That's cool, but he started the campaign on November 6 and they kicked him out the next day. He didn't say anywhere that the fraud happened or not. He was just raising money for the research.
Will they let people raise money to see if theft of a bank is feasible, or to design business models for heroin dealers? They're not robbing banks or selling heroin... Where does your argument even end? It doesn't matter because it is a private platform, and if they smell BS they are free to get rid of it.
What are you even talking about? You can't compare teaching people how to sell heroin or rob a bank and conducting a research. What I take issue with is that they kicked him out for something that he did not do.
He was part of the Trump campaign in 2016 and from the 3rd to the 6th he interacted with various Twitter accounts that fueled the conspiracy and his fundraising was clearly attracting an audience who read between the lines.
GoFundMe is in their right to believe there was dog-whistling.
"Even just a few matches would be indicative of a much more substantial voter fraud operation" said by a Trump supporter who get's the support from a majority of misinformation spreaders when he opens the GoFundMe:
I often see in twitter bios disclaimers like "opinions are my own" and "retweets are not endorsement". I'm guessing people should now start putting a new disclaimer, them simply being retweeted by someone else doesn't mean that they have anything to do with that person.
If your audience reacts to content like it's a dog-whistle, maybe don't be surprised when you're banned?
Talking about "investigating voter fraud" when Trump was claiming voter fraud with no evidence and then getting retweeted by supporters who already had made up their mind isn't helping GoFundMe determine they are not faced with a dishonest actor.
Agreed about disclaimers: Why not go with a disclaimer that says "The president's claims are currently unfounded and have no legal merit and could endanger trust in our democratic process. Some of my analysis could reveal the impact of COVID-19 deaths in some districts or active voter suppression in some states". Enough to tune out misinfo sharers and be a bit more honest about what most analysts predicted would happen.
Actually yes, I would be surprised, because it would be completely fucked, excuse my language. Punishing someone on the basis of other people's reaction is just one step away from collective responsibility, and that's what happens during wars and occupations. A lot of innocent people were murdered because of reasoning like that.
I might have sounded a little bit too dramatic considering the fact that the tweets in question didn't even say anything bad, but whatever. Also, "dog-whistles", lol. You're clearly just making stuff up at this point. Braynard didn't do anything wrong and removing his fundraiser from GoFundMe was baseless and unfair.
Speech is dependent on context and audience. I realize there are some basic concepts around speech we don't seem to share.
Your argument that anyone can write anything no matter context or audience reactions and face no consequences is baffling. I guess no one was ever murdered because of that...
A Trump political operative is expected to have taken some level of history and political science classes though. GoFundMe probably thought he had a better understanding of the impact and context of his online discourse than a libertarian college drop-out might argue.
This is not speech, it's just a fundraiser for research. And Braynard already achieved his goals, he did the research that he wanted and the results are included in lawsuits as evidence. Deplatforming him, if anything, only gave him more exposure. GoFundMe was wrong about their decision, end of story.
You keep misrepresenting what I'm saying. Please stop. The claim was that evidence is not being suppressed and I've presented that the research of the subject is being deplatformed. In your attempt to undermine this simple fact you had to go as far as to make up conspiracy theories about "dog-whistling". It doesn't make any sense.
In retrospect, using the term "deplatforming" reveals to me you are not equipped to debate about this. His fundraising was removed but he wasn't banned from GoFundMe or any other fundraising. You seem to dismiss dog-whistling as a term but happily employ the wrong words.
I was discussing the framework and tools the people at social platforms are currently employing to decide weather they are being weaponized. I thought the discussion would start around the finer details of online moderation and operating these tasks at scale. You see evidence being suppressed, I see an overwhelmed company in the middle of its country's political crisis being asked to manage a surge in new bad-faith actors.
I've provided plenty evidence myself that they had elements to confirm his behavior could be interpreted as being linked to disinformation campaigns. Maybe they were wrong but I disagree with your take that this Trump advisor can't wrap his head around why GoFundMe believed it.
Publicly Matt Braynard showed no attempt at understanding what he could change to be accepted and leaned hard into this removal to galvanize extra-donations on another platform.
In the end, the circumstantial evidence he uncovered turns out not to be admissible in court or is improperly used by the Trump campaign (given their constant lost legal challenges). It must sting, especially when he see's all the grift around those legal battles.
No, I'm not dismissing dog-whistling as a term. What I'm saying is that this is not the case here and you're making it up as a desperate attempt to rationalize what GoFundMe have done.
