Legal action against Eventbrite for unlawful discrimination

@MoirasSaggyBundles
Thanks, Moira. Great job of explaining how it all fits together

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11412263/Lawyer-plans-sue-ticket-selling-giant-Eventbrite-pulling-tickets-trans-debate.html

@MoirasSaggyBundles
That's really interesting - it's a complex area

You might also want to look at the Platform to Business Regulations (which are in force in the UK post Brexit). It targets providers of information society services (as I defined in the previous post) which facilitate direct transactions between business users and consumers. This includes online platforms and marketplaces, price comparison websites, social media platforms, app stores and search engines (“platforms”).

These regs have extraterritorial scope: they apply to all platforms which provide services to business users in the EU, irrespective of the location of the platform itself. In practice, if a user is established or resident in the EU and uses the platform to offer goods and services to consumers in the EU, the platform will be caught by the Regulation.

Certain unfair practices by platforms are banned: for example, suspending, terminating or otherwise restricting accounts without clear reasons is prohibited.

For the purposes of jurisdiction, Eventbrite will be an ISSP under the EqA (Information Society Services Provider). There are specific exceptions carved out in the EqAct in relation to ISSPs in EU countries, where the equality legislation of the relevant EU country will prevail.

Other than that, the EqA is deliberately silent as to its territorial scope and it comes down to facts. Would a High Court determination really find against Spero in the circumstances? As I said above, Eventbrite uses of a co.uk website to advertise both its own services to organisers and the organisers' events themselves; events held in the UK and attended by UK consumers who purchase tickets through Eventbrite via links from the UK site. You need to log in and register to a UK site to buy tickets or create an event. They even offer tailored advice to UK organisers for maximising their ticket sales in the UK using stats about UK ticket buyers:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/when-do-people-buy-event-tickets-ds00/

This all screams services being provided within our jurisdiction. For Eventbrite to argue otherwise is not a good look for them and their business model - why would UK consumers or organisers risk using them, if they claim that statutory tort provisions like the EqA that protect our citizens do not apply to them when they are in the business of asking our citizens to use their Services via their UK platform? How will that go down as a publicity/marketing strategy?

Regarding the EU triggering provision in the case of a User who is not using the Eventbrite Services to further their trade, craft, business or profession (TCBP), I would say there’s room for an arguable case in favour of Spero.

Some Organisers are on the site to sell something they provide as a business e.g., a spa day. The contract between Organiser (e.g. a Hotel & Spa business) and Consumer is for a product that that the Organiser creates - the purchased ticket/voucher gets the Consumer the Spa experience. That’s a fairly straightforward case of the Organiser using the Services to further their TCBP..

Let’s say for the sake of being Devil’s advocate that Spero is in the business of selling a book. Spero is using the Eventbrite Services only to sell tickets to an event. She is not using the Services to sell books or a voucher that can be exchanged for a book. The Consumer buys a ticket to the event. That ticket gets them access to an event, it doesn’t give them Spero’s book. Spero’s side of the contract is to provide an event fulfilling its advertised description. She is not an event organiser by trade or profession, the event itself is not her business or her craft. Ticket purchasers get what they paid for by turning up to the event to hear Spero speak. Turning up to an event to hear Spero speak is all the ticket purchasers paid for. In speaking, Spero is not engaging in a business as she is not a professional speaker being paid to speak. Once the event is over, that’s the end of the contractual relationship between Spero and the ticket holder that was serviced through Eventbrite Services. If one of the ticket holders attending then goes on to buy a book from Spero, either at the event venue or from elsewhere, that’s a completely separate transaction that has not been serviced through Eventbrite Services.

I have the same question Chaz. They had to have based their determination off what was posted on their page for the book launch event by the OP. Perhaps the description of it. A summary of the book. Reviewers comments about the book. Again, the minimum they had to determine was that the the content was disparaging towards a transgender individual or group to be able to invoke their Community Guidelines and unpublish the event.

They could have thought any book about gender critical beliefs is disrespectful towards transgender people and thus inherently disparaging. That would be the hope for OP, that it was the above sort of prejudicial decision motivated by discrimination.

I don’t know though. Eventbrite US would have to outline their thought process and show it was logical, reasonable, procedurally correct and that the unpublishing was a proportionate response (as opposed to sending the OP a request to edit her event announcement- an opportunity to remedy before ceasing services due to breach of contract).

can they

But how can’t hey make that determination about content that is not available to them?

Eventbrite haven’t read the book. How do they know it is discriminatory? What is the basis for their determination?

Personally, I think this will be a really good exercise on what exactly what they consider discriminatory, and/or hateful.

We know that there are very many people who consider something discriminatory, when it's nothing of the sort. So it will be very handy to get some transparency about it.

Well, no - it's the content as a whole they are considering breaches their terms and conditions not to be discriminatory against people with a protected characteristic. It doesn't matter if all but one of your contributors is blameless, it still applies. Did they literally say hate and violence, or just refer you to their discrimination section which includes those terms?

No wonder you were targeted.

@Spero
You can't tell people that when the words they write are deemed hateful and violent that this is no reflection on them.

Well, I don’t know/haven’t seen what you published on Eventbrite US and so have no idea what words you wrote as it is now deleted. Keep in mind they don’t have to have been hateful, violent or dangerous to have violated that particular policy under the Community Guidelines. I hope you have a copy for your legal counsel to go through, they will need it. You have a right to ask Eventbrite US for all the data they hold on you, if you do not have a copy.

I think it would be hard to argue that you did not write a book:
”I organised a book launch for 2nd December 2022 with my co-editor Al Peters. Our book is called ‘Transpositions: a personal journey into gender criticism’.”

Your book is a compilation. Doesn’t make it any less your book. You even have copyright protection over it as a literary work. No different from the author of a cookbook having collected recipes from hundreds of peoples. No different from an author of a history book that is a compilation of testimony from eyewitnesses.

So each and everyone of those individuals are being falsely accused of 'hate' and 'violence'.. I don’t think so, you were accused of violating their community guidelines, terms of service and policy. Eventbrite US never stated that you specifically had hate or violent content or that anyone was accused of hate or violence. They stated that your “event violates our community guidelines and the terms of service, especially our policy on Hateful, Dangerous or Violent Events or Content”

Thats just the title of the policy section within the Community Guidelines that they are referring you to. Within that section of their policy, the content and/or event need only be deemed to be disparaging towards a protected individual or group to be a violatation. They don’t need to prove there is actual hate, danger or violence.

Except point out that the EU provisions (where EU expressly is defined as including the UK) appear to substitute English law as the governing law provided the "an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside of your trade, business, craft or profession" test is met.

Was that vague?

It's interesting you feel you can determine whether or not the test is met based on the minimal information available. I'll let the OP decide as she has the facts.

Yes you mentioned in passing are are they arguing that it’s a trade? I’ve just taken a minute to apply it to the OP.

A plain English reading of “your trade, business, craft or profession” is that this applies to any of one these and furthermore, it is not uncommon for an individual to have more than one of those. E.g. just because you have a profession, doesn’t mean you do not also have a business or craft or trade ifywim.

Theres enough information to answer imho. Her profession is irrelevant to her purpose for using the Services. But using the Services to sell tickets to launch her book that she wrote is acting for a purpose that is wholly or mainly related to her craft as an author.

If she were launching someone else’s book, then I’d agree with you a good chance this could be applied. But as it is, it doesn’t look very hopeful to me.

I did say that test would have to be considered by the OP we don’t have enough info to answer.

The OP is a lawyer so being an author may be incidental rather than wholly or mainly.

I’m not sure this would apply to OP after all?

”27.2 EEA, Swiss and UK Users. If you are a User located in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), Switzerland or the United Kingdom (together, "EU") who is an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside of your trade, business, craft or profession while using the Services, then the following EU Amendments available here apply to you. If you are an Organiser and process personal data of EU event attendees, you are a data controller with respect to your event attendees' personal data and Eventbrite will act as a data processor. With respect to EU personal data that an Organiser holds as a data controller, the Data Processing Addendum for Organisers located here is incorporated into these Terms.”

OP is an individual.

OP is an author, which is a craft, and she was using the Eventbrite Services to sell tickets for the launch of her book (the product of her craft).

OP’s acting for purposes that are not wholly or mainly outside her craft while using the Services.

I'm not a lawyer, not in UK, but I'm pretty sure that online companies can't T&C whatever they want.

GDPR is one example - Google provides right to be forgotten, cookies consents on American pages were added to somehow deal with it.
Uber has to follow the law wherever they provide services.
Some online casinos are blocking people from my country, as they refuse to comply with our national hazard law, so can't sell us their services at all.
And once any online company establishes a webpage in my language, my currency and my national domain, it can't T&C me out of my legal consumer protection as defined by my national law.