Written by When the story first broke that Stefan Molyneux used DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notices to have the YouTube channel of Tru Shibes taken down, I was very disappointed. Saying he did it because the channel owner was releasing personal information about listeners didn’t improve matters any, quite the contrary. Using government force to shut somebody up, whether they are copying videos or releasing phone numbers, is unacceptable behavior for a man in Stefan’s position. Whatever position one is in, purposely using government force, and lying about it, is fraud. Issuing a DMCA notice is a threat of force, and a very specific one. It is making the claim that you have property in the form of a copyright on the content in question, not that it exposes personal information or makes you look bad.
I was also disappointed with others, who seized on this as an opportunity to discredit the good work he’s done. In addition to hearing and seeing many individuals make comments about the situation, I was on Free Talk Live just after the news broke. We discussed it and there was an effort to assign “cult” status to Free Domain Radio. I’m told Michael Dean and other podcasters spoke in similar terms.
As best as I could tell, there was a great deal of envy, feminism, responsibility avoidance, and other agendas involved in the campaign against Molyneux over this subject. I find this very unfortunate because it thus failed to address the actual wrongdoing, the threat of State violence. Molyneux’s transgression doesn’t invalidate the fact that child abuse is a major factor in the cycle of violence. It doesn’t excuse the disproportionate role that women play in the cycle of violence. It doesn’t mean that Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown were innocent victims. It doesn’t invalidate any of the other very valid points Molyneux has made over the years he’s been producing content and speaking. Whatever the ramifications of this particular wrongdoing, Stefan Molyneux is easily one of the most important people in the history of libertarian thought, and anyone who says otherwise, is either being purposefully disingenuous, or willfully ignorant.
It just means that Stefan Molyneux gave into temptation, and used the gun in the room to silence a critic. This is a big enough problem by itself, and is worthy of discussion.
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