ACLU Calls Out Taylor Swift for Fighting ‘Defamatory’ Story Linking Her to White Supremacy

The ACLU of Northern California is looking Taylor Swift out after the pop star and her legal professional despatched an “intimidating letter” to a blogger over an article titled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation.”

The pop star and her lawyer labeled a PopFront submit as “defamatory” and demanded a retraction.

Now, the ACLU mentioned in a letter to Swift that her menace of a defamation lawsuit is “meritless.”

PopFront editor Meghan Herning printed the article on Sept. 5, which mixes political speech and significant commentary, decoding a few of Swift’s lyrics. At the top of the submit, the creator requires Swift to personally denounce white supremacy.

For instance, “Taylor’s lyrics in ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ seem to play to the same subtle, quiet white support of a racial hierarchy. Many on the alt-right see the song as part of a ‘re-awakening,’ in line with Trump’s rise. At one point in the accompanying music video, Taylor lords over an army of models from a podium, akin to what Hitler had in Nazis Germany. The similarities are uncanny and unsettling.”

Also Read: Can Taylor Swift Shake Off Lawsuit Over Her ‘Shake It Off’ Lyrics?

The submit added, “In other words, these lyrics became the voice of the lower case kkk, and Taylor’s sweet, victim image is the perfect vehicle and metaphor for white supremacists’ perceived victimization… And considering Taylor’s fan base is mostly young girls, does the song also serve as indoctrination into white supremacy?”

According to the ACLU’s Monday badertion, Herning acquired an “intimidating letter” from Swift and her legal professional on Oct. 25, saying the weblog submit was “defamatory,” and demanded a retraction in addition to a stop and desist. The letter additionally threatened a lawsuit.

“The story is replete with demonstrable and offensive falsehoods which bear no relation to reality or the truth about Ms. Swift,” learn the letter. “It appears to be a malicious attack against Ms. Swift that goes to great lengths to portray Ms. Swift as some sort of white supremacist figurehead, which is a baseless fiction masquerading as fact and completely misrepresents Ms. Swift.”

While the PopFront story reads, “And there is no way to know for sure if Taylor is a Trump supporter or identifies with the white nationalist message, but her silence has not gone unnoticed,” Swift’s letter to Herning went: “Even if Ms. Swift had remained silent on the issue of white supremacy (which, as you will see below, she absolutely has not), silence does not mean support.”

Also Read: Taylor Swift’s Video Director Slams ‘Double Standards’ Applied to Her

However, ACLU or Northern California legal professional Michael Risher mentioned within the badertion that the letter was a “completely unsupported attempt to suppress constitutionally protected speech.”

ACLU legal professional Matt Cagle added, “Intimidation tactics like these are unacceptable. Not in her wildest dreams can Ms. Swift use copyright law to suppress this exposure of a threat to constitutionally protected speech.”

“All of this is core political speech that cannot possibly be defamatory because it is not even about Ms. Swift,” the ACLU letter learn. “In short, your claims that the blog post has defamed Ms. Swift are completely unsupported. If the blog post’s interpretation of Ms. Swift’s lyrics were defamatory, your letter’s slanted interpretation of that post would be, too.”

The ACLU attorneys deemed the weblog submit opinion protected by the First Amendment. Herning, who reached out to the ACLU after receiving the letter, mentioned in an announcement, “The press should not be bullied by high-paid lawyers or frightened into submission by legal jargon. These scare tactics may have worked for Taylor in the past, but I am not backing down.”

PopFront is way from the primary media outlet to hyperlink Swift to the alt-right motion. Just final 12 months, Broadly printed an article titled “Can’t Shake It Off: How Taylor Swift Became a Nazi Idol.” And Dazed wrote an article on the subject which unfold on message board web site Reddit (by way of Complex).

Swift’s spokesperson in addition to her legal professional haven’t but responded to TheWrap’s request for remark.

Read the ACLU’s full letter to Swift right here.