Elon Musk calls Southern Poverty Law Center a 'criminal organization' after doxing claim

The owner of X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk said the Southern Poverty Law Center "is a criminal organization" on the platform Tuesday. The post came after Seth Dillon, co-founder of Not the Bee, a hard news version of The Babylon Bee, accused the non-profit of doxing its writers.

"The SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our 'Not the Bee' writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear," Dillon said in his post on X. He claimed that the SPLC "extracted sensitive information" from the publication's website and used to directly contact its writers.

Doxing is the act of publicly revealing someone's private information, such as their name, email, home address, phone number, etc., without their permission.

“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. "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."

“The identities and contact information of the individuals we contacted are publicly available on the Not the Bee website.”

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Dillon posted an email from Creede Newton, a reporter for the SPLC's Intelligence Project, who directly contacted an unidentified Not the Bee employee, who presumably uses the penname "Planet Moron" and who "since 2020 has written over 600 articles for Not the Bee" according to Newton.

"We’re determining how they obtained this information, but we already know why they went digging for it," Dillon said. "They did it because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists. They did it because they lack principles. They did it because they’re vindictive bullies who've admitted their aim is to 'completely destroy' individuals and organizations they disagree with by making them pay a steep price for speaking freely."

Musk, at 8:13 a.m. Tuesday, reposted Dillon's statement, saying "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a criminal organization (in my opinion)." President-elect Donald Trump announced last week the Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy would co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, an unpaid role, as part of his upcoming administration.

Victor Hagan is the Alabama Election Reporting Fellow for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at vhagan@gannett.com or on X @TheVictorHagan. To support his work, subscribe to the Advertiser.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Elon Musk calls SPLC a 'criminal organization' after doxing claim

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