Antifa Groups Banned Following Tucker Carlson Incident
Antifa Groups Banned Following Tucker Carlson Incident. We also learned that Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned from Amazon. This is relevant when you recognize how the media plays a roll in these groups getting banned.It was only after Buzzfeed contacted Amazon did McInnes get banned and after journalists contacted PayPal Antifa was shortly banned.It is likely that the high profile targeting of Tucker Carlson resulted in journalist scrutiny and the banning of Antifa groups.
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Several anti-fascist groups have just been banned from PayPal.
And I have to assume this is because of what happened recently at Tucker Carlson's home, for those that aren't familiar.
A group of antifa showed up to his house, vandalized his property, they broke his door, they were chanting things like, we know where you sleep at night.
They said they wanted to remind him he wouldn't be safe.
We saw one Antifa account called Smash Racism DC was actually suspended over posting videos and making what appeared to be threats.
Tucker Carlson's property was vandalized.
So, to me, this is likely why we're seeing these groups now be banned.
But for the longest time, people have defended Antifa.
Even when you see videos of them clubbing protesters and attacking the innocent, people say, well, listen, Antifa isn't a specific group.
It's just random individuals who do these things.
But the truth is, there are specific branded Antifa groups.
They have specific names.
They have their own logos.
Some of them have their own outerwear.
These groups can and are being banned.
Now, at the same time, the Proud Boys are also being banned from Amazon and PayPal.
So it looks like we might be seeing companies decide, look, we're going to enforce this across the board, and now Antifa is being banned as well.
We know the Proud Boys are getting banned.
They've been getting banned for a long time.
But what's interesting, too, is that we're just now learning that PayPal has actually banned Antifa groups as early as last year.
Why haven't we heard about it?
So today, let's take a look at the breaking news to find out what's exactly going on with Antifa and what Antifa has to say about it.
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Yesterday, we saw this tweak from Blake Montgomery of BuzzFeed News.
He said, PayPal is canceling the accounts of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, Atlanta Antifa, Antifa Sacramento, and the Anti-Fascist Network today, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The company quietly terminated the accounts of four Antifa groups between December 2017 and March 2018, including the prominent Rose City group in Portland, the source said.
From The Hill, they said a spokesperson for PayPal confirmed to The Hill that it also had removed the Proud Boys from its platform, as well as the group's founder Gavin McInnes, and three anti-fascist groups, saying, Striking the necessary balance between upholding free expression and open dialogue and protecting principles of tolerance, diversity, and respect for all people is a challenge that many companies are grappling with today, the spokesperson said in a statement.
We work hard to achieve the right balance and to ensure that our decisions are values-driven and not political.
We carefully review accounts and take actions as appropriate.
We do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote hate, violence, or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.
Amazon did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
And that is in reference to this story.
Amazon removed merchandise from its site touting the far-right group Proud Boys.
Earlier this year, Amazon pulled items promoting Nazism and other racist ideologies from its marketplace after facing scrutiny from Congress.
They say, on Thursday, two days after BuzzFeed News contacted Amazon, the online retailer removed several t-shirts with slogans and logos promoting the Proud Boys, a far-right men's group that has gained notoriety for its frequent involvement in violent demonstrations around the U.S., including the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.
When we hear that prominent Antifa groups like Rose City Antifa, which is a specific branded cell with their own logo, was banned sometime between December and March of this year, I have to wonder why we don't hear about this.
And I think the reality is, people don't ask.
How many journalists are contacting PayPal and saying, did you or will you ban these groups?
Probably not that many.
When it comes to the Proud Boys, they are a specific group of people, Gavin McInnes is high profile, and thus many news organizations are likely going to ask, are you going to ban this group?
What we can see from this BuzzFeed story is that Amazon only removed Proud Boys merchandise after BuzzFeed contacted them.
The official understanding is that because BuzzFeed made them aware of this, they then took action.
Which is why we likely hear more about Proud Boys being banned and not Antifa.
And that was the argument.
The argument was that Antifa isn't a specific group of people, they're just a loose affiliation.
But no, Rose City Antifa, very specific group of people.
And I had to wonder why we weren't hearing anything about them being banned, especially when you realize that Antifa in Portland actually clubbed a Bernie Sanders voter over the head.
Oregon Live actually reported this in August, saying, This guy said he voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and then voted for Hillary Clinton, but they attacked him for having an American flag.
attack fellow counter-protester carrying American flag.
This guy said he voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and then voted for Hillary Clinton,
but they attacked him for having an American flag.
In response to being banned, Atlanta Antifa published this statement where they said,
on Saturday, November 9th, this is incorrect, they meant Friday,
Atlanta antifascists learned that our PayPal account, as well as the accounts of other antifascist groups,
were being banned.
The news arrived via Twitter messages from a journalist, and we only later received an email from PayPal.
Accounts for the Proud Boys, a violent far-right organization,
were banned by PayPal at the same time.
What's interesting here as well, Is that they say they were notified they were being banned by a journalist via message before they actually received the email from PayPal.
What this says to me is that many of these organizations only take action when confronted by journalists.
I would have to speculate.
That the reason journalists were reaching out to these companies is because of what happened at Tucker Carlson's home.
We can see from the Daily Dot that Twitter suspended Smash Racism DC after the Tucker Carlson protest.
And there is a huge difference between what was going on with the on-the-ground street battles and what Antifa did at the home of Tucker Carlson.
Look, they doxed people.
That means they published private details of people who are not engaging in these on-the-ground scuffles.
It's hard to know how to rule things.
It's hard to know what's going on.
Admittedly, I understand what's happening.
When we saw that scuffle in New York between the Proud Boys and Antifa, NYPD said Antifa started it.
Proud Boys took it a little too far.
But the average person doesn't pay attention to that.
You have to recognize that people at PayPal and Amazon are probably doing a lot of other things and not really paying attention to what's going on in the news.
So it's hard to understand what's happening.
But when we see the news that they went to Tucker Carlson's home, damaged his door, spray-painted
his driveway, and essentially threatened his safety, most people can see that is a clear
violation of what is acceptable in our society, and there is no both sides.
There is no back and forth.
There is someone's private home, and there are people showing up and vandalizing it,
and that crosses the line.
Stephen Colbert said it did.
Alyssa Milano said it did.
The left and the right are in agreement.
Don't go to people's homes and tell them you know where they sleep at night and they won't
That's not acceptable.
And thus, many journalists probably reached out to various companies, and now these groups are being banned on Twitter and otherwise.
Now, Smash Racism DC wasn't banned from Instagram or Facebook, and a lot of people are upset about that, but we can see that some action is being taken.
The Anti-Fascist Network, which was also banned, said, So PayPal have taken down our account in their purge against the far-right Gavin McInnes, Tommy Robinson, etc.
Completely outrageous that people taking a principled stand against racism are lumped in together with the fascists.
Tell them they got it wrong.
And back to the statement issued by Antifa Atlanta, they said, our group completely rejects both side stance taken by PayPal.
The Proud Boys engage in group beatdowns of those they perceive as leftists or other enemies, in collaboration with open white nationalists.
They target marginalized communities, anti-fascists, monitor and oppose the far right.
All our efforts are community self-defense.
They say it's community self-defense, however, CBS News ran this story following the brawl in New York.
They say the altercation between the Proud Boys members and anti-fascist protesters, or Antifa, broke out about a block away when six people dressed in black and wearing masks confronted Proud Boys members.
NYPD's Chief of Detectives Dermont Shea said, October 15th, one of those dressed in black threw a bottle at the Proud
Boys group, and a fight ensued for about 38 seconds until uniformed
officers intervened.
Notice they say that Antifa confronted the Proud Boys, and then Antifa threw a bottle at the Proud Boys.
You can't show up to a speaking event where people are engaging in lawful activity,
confront some people leaving, throwing things at them, and then claim you're acting in self-defense.
Not just that, but a few blocks away, a man leaving the event was actually beaten and robbed by Antifa.
They are not the good guys.
They think they are.
But they're showing up to legal events claiming they're fighting for justice, starting fights, beating and robbing people.
In that instance in New York, They just lost the fight.
The Proud Boys did take it too far, and now they're on trial for what happened.
Gang violence, the police are saying.
But both groups are now being banned.
After what happened with Tucker Carlson, a lot of people on the left did denounce it.
However, activists are saying that Tucker Carlson is lying.
They're saying he's exaggerating what happened, and there's this article going around from ThinkProgress claiming that it was actually really tame and nothing really happened.
But in this instance, you did have people go up to Tucker Carlson's door, break it.
They claim it didn't happen.
But in the video they published, we can see someone running down from his porch.
In the beginning of the video, you can see there is someone on his porch.
Now, they claim they just knocked on the door.
Tucker Carlson says they threw themselves against it and broke it.
The truth is probably closer to the middle.
But the only thing that really matters here is that by targeting a high-profile individual like Tucker Carlson, there is no more defense.
There is no more Antifa is just targeting, you know, fascists and Nazis.
Tucker Carlson is a Fox News personality.
He is not the most extreme personality.
He had a very calm and reasonable debate with Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, and people enjoyed it.
Tucker Carlson agreed with many things that Cenk said, and they had a decent conversation.
To act like somehow Tucker Carlson is the worst of the worst is ridiculous.
When they show up to events where people don't understand the groups, like who really knows that much about the Proud Boys, it's easy to demonize the Proud Boys, and often the media isn't going to accurately explain what's going on because they're not followers of the Proud Boys, they don't know what they do, they don't know what they believe, and many times they just report what they see in other articles.
Thus, Amazon, PayPal, and other groups are gonna say the Proud Boys gotta go.
And don't get me wrong, the Proud Boys aren't entirely innocent.
I'm not saying that's the case.
Gavin McInnes has said a lot of things that probably are why he's getting banned from these various platforms.
But when you have these nuanced situations with groups most people don't understand, Antifa can get away by saying they're just protesters protesting a specific group.
But when these people literally show up to someone's house and damage the property, there's no more defense.
And now we're actually seeing these groups get banned as well.
Will it continue?
I don't know, because as I mentioned earlier, Smash Racism DC wasn't banned from Instagram or Facebook, just Twitter, because they were posting threats, and they've posted threats like this before.
But I believe that when we can see what happened with Tucker Carlson, Hannity, and Coulter, etc., it's likely there will be more action taken against these groups that are engaging in this kind of tactic, in this kind of rhetoric.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
What do you think this is?
Do you think this is finally companies realizing that there is extremism on the far left?
Or is this just an attempt to save face after what happened to Tucker Carlson?
Comment below and let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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