Antidefamation League Defames Substack Authors

In this upside-down, inside-out and backwards world we now live in, it shouldn’t be a major shock when the Antidefamation League (ADL) turns coattails and starts defaming people and spewing hate speech. Still, it does make one’s head spin a bit.

The ADL was founded in 1913, with the mission of stopping “the defamation of Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.” As stated on its website, “ADL is founded with the clear understanding that the fight against one form of prejudice cannot succeed without battling prejudice in all forms,”1 and to this day, the ADL “continues to fight all forms of bias.”2

Really? Fast-forward 110 years, and the ADL is now attacking a Christian deacon for standing by his religious beliefs in two genders and the sanctity of male-female marriage, and his rejection of unfettered liberalism and pedophilia.

They’re attacking doctors like me and Dr. Robert Malone for discussing things that are well within our wheelhouse, and even come down on high-profile Jews like Steve Kirsch,3 Chaya Raichik, an orthodox Jew who runs Libs of TikTok, and Jim Stewartson, whose grandparents were Ashkenazi Jews — just because they don’t agree with what they’re saying.

ADL Is Now a Professional Defamation League

As recently as 2021, the ADL, in its “Antisemitism Uncovered”4 report, warned that “it is our collective responsibility to recognize the patterns of hate-based prejudice, how this mindset takes root and even more so how it operates,” yet it now appears completely blind to the fact that it is fueling the very same kind of hatred that it spent over a century condemning.

“While antisemitism has sometimes escalated to violent or genocidal levels, it more often appears in subtler ways, such as insensitive remarks that are brushed off, or negative stereotypes that go unchallenged.

We must never normalize even seemingly harmless forms of hate-based prejudice; this is what strengthens dangerous social attitudes, which can erode the values of even the most just society,” the ADL wrote in “Antisemitism Uncovered.”

Then, April 4, 2023, the ADL published an article5 condemning a long list of Substack authors in which the anonymous ADL writer breaks every one of those level-headed rules.

The article is riddled with “insensitive remarks,” “negative stereotypes” and “hate-based prejudice” that risks strengthening “dangerous social attitudes.” Many of the 19 authors targeted are labeled “conspiracy theorists” and peddlers of “misinformation” — all without evidence and based solely on the personal opinion of the anonymous author, who supposedly represents the ADL.

The ADL author even rewrote a quote from British deacon Father Calvin Robinson to make it fit the ADL’s biased angle.6 As noted by Robinson,7 the ADL is the one peddling hate speech here, as it paints 2,000-year-old mainstream Judeo-Christian beliefs as “extremism” and the sharing of those beliefs as “hate speech.” What happened to sticking up for religious freedom and fighting all forms of bias?

“The ADL is attempting to paint particular worldviews as intolerable; certain opinions and beliefs as beyond the pale,” Robinson said in a reply8 to the ADL’s hit piece. “This is a tactic of totalitarian bigots — it is the methodology of hateful fascists.”

Indeed, it’s no wonder that the anonymous writer at the ADL’s Center on Extremism didn’t attach their name to it because, all of a sudden, they’ve made it clear that defamation and prejudice have become the cornerstone missions of the Antidefamation League. Go figure.

Granted, the ADL has, for years, defended globalists like George Soros who have been working to undermine American values by calling critique of Soros’ actions “anti-Semitic hate speech.” Never mind the fact that Soros, a born Jew, worked with the Nazis to capture Jews trying to escape Hungary and to confiscate Jewish property, and has publicly stated he has no regrets for doing so.9

That aside, for a century, the ADL was the leading anti-hate organization in the world, and people within the organization are now flushing that legacy down the toilet by touting fabricated narratives that half the world already recognizes as completely false. If that’s not a sign that they’ve been infiltrated by the very enemy they’ve fought against, I don’t know what is.

My Response to the ADL’s Hit Piece

A Substack author named Christopher Brunet10 asked me to comment on the ADL’s attack on Substack authors like me. Here’s my reply:

“The ADL has become the DL, where they now specialize in defamation. Regarding the attack, I can’t respond as the ADL doesn’t specifically state any inaccurate statements, but I have been accused of spreading misinformation for being correct too soon. I clearly stated in early 2020 that this virus was engineered and leaked from the Wuhan lab.

I correctly predicted the vaccines would not prevent disease, that adverse side effects were being ignored, that masks were not effective, and that lockdowns would fail to prevent disease and only succeed in concentrating wealth and destroying lives.

The Twitter Files have clearly shown the federal agencies are weaponized and engage in both election interference domestically and internationally, as well as illegal censorship collusion with big tech.

It appears ADL is just another political pawn who is ironically discriminating and persecuting those with differing opinions. How the ADL’s mission changed from stopping defamation of Jewish people and turned into a defamation specialist defending fascist narratives is beyond belief.”

ADL Partnered With PayPal to Debank Truthtellers

That ADL was casting aside its original mission became evident back in July 2021. That’s when it partnered with PayPal11 to identify and then debank — strip them of their ability to conduct online financial transactions — people, companies and organizations that ADL and PayPal deemed to be funding “criminal activity” or had been identified as an “extremist group” or “hate movement” spreading racism and bigotry.

Those who lost their PayPal accounts were primarily those who publicly opposed the official COVID narrative. Remember, PayPal is the criminal organization that wanted to confiscate (steal) $2,500 from anyone’s account if they found you guilty of spreading misinformation, and that was for each “offense.” They had so much pushback that they had to quickly reverse the policy.

By the end of that year, the online payment processing giant had dropped multiple nonprofit organizations for the crime of spreading the word about early COVID treatment and/or calling for a stop to COVID jab mandates, including the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), the Organic Consumer’s Association (OCA) and the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the oldest and most effective vaccine safety advocacy group in the U.S.

The FLCCC’s donation platform was shut down October 15, 2021. In an email to subscribers, the FLCCC commented:

“The powerful forces of Big Tech, Big Pharma, government, health authorities, and mainstream media continue to suppress us. There is nothing false in anything that we post.

This is an attack on our ability to fundraise, our free speech, and our efforts to share effective, safe COVID-19 prevention and treatment protocols to help people around the world stay out of the hospital — and to save precious lives impacted by this dangerous virus.”

Similarly, after business hours on December 21, 2021, PayPal notified NVIC that it would no longer process donations from their supporters — effective immediately.

“In essence,” NVIC wrote in a news release,12 “PayPal wants to control your choices and tell you which nonprofit charities you may and may not support. Pay Pal’s sudden and unexplained action against our donors comes in the middle of our annual end-of-year fundraising campaign.”

Did ADL Get Substack Banned From Twitter?

At the end of the ADL’s April 4 hit piece against 19 specific Substack authors, the ADL basically calls on Twitter to get back to censoring:13

“Over the past few years, tweets which include external links to Substack pages, also known as outlinks, have increased demonstrably.

In 2021, the volume of Twitter mentions (including retweets) which included outlinks to Substack exceeded 6.08 million. In 2022, those mentions doubled to more than 12.6 million. In the first two months of 2023, mentions are already over 4.3 million.

This increase begs the question of whether the wealth of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories on Substack — much of which has drawn countless paid and unpaid subscribers to the platform — violates the platform’s existing content moderation policies.”

It wasn’t the first time ADL complained about Twitter allowing free speech on its platform. December 2, 2022, ADL published an article14 claiming “extremists” and “far-right figures” were exploiting Elon Musk’s decision to reinstate previously suspended accounts.

According to ADL, that decision resulted in “an increase in antisemitic content,” and they warned that the “return of extremists of all kinds to the platform has the potential to supercharge the spread of extremist content and disinformation.” March 9, 2023, ADL again published an article criticizing Twitter for not enforcing its policies on anti-Semitic content.15

The April 3, 2023, article, however, did NOT focus on antisemitism. Instead, it took aim at a range of “woke” pet issues, like the inviolability of the LBGTQ+ movement, antigovernment content and people who are exposing all kinds of fraud and deception. The only thing the 19 authors really have in common is that we all oppose and poke holes in various official narratives.

And, what do you know — April 7, 2023, it seems Twitter finally responded to ADLs pleas for censorship and started blocking outlinks (external links) to Substack. As noted by Malone in an April 7 tweet:16

“There is good evidence that the Anti-defamation League put pressure on Twitter and got them to stop allowing links to the one alternative news source that is unfiltered. Both organizations should be ashamed. This is disgusting and sick. We are truly a censored nation of people.”

Substack Launches Twitter Competitor

Whether Twitter relented and started censoring outlinks to Substack due to pressure from the ADL has yet to be proven. Musk has not yet explained the decision.

Brunet suggests there might be another reason at play. He suspects Musk might be “retaliating against Substack because a few days ago, Substack announced a new feature that is almost exactly like Twitter and would directly compete with Twitter.”17

The feature is called Substack Notes18 and went live April 11, 2023. While Notes will have a look and feel like that of other social media feeds, the financial rewards for popular content will go to the content creators, as the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions and not ads.

Some Substack authors have already made the transition, among them investigative journalist Matt Taibbi, who also believes Twitter’s decision was a retaliatory move. In an April 7 post he wrote:19

“Since being able to share my articles is a primary reason I use Twitter, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival.

When I asked how I was supposed to market my work, I was given the option of posting my articles on Twitter instead of Substack. Not much suspense there; I’m staying at Substack …

Beginning early next week I’ll be using the new Substack Notes feature (to which you’ll all have access) instead of Twitter, a decision that apparently will come with a price as far as any future Twitter Files reports are concerned. It was absolutely worth it and I’ll always be grateful to those who gave me the chance to work on that story, but man is this a crazy planet.”

Censorship Is Your Guide to Truthful Information

In the face of continued censorship, when even the world-renowned Antidefamation League turns pro-bias and pro-defamation, what can you do?

One way to fight back against the heavy hand of censorship is to beat them at their own game: Use censorship as a cue or guide that you should delve more deeply into the topic at hand. The fact that it’s being censored is a surefire sign that there is truth hidden there.

Sources and References