Katherine Clark Isn’t Shocked by Milo’s “Reprehensible Behavior”
Photo via AP
Alt-right firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos was disinvited from this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference after video surfaced of the Breitbart personality, in which he appears to passionately defend pedophilia.
But according to Rep. Katherine Clark, who has championed legislation aimed at curbing online harassment, Yiannopoulos’s “reprehensible behavior” is hardly shocking. It was Clark who urged the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Gamergate, an online movement marked by threats of violence against female gamers and stoked by Yiannopoulos.
The Melrose Democrat called Yiannopoulos a “serial abuser” in a string of tweets Monday.
1. Those of you who are *shocked* that CPAC's keynote speaker is despicable have already excused a lot of reprehensible behavior.
— Katherine Clark (@WhipKClark) February 20, 2017
2. Many organizations & individuals- under the veil of free speech – gave a platform to a serial abuser
— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) February 20, 2017
3. But because he and his website targeted people who weren’t “worthy” of sympathy – feminists, people of color, transgender men & women
— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) February 20, 2017
4. The behavior was labeled as “provocative” instead of hate speech, doxxing, and targeted abuse of marginalized people
— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) February 20, 2017
5. No responsible organization should normalize this behavior. Not the press, not CPAC, and certainly not the White House.
— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) February 20, 2017
As Clark alludes, White House senior advisor and strategist Steve Bannon previously served as Yiannipoulos’s boss at Breitbart News, the nexus of the so-called alt-right. “I am a gay Jew and he made me into a star,” Yiannipoulos said of Bannon.
