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Anti-Defamation League officials caught on tape bragging about getting people censored online – LifeSite

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(LifeSiteNews) – Officials with the left-wing pressure group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have been caught on undercover video touting how they attempt to get so-called “extremist” content suppressed on online services ranging from social network Twitter/X and payment processors to crowdfunding platforms and even video-game streaming, as well as their work with law enforcement agencies against “hate.”

On August 10, independent journalist Kyle Clifton published a series of video clips of a conversation with ADL director of development Courtney Kravitz and ADL Arizona chapter community manager Sarah Kader.

The clips begin with Kraviz lamenting how simply banning so-called extremists from Twitter or Facebook can lead to them “run[ning] to this like dark place where they are just with like-minded people,” necessitating a “balance” be struck between preventing them from descending into the “rabbit hole” and keeping them from “spewing hate and disinformation.”

She and Kader both give lip service to supporting freedom of speech, with Kravitz even acknowledging that “the more they’re talking out in the open the more you can stop incidents from happening.” But before long, she articulates a workaround of “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

“I think that makes so much sense, right,” Kravitz says, “like you can say whatever you want but once you start having the reach of a social media platform, that you’re impacting on other people, that’s when it becomes the issue.”

The line echoes language previously used by Twitter/X owner Elon Musk, who purchased the platform last year with the stated mission of making it more open and politically neutral. Conservatives have been overjoyed by many of Musk’s reforms, but the phrase “freedom of reach” has been one of a handful of moves that still give pause to some of the old Twitter’s critics.

In response to a question about ADL publicly identifying several previously-banned public figures it urged Musk not to allow back on Twitter, Kravitz acknowledged, “we definitely do like public statements to make sure that they are held accountable, and there are letters that go, I think like when Elon Musk took over, it was like this is our expectation of you being in this position, like we’re hoping for the best, and we hope we can be a partner, and here’s what our expectations are. So that’s definitely something that we’ve done.”

At one point, Kader also touted ADL’s employment of “really cool” new software that can scan podcasts for “flagged words” and then “extract, like when they talk about some extremist activity they wanna perform.” In the process, she inadvertently shed light on ADL’s priorities by acknowledging that this technology is applied to audio in which, for example, “99 percent of what they’re saying is like, about video games or something.” 

The admission suggests ADL has at least some degree of interest in combing through the online activities of private citizens not involved in political and social causes to hound them for any statements that they might make that ADL deems wrongthink.

Kravitz also identified crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe as “how extremists raise their money,” justifying ADL reaching to such services to bring “awareness” of some users raising money for “evil stuff.”

Lastly, they discussed ADL’s coordination with law enforcement, particularly a law enforcement advisory council, which according to Kader “convenes local police departments and other law enforcement agencies all around the state. Sometimes we’re called when something happens and we loop in law enforcement, sometimes law enforcement reaches out to us to see what we know, may know about something.”

“And making sure that any of the intel that we get on a national level is given to one of our law enforcement locally, and just look at the trends that we’re seeing,” Kravitz added.

ADL, an international organization originally founded more than a century ago to combat anti-Semitism, has in recent years expanded into opposing so-called “extremism” more generally, which in practice often actually means attacking mainstream Christian and/or conservative views. Such activities have earned ADL criticism and opposition from Jewish conservatives such as Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin.

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