Legal action against Eventbrite for unlawful discrimination

Is there any case law around organisations like Eventbrite? They operate a website which offers a service to people wishing to run events, not sure how they can claim to not be a service provider?

They're playing games

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1630239788325560323?t=q6Yqu0qWwfjmpOTjSkRLcw&s=19

UPDATE. @eventbrite have replied to my letter before action, denying that they are a service provider or that I am consumer. The first is a bold point! The second means that they are arguing I am an 'author' - which seems odd.

@spero
Do you have an update for us on what Eventbrite’s response due 24th Feb was?

Hello all
For anyone interested and/or has donated to this, I am posting a recent update that OP has published in her newsletter on the Eventbrite legal challenge. In short, the legal letter has been sent and Eventbrite’s response is due back on 24 Feb 23:

sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/big-tech-v-our-democracy

Some insurance company sold a policy that only paid out if you were were killed by a buffalo 🐃 stampede in a Pullman car.

But I think those days are over. I imagine lawyers in the USA spend a lot of time unpicking dubious waivers.

Would you be happy if some violent racist KKK members got a platform to spread hate?

Inciting racist violence is against the law. And it's not about being "happy". I'm not happy with the MRA meeting but if it's not promoting illegal behaviour it's a free speech issue.

Stirring up racial hatred and inciting violence are illegal. Those things would not be protected and it would be reasonable for any service provider not to platform them.

Even if you don't win, you are throwing sunshine at the harmful ideology.

Very much this. The hypocrisy and double standards of gender ideology are still hypocrisy and double standards even if the law currently allows them.

It may be true that women (original, female meaning) do not have the legal rights and protections that we thought we did. Some were never more than social conventions. Some were envisioned to protect women's provisions from legal attack, never considering that coordinated activist pressure might prevent such provisions being offered in the first place. Some were once legal rights but were lost with the GRA, which didn't seem very significant at the time when trans women were assumed to be few in number and post-op, but in conjuction with the loose definition of gender reassignment in the EA, the widening definition of trans woman pushed by trans activists and the political push for self id, has proved to be a destroyer of women's rights to sex-specific protection and political voice.

If the law as it stands does not protect our moral right to exist and speak for ourselves as separate from male people whatever their inner gender may be, the more sunlight that can shine on that gross injustice the better.

The law is not some moral absolute. Laws can and have been changed, and it starts with sunshine and a recognition that the law as it stands is unjust.

Indeed.

Would you be happy if some violent racist KKK members got a platform to spread hate?

They can pull any book they want. There's no case.

Thanks for the update. Even if you don't win, you are throwing sunshine at the harmful ideology.

@AlisonDonut
I just wonder if it is worth looking at other people hosting events with Eventbrite and seeing if they have ever been 'disparaging' about anyone or anything else.
I agree.

Might be worthwhile if some of us put together a list of past and future events that could be seen as 'disparaging'.

The problem is in defining what is illegal as it’s not settled which laws apply.

Do you think they should be able to cancel such an event?

Only if it sanctions illegal behaviour. On what grounds would they cancel a "men's rights" event, do you think?

Should Eventbrite be forced to host all events, as long as the speech is literally not illegal?

Yes. They are an event booking platform. Be careful what you wish for. If they applied this "disparaging speech against a protected group" policy evenhandedly, there would be zero trans events they could host.

yeah, but what about a comedian who told mother-in-law jokes. That presumably involves disparagement of those perceived to be older.

My understanding from an earlier poster was that disparagement is all it takes.

I have no idea, but if an MRA group suggested an event, that would be legal and disparaging and they could refuse to host it.

Do you think they should be able to cancel such an event?

I dont think there is a policy. I think individuals within the organisation have acted, probably based on a few complaints aimed at individuals.

For instance many women's support groups advertised their training or whatever on eventbrite and they are specifically women only as per SSE.

If the logic of those doing the cancelling is that it is "disparaging" to recognise the reality of sex, why aren't these groups targetted.

Not saying this makes it any better, and it would be sad if women's groups offering SSE services lost this platform, but I suspect that lone TRAs have set out to target anyone with a "name" thinking they are fighting the good fight, and as we know from other institutins, they nearly all have committed TRAs in their midst who act like Pavlov's dogs and choose to take these complaints as valid. And the managers are then caught in either supporting their staff or sticking their necks out. Which we know they wont do.

Not saying I like Musk, or in fact twitter, but look at what happens when someone with the authority says you cant target people who have certain beliefs.

It would be good to think that threatened legal action would make those at the decision making level would make sure their staff didn't abuse their positions to silence those they dont agree with.

My question about misogyny was in the context of the word "disparagement", and not about protected characteristics in California.

If disparagement is not allowed, presumably mother-in-law jokes are banned. Even Boris jokes?

Sex is a protected characteristic in the UK, where Eventbrite operate. They've got the protected characteristics wrong in their list but sexual orientation is in there and gender identity ideology is about as homophobic as it's possible to be because it redefines gay and lesbian as being about gender not sex.

Unless they can show they've cancelled other events for someone stating what they believe is a scientific fact, then they're discriminating.

This makes no sense. It's not irrelevant for a start - it's someone asking because they want to know.
Misogyny obviously isn't a 'protected characteristic' - no-one said it was. Misogynistic acts are arguably covered under the T&Cs about hatred against [perceived] gender identity. Unless discovereads thinks that no gender identity can be subject to misogyny. Because it's based on physical sex.

In which case, the lack of protecting sex as a characteristic is misogynist in itself, because female people hold less privilege than male people.

Events That Discriminate Against or Threaten Any Societal Group

Are 'people that don't hold Eventbrite tickets' a societal group?
The ticketing company would not be allowed to discriminate between people that did or didn't hold tickets. <ponders>

That’s not a legally protected characteristic in California law or in their T&Cs, so an irrelevant question.🤷‍♀️

You did ask about disparagement towards “anyone or anything”? See here you said:

I just wonder if it is worth looking at other people hosting events with Eventbrite and seeing if they have ever been 'disparaging' about anyone or anything else.

I was simply being helpful in regards to your question. Now I wish I hadn’t bothered. Nothing in what I posted defined the word disparagement or implied you didn’t know the meaning of the word so the nastiness and sarcasm regarding dictionaries is completely unnecessary.