Remember Talia Lavin? She’s the disgraced ex-fact-checker who got picked up by Media Matters as an expert on the Alt-Right and even scored an NYU teaching gig after defaming an ICE agent and Marine vet as a Nazi.
Read the full ICE statement regarding erroneous attacks on ICE employee for #military tattoo: pic.twitter.com/BwA8kFWNFV
— ICE (@ICEgov) June 18, 2018
Well, she recently took her act to Substack, which also happens to be a platform where pRoBLeMatIC liberal journalist Jesse Singal publishes his own work.
And, as a new Substack writer, it’s Lavin’s responsibility to use her position to try to make sure that Singal gets iced out.
I get the need to make money as an indie writer/journalist, but have you considered looking for a platform that doesn't explicitly cater to anti-trans agitators like Graham Linehan and Jesse Singal?
— Faye ⚧❤️🖤 — Mutual Aid is foundational (@FayeEcklar) October 5, 2021
You're writing this to me on Twitter! I think those people are disgusting bigots. But Substack has more trans writers than any newsroom in the country. And I don't believe in ceding ground and whole platforms to bigots and reactionaries.
— Talia Bracha Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) October 5, 2021
How noble of her! Never mind that Jesse Singal is, in fact, not an “anti-trans agitator” or “disgusting bigot.”
If you're going to publish on Substack you should at least be vocal on that platform about its practice of platforming hate. If you signed a contract with a non-disparagement clause with them, you should consider withdrawing from that contract rather than promoting them.
— Faye ⚧❤️🖤 — Mutual Aid is foundational (@FayeEcklar) October 5, 2021
I literally called them out for supporting transphobic and Islamophobic bigots in my first post: pic.twitter.com/1MdkttOb18
— Talia Bracha Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) October 5, 2021
Rest assured that Talia Lavin takes her responsibilities very seriously, and she will work tirelessly to insure that one day, bigots-who-aren’t-actually-bigots are banished from Substack and pretty much any other platform where people can be exposed to a POV that is different from Talia Lavin’s.
In response to complaints that she's writing on Substack, home to Evil, @chick_in_kiev says she wants @JesseSingal kicked off.
These people are complete authoritarians who spend half their lives at least plotting to silence anyone who disagrees with themhttps://t.co/I1r2Iv41Ak pic.twitter.com/BvrQxIvro6
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 7, 2021
Jesse Singal had some thoughts on the matter, and we have no doubt that Talia Lavin found them highly offensive:
I think that @chick_in_kiev, most famous for having to resign from a fact-checking job at the New Yorker for falsely accusing a disabled veteran of being a neo-Nazi, should just screenshot anything I've said, anywhere, that warrants me being kicked off of Substack. pic.twitter.com/HEsmvFoNGL
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 7, 2021
Spoiler alert: She can’t do it.
2/ It's not the existence of hacks in journalism that bothers me — there have always been hacks. It's the mix of being a hack with being a whiny busybody constantly trying to interfere with others' ability to make a living.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 7, 2021
3/ Imagine not knowing shit about your purported area of expertise, misidentifying a tattoo, calling an innocent man a neo-Nazi with the weight of the New Yorker behind you, and NOT reflecting on that for at least a litle while — just getting right back on your moral high horse.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 7, 2021
4/ In an hour or two when she says she is being 'harassed' and the I'M SO SORRY THIS IS HAPPENING TO YOU squad shows up in full keening force keep in mind that this started with her publicly saying another journalist shouldn't be able to make a living.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 7, 2021
In case you missed it, Jesse Singal is not the bad guy in this scenario. That’s all Talia Lavin, baby.
It’s a grotesque mindset that leads a person to arrive at a new platform and, within two days, have compiled a list of people who should definitely be banned.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 7, 2021
A broken, authoritarian soul.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 7, 2021
Talia Lavin is definitely an authoritarian, and she’s very clearly broken. Beyond repair, even.
But we also can’t ignore her much simpler, more straightforward motivation for setting her Substack sights on Jesse Singal et al.:
She only wants you banned because she has Substack FOMO and she doesn’t want to be accused of hypocrisy after having deemed it a wretched hive of scum and villainy. https://t.co/a3V79krNjj
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
In other words, she’s garbage and she knows it.
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