to better handle such content.

Most news sources are not covering this -- not because they're avoiding it, but because it's bullshit. Of the few that have, as the Next Web notes, there's nothing particularly damning anywhere. Well, unless you're going to take documents totally out of context.

For example, among those that PV is hyping up is a "news black list for Google Now." Google Now was a service that Google used to have for Android but has since gotten rid of. It was partly a news app that would try to surface stories. Notably, a bunch of the top links are to Google's own URLs, but hey, you don't hear Project Veritas mention that. Then, as you go down the list, most of the first batch are to torrenting and other sites that Hollywood would likely label "pirate" sites. It's odd/weird that TorrentFreak (a news site, not a torrent site) is on the list, but that happens. The White Supremacist site Daily Stormer is also on the list.

But the part that has PV and its idiot sycophants up in arms are other Trump-fluffing, nonsense peddling sites that they like. Except, what they miss is that these are sites that have high user block rates. In other words, when those sites did show in Google Now, users were quick to block them. Because they're nonsense, propaganda peddling sites that anyone with more than a few hundred brain cells knows are bullshit. So this isn't Google blocking them. It's a huge number of Google users.

In other words, this is a huge self-own. Rather than demonstrating bias from Google, it's showing that the public is not interested in this nonsense.

PV also plays up the following screenshot, which it describes as: "Another newly published document titled “Fringe ranking/classifer: Defining channel quality” lists an example ranking of various news sites, including CNN and FOX News."

No context is provided for that weird screenshot. But even taking it at face value, it, uh, does not suggest anything regarding anti-conservative bias. It shows that this is a "work in progress" and they're trying to figure out way to deal with "fringe" sites that aren't quality. Isn't that a good thing? And note that the top publication in that list is the Wall Street Journal -- which, last I checked, is considered pretty damn conservative. Also, pretty far down the list -- below Breitbart and RT America -- are Huffington Post and the Young Turks, two sites generally considered pretty left leaning.

So... if anything you might read into this that it's showing anti-liberal bias? I mean, that is if you actually took one out of context screenshot that appears to just be an internal presentation of a "work in progress" rather than any evidence of any actual thing.

In short, this is a giant nothingburger that doesn't show any actual evidence of anti-conservative bias. But it does show a real desire by fringe peddlers of idiotic nonsense to keep peddling misleading nonsense, pushed by folks who are not exactly credible. Someone in our comments once joked that Project Veritas only made sense if you took the first word to be a verb instead of a noun -- and even then I think they fail. They don't project anything truthful at all. It's a chop shop propaganda house that's not even good at that.

A year ago, Zach Graves, a conservative who works for a conservative policy organization, wrote a post for us saying that Conservatives need to stop crying wolf on tech bias. It appears that almost no one is listening.

Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, bias, james o'keefe, project veritas, propaganda, zach vorhies
Companies: google