Intimidation Tactics

I’ve been on the internet a long time. I paid my dues in the wild west that was late 1990s and early 2000s web forums and message boards, honing my rhetoric and learning how to deal with trolls and other bad faith actors. I like to say that social media is like a boxing ring, in that when you step in you must be prepared to take as many punches as you give, so taking offense at what people say online is a waste of time and energy.

Yet there are lines. We cannot and should not tolerate doxing (exposing someone’s personal information for the purpose of intimidation), threats of violence, attempts to get someone fired from their jobs or other positions, or frivolous lawsuits designed to intimidate and/or silence political opponents.

Being politically involved means taking flak, and taking flak means you’re over the target. I understand and accept that. When I worked at Idaho Freedom Foundation, people would contact my boss to try to get me fired for something I said online, but to his credit Wayne Hoffman was never one to give in to the cancel mob. Now that I’m independent, my critics can’t get me fired, so they instead try to damage my reputation in the hope that you will disavow me.

Trolls like this are usually just a minor irritation. I am routinely accused of running several sockpuppet accounts, including Josh White and Action Idaho, but the truth is I have zero alternate accounts on social media. What you see is what you get, both on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve never felt any need to be anonymous or to create sockpuppets to amplify my message. Many of the people leveling that accusation are likely projecting, as I suspect they tend to have several sockpuppets of their own.

The weirdest accusation I’ve gotten is that I’m a racist because my previous Twitter handle was brianthewhite. Only someone whose mind is steeped in CRT and other race-baiting narratives would see it that way. If you’ve ever wondered why I’m not brianalmon on Twitter, it’s because that account was suspended in one of the big purges of conservatives in 2020.

Press F to pay respects

I migrated over to Parler for awhile, until the feds colluded with Big Tech to destroy that alternative platform. I have accounts on Gab, Gettr, and Truth Social, but I rarely engage there because none of those platforms have that special something that Twitter did. Twitter has long been the online version of the public square, while the alternative platforms are each echo chambers of one form or another.

I decided to rejoin Twitter in summer of 2021, nearly a year after I was banned. I named my new account brianthewhite not as a clumsy racial dog whistle, as the low IQ critics think, but a reference to Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, returning from death to turn the tide:

I quickly noticed the race baiters seizing on that, so I changed it, and here we are.

Even worse than people who threaten your reputation online are those who threaten your livelihood. My friends Dustin Hurst and Greg Pruett were sued for defamation by a political activist who complained about their supposedly mean tweets. Though a judge eventually ruled that the activist was a limited public figure and therefore strict standards of defamation did not apply, litigation took years of their lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and brought stress to them and their families.

The process is often the punishment. Even if a lawsuit or attempt at prosecution has little chance of success, they can cause great harm and damage to their target simply by existing. Federal prosecutors are notorious for overcharging defendants in the hopes that they will accept a plea deal for lesser charges rather than face the prospect of a long legal battle that has their very lives at stake. People who file frivolous lawsuits use the same kind of intimidation tactics, hoping that the mere threat of legal action can compel their victim to censor themselves or pay hush money.

I’ve not been attacked with lawfare yet, but it’s only a matter of time. This tactic, once confined to the left, has been embraced by self-proclaimed conservatives too. Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld revealed yesterday that she had been sent a letter from North Idaho activist Christa Hazel threatening a lawsuit if she did not retract a post she made on her Substack sharing information about Hazel’s past.

This came shortly after Zuiderveld was kicked out of a meeting that she had been invited to via text message that featured Hazel as speaker. Zuiderveld shared her story as well as some background on Hazel that had been published elsewhere.

Rather than publicly debating Zuiderveld, or publishing a response explaining what was or was not true about her post, Christa Hazel instead hired a lawyer to send a threatening letter to an Idaho state senator demanding not only a retraction but a public apology. Nowhere in the letter, which Zuiderveld published yesterday, does Hazel explain exactly what was untrue about the post, she just calls it “false and defamatory”.

People who are confident in their own positions do not resort to secret meetings and lawfare to censor and intimidate their political opponents. People who know they have truth on their side are not afraid of what other people have to say. If you have to rig the game in order to win, then maybe you’re not the good guy you think you are.

Sen. Brian Lenney has an anti-SLAPP bill ready to go in the 2024 legislative session, and I wholeheartedly support it. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation” and refers to lawsuits like those faced by Hurst and Pruett or threatened against Sen. Zuiderveld. Many states have anti-SLAPP statutes on the books which allow judges to dismiss these obviously frivolous and malicious lawsuits before their victims are forced to spend years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars defending their good names.

I very much appreciate Idaho patriots like Brian Lenney and Glenneda Zuiderveld. They boldly put themselves on the front lines of this culture war, taking the slings and arrows of both the opposing side as well as bad actors who claim to be conservative. They set great examples for all of us with their courage in proclaiming conservative principles and not backing down to threats and attacks. The flak they take is proof that they are indeed over the target, so they need our support to keep fighting.

I will not stop sharing the truth as I understand it either. I appreciate your continued support, and look forward to continuing to fight the good fight.