Legal action against Eventbrite for unlawful discrimination

[Spero]

On Oct 27 2022, Eventbrite pulled my book launch event for 'Transpositions - personal journeys into gender criticism'. This was a collection of stories from men and women about how they got involved in issues around sex and gender. Some of you may have contributed.

They told me that I was promoting 'violent and dangerous' content. I asked them to explain themselves. They haven't. So I am taking them to court for unlawful discrimination against my gender critical belief.

I wrote about it in the Critic here thecritic.co.uk/why-is-eventbrite-obstructing-my-book-launch/

I am hoping that some people may feel able to do a spot of gardening. I know its dark and miserable and not the best weather for gardening, but I think this could be quite an important piece of digging. There are some really important questions to ask about how private companies, based overseas are allowed to dictate what we think or say.

Ah it was a study. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/nobody-reads-tos-agreements-even-ones-that-demand-first-born-as-payment/amp/

Eventbrite, Healthcare America, PayPal...

Time to let them know about the T&Cs of U.K. Law.

Good luck Spero and I have a small hand trowel ready, wish it was a shovel as there is, as ever, lots of digging to do.

You would probably not be amazed at the number of US citizens who genuinely believe that US law applies everywhere. Ignorance knows no borders.

Most attempts to sue my ass fall down when I get asked what state the UK is in.

Yes, seriously.

TRAs don't excel at much, but the one thing they do excel at is patronisingly explaining a subject - biology, the law, sports - to a woman who is expert in it.

Not to mention explaining patronisingly to women that they are wrong about womanhood itself, and that the shit that society deals out to people who have female bodies from the day they were born doesn't in any way affect our lives 😂

Trowel will be wielded at pay day.

It keeps happening. They read what other TRAs claim and take it as gospel. They don't check it out themselves. And if it's an American TRA, they know fuck all about British law.

They said exactly the same over the Allison Bailey case and the Maya Forstater case. That their contracts over rode discrimination laws.

Makes you wonder why the first question in their head isn't what's the point of a discrimination law, then?

Donated

And not just any barrister, a multi award winning one.

I'm really cross about this whole thing. I went to get tickets and the link had gone. How DARE event bright discriminate like this. How dare there. Oh i will be digging.

Companies seem to think that they can discriminate against women with impunity. And they have been. They get complaints from TRAs, and, currently, there is zero risk to them cancelling women.

They need to know that there is a risk. That there are consequences.

i'd like to see companies perceive an instant link between another spurious complaint of transphobia from a transactivist and losing money.

i'm digging for that.

Thank you for doing this.

The extent to which women have been silenced is shocking. It is very important that we chip away. This latest may sound trivial, but this is happening time and time again. It should not. We need to prove that when companies do this they are breaking the law.

It looks like the garden is in a park called democracy three dot org. It's linked from Sarah's twitter (no account needed to view).

Weather is better today so have gardened.

First, the T&Cs are standard, there is nothing in them that is not a generally accepted practice. Secondly, they haven’t refused service because of a protected characteristic, but because of the questionable nature of content that was published. They haven’t broken any laws. The OP breached contract by posting content in violation of their T&Cs and Community Guidelines. Thirdly, the only U.K. law a company abroad selling a service or goods to a U.K. consumer has to follow is the Consumer Protection Act. They’re not “doing business here” in the sense that they are in California and they host a webpage there that anyone from anywhere can access and use to advertise and sell tickets on. So US & CA laws apply per their Applicable laws and jurisdiction clause.

This is a civil dispute over contract terms and conditions, it’s what is going to be considered by the court. The court will be the small claims court in San Francisco, unless OP opts for the Arbitration process instead.

It’s not arse wiping material as much as you may wish it to be so.

Im just trying the save the OP and anyone crowdfunding from wasting their money. If I were a TRA I would be howling with laughter while egging you on and secretly hoping you all lost a few hundred thousands £££ on your attempt to sue Eventbrite.

Spero is a family law barrister familiar with U.K. family law. Unless she’s also worked in international contract law, like I have, she won’t know very much.

GC beliefs are not a protect characteristic in US law. They are considered to be a political belief.

The Forstarter case was about an employee having these beliefs and not being discriminated against by their management for merely having these beliefs per the U.K. Equality Act.

It did not provide a precedence for the OPs case which is publicly publishing content advertising an event that disseminates GC ideology. I’m sure you can see there are substantial differences between the two circumstances.

In addition, the T&Cs allow for Eventbrite to take down any content for any other reason. They could simply say they took it down due to complaints of violent/dangerous content and it doesn’t matter if the content was actually like that it has reflected badly on them and case over.

Yep, and now that shoe is on the OPs foot quite literally. She wants to sue Eventbrite, she’s going to have to do it in San Francisco county small claims court (if she opts out of their Arbitration process). It seems the same belief is on this thread that U.K. law applies everywhere.

Nonsense. The law applies where you deliver the service. And that isn't San Francisco.

Au contraire. The service wasn’t being delivered in the U.K. but on the web. The rules for determining place of performance for cloud based services are not the same as for touch services.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude
This isn’t a contractual claim, it’s founded in discrimination.
Oh it is, OP said herself she thinks she has a case for breach of contract due to discrimination. This is a civil contract dispute, it isn’t a criminal discrimination case like hate speech or a hate crime.

Well, anyway, I’m done giving OP the benefit of my twenty years in international contract law for free. If she wants to spend her (and your) money pursing this that’s her choice.

Sigh, no I did read that but the mandatory provisions of the Consumer Protection Act et al, are quite distinct from the Equality Act and EAT rulings. So nothing in that one exception helps the OPs case at all. Which you’d know if you knew the actual law…

Wasn't that the whole point of the Forstater case, though? International employer tries to impose US-style T&Cs on UK staff, discovers they actually can't override local equality law, get slapped down?

I think the event was hosted on eventbrite.co.uk, anyway, which has a registered address in London...

Im just trying the save the OP and anyone crowdfunding from wasting their money. If I were a TRA I would be howling with laughter while egging you on and secretly hoping you all lost a few hundred thousands £££ on your attempt to sue Eventbrite.

This is why don't bother to read what you say, Discovereads. You can't seriously believe that people read your posts and think you're trying to help women.

How you can sit there and fondly think that there is anyone not convinced that you are hellbent on trying to stop this case going forward, God only knows.

Don't do it, don't look, don't finance, don't, don't, don't!!

All in the name of 'helping'.

There is no such thing as U.K. law for the purposes of litigation.

No need for you to worry about my money Discovereads. I'm quite capable of deciding what to spend it on without your input.