A technology company has deleted a parental rights group’s events on its site after the Southern Poverty Law Center added the group to its “hate map,” which plots conservative nonprofits alongside neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
“It is alarming that we live in a time in America where trained Marxists can have an organization canceled simply because they do not agree,” Rhonda Miller, president of Purple for Parents Indiana, told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday.
The online events company Eventbrite deleted two of Purple for Parents’ events scheduled for August and October. The company said the events violate “our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, specifically our policy on Hateful, Dangerous, or Violent Content and Events.”
“Please be aware that severe or repeated violations of our guidelines may result in the suspension or termination of your Eventbrite account,” the company added.
The Eventbrite email does not mention the Southern Poverty Law Center, but the company has a longstanding policy involving SPLC when it comes to “hate speech.”
Following the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, Eventbrite announced that it uses the SPLC to enforce its prohibition on “hate speech including violent or racist speech.”
“We review our events using various resources, including the Southern Poverty Law Center list of recognized hate groups, and if we learn after the fact that an event on our platform involved racist or violent conduct or hate speech, we ban all future events by that organizer,” the company posted on Medium in 2017. “Our review process is rigorous, and as a result, we have taken appropriate action to prevent public figures, such as Richard Spencer … from benefiting from our platform in any way.”
While most Americans would cheer the deplatforming of Spencer, a self-avowed white nationalist who led the Charlottesville events, the SPLC’s “hate group” list includes far more than white nationalists.
As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay,” the SPLC trades on its history of suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy by branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups,” putting them on a map with KKK chapters. Amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal in 2019, the SPLC fired its co-founder. At the same time, a former employee came forward, calling the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.” A terrorist even used the SPLC “hate map” to target the Christian nonprofit Family Research Council for an attempted mass shooting in 2012.
In June, the SPLC added parental rights groups—including Purple for Parents Indiana—to its “hate map,” branding them “anti-government extremist groups” and part of an “anti-student inclusion movement.”
The SPLC ignored the leftward lurch in education that helped fuel the rise of groups like Purple for Parents, perhaps because it supports the cultural trend of schools including transgender lessons, sexually explicit books in their libraries, and teaching divisive lessons on race.
Eventbrite’s move also follows a July 11 Reddit post on the r/Indiana subreddit asking users to “Report a hate group event!”
“The registered hate group Purple for Parents is hosting an event,” a user named Hedsteve posted. “Check out their [Eventbrite] event and report it.” More than 20 users claimed in the comments or replies that they had reported the event to Eventbrite, The Federalist reported.
The reddit user had flagged the event “RSVP America: Restoring Social Virtue and Purity to America,” a conference focused on the sexual revolution, bad law, and equipping parents to respond. The conference will take place on Aug. 19, according to the Facebook event page.
Eventbrite removed the RSVP America event, along with a weekend “Save Our Children” conference scheduled for Oct. 6 and 7, which also remains on Facebook.
Eventbrite did not respond to The Daily Signal’s questions about why it continues to rely on the SPLC despite its 2019 scandal.
The company does not appear to have enforced the ban equally. Some organizations on the SPLC “hate map” still have events on Eventbrite, although some groups like ACT for America—which the SPLC has branded an “anti-Muslim hate group”—have been booted from the platform.
The company did not address the distinction between the SPLC’s “hate group” list—which Eventbrite publicly admits to using—and the “anti-government extremist group” list on which Purple for Parents appears.
It seems most readers consider a group’s presence on the SPLC’s “hate map” sufficient evidence that the organization in question is a “hate group,” even if the SPLC hedges by claiming the group is merely “anti-government.”
Miller told The Daily Signal that her organization will still host the events, which it is advertising elsewhere. She also said Purple for Parents is considering legal action.
“They obviously feel threatened by the information we will share at these events, which we are still proceeding with,” she said. “We will not be bullied into canceling these events, and our legal team is looking into further action that we may pursue.”
“We are not a hate group, as we don’t hate anyone,” Miller added. “We stand up for the protection of innocent children and parents’ rights. We work to educate Hoosiers on the dangers that are targeting their children in government-run schools, which we refer to as ‘indoctrination camps.’”
“We are living in dangerous times when this activity plays out in the land of the free and the home of the brave,” she added.
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