‘Dangerous’: Milo Yiannopoulos Is Trying to Silence Us

Earlier this afternoon Jenny Kefauver at Capital HQ contacted us threatening to sue over language we used in this article about Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos published last year. With the costs of litigation being as prohibitive as they are (and seeing what Peter Thiel did to Gawker last year) we acquiesced with a caveat (in an editor’s note at the bottom of the article). We responded to the email noting the correction but also standing up for blog-level media reminding her SLAPP lawsuits can be counter-sued (and that SLAPP suits are actually illegal in many jurisdictions).

She didn’t take this well.

Kefauver (or someone at Capital HQ) took a screenshot of the email and distributed it on social media (with our contact information). Thereafter we began receiving vulgar and harassing emails. Here’s just one example of someone who received the screen shot from Kefauver’s firm (with the contact info removed, obviously).

Yiannopoulos also received a copy of the email and published it to Facebook in order to harass us (and to direct others to harass us). And it’s worked. We’ve received several dozen emails, comments, tweets, Facebook comments, etc. since the post went live (and they continue to stream in). We’ve reported the post to Facebook but doubt that will amount to anything given their pace and record on abuse reports.

Here’s the post:

For the moment it still has our main contact email visible in the photo (which of course his plentiful followers are using as intended to ‘contact’ us).

This is the same pattern of harassment that eventually handed Yiannopoulos a permanent Twitter ban after targeting actress Leslie Jones.

For those who have never heard of Milo Yiannopoulos, we (and many other) LGBTQ outlets covered him after Out Magazine attempted to normalize his special brand of hate speech.

He not only has a history of promoting racism and misogyny in print at Breitbart and through his social media interactions, he also regularly targets members of the transgender community in his public speeches.

He also has a book coming out glorifying that career of hate speech. It was the article we wrote about that book deal that roused the ire of Yiannopoulos and his PR firm.

When not harassing his critics on social media, Yiannopoulos currently travels to college campuses where his pro-Trump supporters have been known to injure and harm protesters. In regards to his campus visits, Teen Vogue published a great article about Yiannopoulos’ hate speech and campuses that should be required reading.

Assuming one of his ‘fans’ doesn’t carry out the lovely promises in the emails we’re receiving, we’ll update if the situation changes.

RELATED:

• Out Magazine Lends a Voice to Milo Yiannopoulos & the Alt-Right
• “Alt-Right” Hero Milo Yiannopoulos Offered Book Deal

UPDATE:

We missed this but it was pointed out a few moments ago. Apparently Y was so upset he devoted not one but two Facebook posts to complaining about being called a white nationalist for working for Breitbart and promoting the ideologies of the so-called ‘Alt-right‘ – a movement composed of neo-Nazis, racists, men’s rights activists and white nationalists.

In the second post he said, “‘White nationalist’ isn’t like ‘meanypants.’ You can’t just throw it at people you don’t like without consequence.”

Apparently that “consequence” is the same pattern of harassment he inflicted on Leslie Jones.

UPDATE [January 24, 2017 @ 5:30pm ET]

Looks like Milo directed his peers at the hub of the ‘Alt-right’ (a movement composed of neo-Nazis, racists, men’s rights activists and white nationalists) to write an article at Breitbart about us. We must have really gotten under his skin…

Tim Peacock

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time he’s worn several hats including leading on campus LGBT advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.