July 14, 2019

Kelly Bourdet Andrew Couts

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor
Gizmodo Gizmodo
2 West 17th Street 2 West 17th Street
Floor 2 Floor 2
New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10011
via email: kelly.bourdet@gizmodo.com via email: andrew.couts@gizmodo.com

Dear Ms. Bourdet and Mr. Couts:

My name is Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Advocacy at Alliance
Defending Freedom (ADF). I’m writing to advise you that Gizmodo’s July 11, 2019 article by
Aaron Sankin titled “The Dirty Business of Hosting Hate Online,” wrongly smeared ADF with the
hate label and spread misinformation about our work. We ask that you publish a corrective and
clarifying statement as we assess the possibility of further action.

ADF is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free
speech, and the sanctity of life. ADF has defended the rights of Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and people of no faith. We’ve won over 400 free speech
victories on college campuses protecting students of varied religious faiths, as well as libertarian,
conservative, pro-life, pro-conservationist, and LGBT students. Internationally, we’ve worked to
stop violent persecution of Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities.
While your journalists or editorial writers may disagree with our mission and beliefs, to mix our
organization with genuinely violent organizations without context is simply unacceptable and
potentially actionable.

ADF, in fact, is one of the nation’s most respected and successful United States Supreme Court
advocates. ADF has played roles in 54 Supreme Court victories. Since 2011, ADF has represented
parties in nine victories at the Supreme Court. In 2018, Empirical SCOTUS ranked ADF first
among “the top performing firms” litigating First Amendment cases in its “Supreme Court All
Stars 2013-2017.”

In all our work, ADF seeks to cultivate a society defined by respect and tolerance for different
views, the free exchange of ideas, and robust debate and dialogue. We are advocates, yet we act
with respect for the rights of those with different views to make their arguments in both the court
of law and that of public opinion. That we are successful as often as we are is prima facie evidence
that our arguments are meritorious under the law.

Your article paints a far different picture of ADF. It smears us as a hate group and treats us as no
different than despicable racist groups that incite violence. It makes misleading and false claims
about ADF with no support whatsoever and mischaracterizes our work. It regurgitates the
misinformation the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) spreads about ADF, without any inquiry
into their truth. Indeed, Gizmodo did not even contact us for comment before publishing the
article.

Perhaps worse, your article advances a narrative that the solution to speech you find objectionable
is to suppress it by placing pressure on commercial entities to deny access to essential services or
risk being smeared with a similar reputational attack. We commend Microsoft for seeing through
this transparent and self-serving guise and denying its premise.

Gizmodo’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center to identify organizations that purportedly
propagate “hate” is fatally flawed, especially since nowhere does your article note the many
controversies that have wracked their reputation. A multitude of recent media reports have
chronicled its internal corruption, on which your article is silent. 1 Just a few months ago, its co-
founder was fired and its long-time president resigned amidst numerous employee reports that
SPLC suffers from “a systemic culture of racism and sexism within its workplace.” 2 Sadly, the
organization is guilty of the very things it claims to oppose. This fact alone should be enough for
Gizmodo to seriously question the credibility of SPLC’s claims.

But the controversy surrounding SPLC is actually much worse than that. SPLC’s “Hate Map,”
which Gizmodo relied on in smearing ADF, was designated by Nathan J. Robinson recently as an
“outright fraud” and “a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the
SPLC.” 3 Gizmodo has willingly become a tool in SPLC’s cynical ploy to raise more and more
money by repeating its deceptive propaganda, and unwisely opened itself to the same kind of
litigation which has been repeatedly filed against SPLC.

SPLC was forced to admit that there is no established legal definition of a hate group and its hate
group labels are subjective opinions—not facts—in seeking to dismiss a defamation lawsuit. 4
Your article failed to note this, and presented their list as factual.

In point of fact, SPLC frequently is forced to retract extremist labels. 5 Just last year, it apologized
and paid Maajid Nawaz a $3.375 million settlement for including him in its “Field Guide to Anti-

1
Laurel Wamsley, Southern Poverty Law Center Fires Morris Dees, Its Co-Founder, National Public Radio, March 14,
2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/03/14/703526235/southern-poverty-law-center-fires-morris-dees-its-co-founder;
Alan Blinder, Southern Poverty Law Center President Plans Exit Amid Turmoil, The NY Times, March 22, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/splc-richard-cohen-resigns.html.
2
Nick Valencia and Pamela Kirkland, Famous civil rights group suffers from 'systemic culture of racism and sexism,'
staffers say, CNN, March 29, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/29/us/splc-leadership-crisis/index.html.
3
Nathan J. Robinson, The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Everything That’s Wrong With Liberalism, Current Affairs,
March 26, 2019, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-
liberalism.
4
Coral Ridge Ministries, Inc. v. Southern Poverty Law Center, No. 2:17-cv-00566, Doc. Nos. 42 & 54 (M.D. Ala.
Nov. 8, 2017).
5
SPLC Statement on Dr. Ben Carson, https://bit.ly/2Nf0vmK.
Muslim Extremists.”6 SPLC also retracted the field guide. 7 Mr. Nawaz is a former Islamic
extremist who has since devoted his life to opposing violence in the name of Islam. 8 Gizmodo may
want to note this as you consider whether you wish to rely on SPLC’s data, as you did in your
story that spreads misinformation about Alliance Defending Freedom.

Gizmodo should take its cue from Facebook and not blindly trust whatever SPLC says. Facebook
spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja recently clarified that “Alliance … Defending Freedom isn’t a
hate group under our policies.” 9 Even some of our most vehement ideological opponents – like
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the secularist group Military Religious Freedom
Foundation, and Nadine Strossen, a former president of the ACLU — have vehemently disagreed
with ADF being branded a “hate group.” 10

It is inexcusable for Gizmodo to repeat the misinformation and opinion driven incitements of
SPLC. Labeling ADF—a respected Supreme Court advocate who takes “on the types of cases that
the ACLU could once be counted on to defend” 11—a “hate group” is journalistically unsound and
could expose Gizmodo to legal risk.

Attached to this letter is a brief statement from ADF. We request and require that your article be
edited to incorporate this statement without change, and that the article note the edit at the
beginning of the article. This shall occur within 24 hours of the receipt of this letter. Further, if
Gizmodo shall elect to write about this letter, we require that it be published in full.

While it is our preference to resolve this matter by consent, we are required to inform you that
nothing herein shall be taken to limit our legal options. Please advise us forthwith of your
intentions.

Sincerely,

Jeremy D. Tedesco
Senior Counsel, VP of U.S. Advocacy, ADF

6
Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc. Admits It Was Wrong, Apologizes to Quilliam and Maajid Nawaz for Field
Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists, and Agrees to Pay $3.375 Million Settlement, Quilliam Press Release, June 18,
2018, https://www.quilliaminternational.com/southern-poverty-law-center-inc-admits-it-was-wrong/.
7
Jack Crowe, Southern Poverty Law Center Quietly Deleted List of ‘Anti-Muslim’ Extremists After Legal Threat,
National Review, April 19, 2018, https://www.nationalreview.com/news/southern-poverty-law-center-removes-
extremist-list-after-legal-threat/.
8
Crowe, supra.
9
Tyler O’Neil, Conservatives Rest Assured: Facebook's 'Hate' Policing Is Far Different from the SPLC, PJ Media,
March, 29, 2019, https://pjmedia.com/trending/conservatives-rest-assured-facebooks-hate-policing-is-far-different-
from-the-splc/.
10
https://iamadf.org/what-others-are-saying/.
11
Mark Hemingway, Want to Defend Civil Liberties? Don’t Look to the ACLU, Weekly Standard June 29, 2018,
https://www.weeklystandard.com/mark-hemingway/the-aclu-gives-up-on-free-speech-and-the-first-amendment.
Enc.: Statement

Statement for unedited publication: Your unfounded assertions about Alliance Defending
Freedom are both offensive and wrong. ADF is a nonprofit legal organization that advocates for
the free speech and free exercise rights of all Americans. We’re also a respected and successful
Supreme Court advocate. We’ve won nine cases before the Court since 2011 and work with
some of the finest lawyers in America. Our track record before the highest court in the land
speaks for itself.

Mixing ADF in with genuinely violent hate groups smears us, and suggesting that our hosting
company should consider withholding service or face reputational damage is an unacceptable
attempt to interfere with our legal mission and advocacy. You will fail, and we would urge you
to note our track record in defending the speech rights of others via litigation.

We are disappointed but not surprised by this Gizmodo story. In attacking ADF because you
disagree with us, you’ve abandoned basic principles of journalism to become partisan.