Google’s ‘Arbiter of Hate Speech’, SPLC Forced to Pay $3M for Falsely Labeling People as ‘Extremist’
Facebook, Amazon, and Google were caught working with the heavily-biased SPLC to determine which organizations are “hate groups.”
By Jay Syrmopoulos
TheFreeThoughtProject.com
July 1, 2018
Montgomery, AL – After being sued in April by Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation—over being listed as an “anti-Muslim extremist” in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists”—the SPLC has announced that they reached a settlement with the liberal Islamic reformer, agreeing to pay Nawaz and Quilliam $3.375 million “to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism.”
“The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. Since we published the Field Guide, we have taken the time to do more research and have consulted with human rights advocates we respect,” SPLC president Richard Cohen said in a statement. “We’ve found that Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism. Although we may have our differences with some of the positions that Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have taken, they are most certainly not anti-Muslim extremists. We would like to extend our sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best.”
The list, which was published in 2016 and deleted shortly after Nawaz filed the suit, was reportedly intended to serve as a resource for journalists. The deletion of his inclusion as an “extremist”—a very serious accusation—came nearly two years the Muslim reformer first demanded the organization retract. The fact that it took litigation before he was removed from the list, despite requesting to be taken off of the list two years earlier, reveals the organization almost certainly had no intention of removing him without legal challenge.
“It’s a shame that it took impending litigation for the Southern Poverty Law Center to finally set the record straight and admit it was wrong all along,” Megan Meier, a partner at Clare Locke, the law firm that represented Nawaz, said in a statement provided to National Review. “Quilliam and Mr. Nawaz do admirable work, and we are honored to have restored their reputations and achieved this victory on their behalf.”
Therein lies the problem, as critics say that the SPLC operates as more of a partisan progressive hit operation than an actual civil rights watchdog group, and nefariously utilizes its position as an arbiter of hatred by including legitimate partisan ideologues as “extremists” alongside white supremacists in an effort to rile up its liberal donor base as it simultaneously pushes a partisan political agenda.
The SPLC has previously included Senator Rand Paul and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on extremist lists (Paul for suggesting private businesses shouldn’t have to adhere to the Civil Rights Act and criticizing the Fair Housing Act; Carson for his views opposing same-sex marriage), according to Politico.
Carson was eventually removed from the “extremist watch” list and the group issued an apology after the absurdity of his inclusion became a widespread topic of derision across the conservative media spectrum. But the entire episode led to a more clear realization of the intrinsically politicized nature of the SPLC.
The Rest…HERE
