Violent extremism and hateful content

What Eventbrite's response to a Data Subject Access Request reveals about their 'policy led evidence' in the sex versus gender debate

#LawFare has a dark side, as Jolyon Maugham so helpfully and frequently illustrates. Litigation is expensive, emotionally draining and has no guaranteed victory. It is incumbent on all of us who raise money this way, to be as clear eyed as possible about our chances of success and to ensure we make good use of other people’s money.

However, the benefits of #LawFare are not limited to what happens before the court or tribunal. Another value is the conversations we can have along the way and after the judgment - win or lose.

The American multinational ticketing site Eventbrite removed my book launch from its website in October, on the grounds that it was promoting hatred and violence. It then did exactly the same to other events which dared prefer sex over gender identity. I launched a crowdfunder to take them to court. Before drafting and sending the letter before action, my solicitors made a Data Subject Access Request on my behalf. I got the response in January 2023. Most of the 168 files sent were heavily redacted, but there were some gems revealed.

Is this the view of @eventbrite or a complainant?

This seems to be the only person who wished to respond, the message otherwise was ‘do not engage, do not reply’. The ‘hateful’ element of the event is never identified, other than an assumption that the protected belief in the immutability of sex is somehow ‘anti trans’.

Although Eventbrite wasn’t keen on responding, they were keeping a very watchful eye.

Even @BBCWomansHour wanted a comment. No dice!

All the speakers - @Glinner, @helenstaniland @FemmeLoves Maria and Mr Menno slurred as ‘transphobic’.

There was great excitement that they found a police report about me - but apparently their research stopped there and they didn’t engage with what happened next. Wiltshire Police conceded it had acted unlawfully and deleted its recordings. There are no police ‘markers’ about me. I recommend reading the Court of Appeal judgment in Miller v College of Policing, sharpish.

Poor Andrew Doyle of GB News, dismissed as the face of ‘conservative outrage’.

It was very interesting to see the quality of the ‘legal advice’ they were getting from angry complainants, who asserted - falsely- that I had no right to ‘manifest’ my protected belief and that a wish to repeat the Gender Recognition Act (a hot mess of a statute) was proof positive of my ‘hatred’, rather than a lawful and protected exercise of my Article 10 ECHR rights.

This is especially interesting - I assume it refers to WPUK, who had both a book launch and a documentary showing pulled from the site. Even being ‘buttoned up’ and frantically disassociating yourself from the ‘Far Right’ won’t save you - Eventbrite will call you ‘hateful’ nonetheless.

<waves to press coverage team>

And this was all it took, to persuade EB that my event was ‘hateful’ and must be banished from their site.

I will be very interested as to how Eventbrite respond to my letter before action. Despite seeking advice from three different lawyers in the UK, they don’t seem to have grasped the essential points. That exercise of protected political speech is not ‘hate’ and my belief in the immutability of sex is protected. It is not ‘anti-trans’ to wish to support the safety and dignity of women or consider the repeal of laws which do not serve a useful purpose.

If you think what has happened is wrong and that it has very serious ramifications for all of us, please do support or share my crowdfunder. Eventbrite are keeping a very close eye on how much I raise - I have always been upfront that I cannot afford to fund this litigation without your help. Let’s give them something to think about.