‘Smear Factory’ SPLC Says It Targeted Bee Writers To Protect ‘Safety Of Trans And Genderqueer Individuals’

The Southern Poverty Law Center is out with a statement after it came under fire for exposing the identities of anonymous writers for Not The Bee, saying its decision to highlight their identities was made because it’s “dedicated to protecting the safety of trans and genderqueer individuals.”

The left-wing organization published a piece on Tuesday afternoon that highlighted the identities, hometowns, and even professions of writers published under pseudonyms on Not The Bee. The non-satirical partner website of The Babylon Bee publishes news stories that seem too absurd to be true to highlight the absurdity of the Left.

The website’s leadership, Seth and Dan Dillon, took aim at SPLC as a “smear factory” that was “doxxing” its writers “because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists.” The SPLC confirmed as much in its statement, which uses left-wing talking points to justify its actions.

“The SPLC is committed to transparency and is dedicated to protecting the safety of trans and genderqueer individuals when they are publicly attacked,” the SPLC said in a statement to the Montgomery Advertiser. “Hateful content like the material created by Not the Bee writers works to dehumanize transgender individuals, the entire LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities, and people of color. This divisive commentary has no place in our society.”

Seth Dillon said on Wednesday morning that the statement was an admission that SPLC’s “dox-and-smear campaign against us wasn’t actually journalism, but an attempt to censor speech they don’t like.”

The SPLC has put out a statement admitting their dox-and-smear campaign against us wasn’t actually journalism, but an attempt to censor speech they don’t like. pic.twitter.com/oxlqc1LAh7

— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) November 20, 2024

Dillon in follow-up posts on X revealed that SPLC employees self-identified as journalists in emails to The Babylon Bee ahead of its story.

They self-identify as journalists. pic.twitter.com/doTQt0fV41

— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) November 20, 2024

The SPLC story revealed the identities of six authors from Not The Bee from around the country who contribute to the site. SPLC published their names, where they lived, and their professions, which ranged from fitness instructor to high school teacher.

The stated justification for exposing the identities of the writers in the article was the content they produced. One writer who was published under the name “Planet Moron,” for example, was exposed because he’s a “prolific writer on culture-war issues,” the SPLC stated.

The SPLC is well-funded, taking in hundreds of millions of dollars to carry out attacks for the Left. That funding has been the source of controversy, with tax forms showing much of its money stored in overseas tax havens.

According to its 2022 tax form, it took in $170 million that year, and had about $700 million stashed away as “private investment funds.” $26 million was stored in “Central America and the Caribbean.” The Free Beacon reported in 2019 that tax documents from 2014 showed it transferring millions of dollars to the Cayman Islands, a tax haven.

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SPLC now functions as a smear factory, allowing reputable groups like legacy media outlets to call center-right groups extremists without engaging in defamation because they attribute it to SPLC, a nominal expert, instead of saying it themselves. In 2012, a left-wing gunman stormed the conservative think tank Family Research Council because he saw it listed as “anti-gay” by SPLC. He was later convicted of terrorism for the attack.

In 2018, SPLC’s insurance company paid British activist Maajid Nawaz $3.4 million because the group falsely named him an “anti-Muslim extremist.” Last year, a judge ruled that a defamation suit from the Dustin Inman Society could proceed after SPLC called it an “anti-immigrant hate group… vilifying all immigrants,” when the Society says it simply opposes illegal immigration.