Open letter to NYPD regarding terroristic threats at HuffPost

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August 1, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

WATCHDOG SITE SENDS DETAILED LETTER TO NY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS RE TERRORISTIC THREATS AT HUFFINGTON POST

Today HUFF-WATCH, a comprehensive watchdog site that documents and exposes Huffington Post's incitement and tolerance of hate, sent an open letter to the District Attorney of New York County, Cyrus Vance, and NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The purpose of this letter, linked here, is to provide these law enforcement officials with physical evidence of:

• What appears to be terroristic threats posted by HuffPost users, against attendees of the upcoming conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Charles & David Koch, and others.

• The fact that by HuffPost's admission, not a single user comment is published without being pre-moderated, meaning they are all reviewed prior to publication, and only those that it approves are published.

• The fact that while HuffPost reviewed, approved and decided to publish those threats, it held back a comment submitted by another user, asking if one of the threateners realized he's a coward - then banned the non-offending user, but left the offenders free to continue.
  

• The fact that HuffPost has a longstanding practice of enabling and protecting the worst-of-the-worst violators of its comment policy, while censoring and banning non-violating users who attempt to speak out against or complain about them.

The following screencaps provide a glimpse into the most current volley of what appear to be terroristic threats, focused on attendees of the ALEC conference, to be held on August 7-9 in Chicago.  The first screencap is from a user (whom HuffPost has enabled to repeatedly urge that the Koch brothers be murdered) who indicates plans are underway to "intimidate" the attendees of the ALEC conference:

Another user, "Libs_Wreck_Everything," asks here to expand on this threat.  In reply to this, HuffPost reviewed, approved and decided to publish a comment submitted by another user, "waukone," that the intent is not to scare, but "to kill" (ALEC attendees):

 

Beneath that, "Libs_Wreck_Everything" submitted a comment asking "waukone" if he realizes he is a coward.  HuffPost, however, sent that comment to pending, meaning it was being reviewed:

This screencap shows that HuffPost banned "Libs_Wreck_Everything" soon thereafter:

Additional screencaps in the letter to the Mr. Vance and Commissioner Kelly show that HuffPost left both of the other users are still active --- the first of which has a very long history of posting threats and solicitations of violence against public figures with whom she disagrees.

The reason for HUFF-WATCH's open letter to Mr. Vance and Commissioner Kelly, specifically, however, is because:

• HuffPost is located within their jurisdiction.

• The NYPD recently arrested a Queens, NY man for posting what it contends* were terroristic threats on Facebook, which only moderates comments after-the-fact.  (*See Sec. 490.20 of the NY Code.)  In contrast, it would appear that HuffPost is actively facilitating the publication of such threats, in that by its own admission, no comments are published until and unless they are approved beforehand, via moderation.

• The ALEC conference is scheduled to begin in only six days (on August 7), and as one of these violators has made it publicly known that she lives north of Chicago, there is a reasonable basis to be concerned for the safety of attendees to this conference.

It is, of course, up to these law enforcement officials to determine if these specific HuffPost users, and possibly HuffPost itself, should be prosecuted.

The full letter contains deep background data to place this current documentation into context, and demonstrates that this was not a one-time anomaly, but rather, is part of a continuing, disturbing, dangerous pattern of behavior, of HuffPost users being allowed to post explicit and implicit threats and solicitations of violence against public figures and institutions with which they disagree, politically.

Read the entire letter here:

To NYPD: Will you also prosecute HuffPost for enabling & publishing terroristic threats?

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