Popehat

Last updated

Popehat is a law-oriented blog. [1] According to its tagline, Popehat is a "group complaint about law, liberty, and leisure". Its primary blogger, American attorney Ken White, [2] writes about law, scams, and freedom of expression on the Internet [3] in a blunt, often crass style. A Twitter account under the same name was later established, and amassed hundreds of thousands of followers.

Contents

History

Popehat was established in 2005, "aborted because we have lives," and restarted in 2007. [1] After having a low profile for many years, the blog came to widespread attention in 2012 for its coverage of The Oatmeal and FunnyJunk legal dispute involving Charles Carreon, as well as the US Olympic Committee's cease and desist letters to knitters on Ravelry for scheduling a "Ravelypmics." [4] It has also covered swatting, [5] IsAnybodyDown?, [6] Prenda Law, [7] scam letters, [8] and SLAPP issues. [9] The blog sometimes helps arrange pro bono counsel for affected bloggers (the "Popehat Signal") [10] including PZ Myers. [11]

It has been repeatedly linked by Boing Boing, Instapundit, John Scalzi, Techdirt, and others and was included in the ABA Journal "Blawg 100" in 2011, [12] 2012, [13] 2013, [14] and 2014. [15] In 2015, Popehat was inducted into the ABA Journal Blawg Hall of Fame. [16]

The blog was originally anonymous [17] but White's identity was eventually uncovered. [18] White, a former assistant US attorney, was a partner at Brown, White and Osborn as of 2020. [19] White's fellow bloggers (anonymous or known to various degrees) have included Adam Steinbaugh, [20] Charles, David, Derrick, Grandy, Marc Randazza, Patrick, and a bovine character named Via Angus.

In January 2009, the Popehat Twitter account was established. Known for updating his handle to reflect Twitter's trending topic of the day, primary tweeter Ken White continues to comment on legal issues in a humorous but substantive way. He is generally an advocate for broad free speech rights and reform of the criminal justice system. [21] [22] [23]

In August 2020, the original blog website announced that it was being discontinued and would be preserved only as a historical artifact, with new posts going to a replacement Substack site instead. [24]

Popehat's Twitter account was cited in 2021 as helping spearhead sarcastic responses to Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw's form for Internet users to submit stories of "woke" impositions on the military. [25]

Ken White left Twitter in December 2022. [26]

DPRK News Service

Two of the blog's writers, Patrick (who died in September 2022) and Derrick, run a satirical Twitter feed purporting to be the voice of North Korea which parodies the style and content of North Korean state media. [27] [28] Greta van Susteren, Slate , [29] the Washington Post , Newsweek , [30] CNN, [31] and Reuters Australia have mistakenly identified the feed as authentic. [32] On the MSNBC television program Morning Joe , journalist Mark Halperin cited the feed as evidence that the government of North Korea was expressing support for Donald Trump. [33] [34]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blog</span> Discussion or informational site published on the internet

A blog is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

Blogger is an American online content management system founded in 1999 which enables its users to write blogs with time-stamped entries. Pyra Labs developed it before being acquired by Google in 2003. Google hosts the blogs, which can be accessed through a subdomain of blogspot.com. Blogs can also be accessed from a user-owned custom domain by using DNS facilities to direct a domain to Google's servers. A user can have up to 100 blogs or websites per account.

Pamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and was editor of Groklaw, a website that covered legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community. Jones is an open source advocate who previously trained and worked as a paralegal.

<i>Wonkette</i> American online magazine

Wonkette is an American online magazine of topical and political gossip, established in 2004 by Gawker Media and founding editor Ana Marie Cox. The editor since 2012 is Rebecca Schoenkopf, formerly of OC Weekly. Wonkette covers U.S. politics in a satirical manner.

Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Carla Sinclair, and Rob Beschizza, and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Volokh Conspiracy</span> American legal blog

The Volokh Conspiracy is a legal blog co-founded in 2002 by law professor Eugene Volokh, covering legal and political issues from an ideological orientation it describes as "generally libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these." It is one of the most widely read and cited legal blogs in the United States. The blog is written by legal scholars and provides discussion on complex court decisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Yglesias</span> American blogger and journalist (born 1981)

Matthew Yglesias is an American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as The American Prospect, The Atlantic, and Slate. In 2014 he co-founded the news website Vox.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lat</span> American journalist (born 1975)

David Benjamin Lat is an American lawyer, author, and legal commentator. Lat is the founder of Above the Law, a website about law firms and the legal profession.

Dennis David Crouch is an American patent attorney who worked for McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP (MBHB) in Chicago, Illinois, until 2007. In 2007, he accepted a post of associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia, Missouri.

Daniel Tynan is an American journalist, television and radio commentator who specializes in technology, humor, and humorous takes on technology. Former editor in chief of Yahoo Tech, he has also served as an Executive Editor and later contributing editor for PC World, InfoWorld.com, Family Circle and other publications that have gone on to the great magazine Valhalla in the sky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Cillizza</span> American political journalist (born 1976)

Christopher Michael Cillizza is an American political commentator, who worked for the television news channel CNN from 2017 to 2022. Prior to joining CNN, he wrote for The Fix, the daily political blog of The Washington Post, and was a regular contributor to the Post on political issues, a frequent panelist on Meet the Press, and an MSNBC political analyst. Cillizza is also a co-host of The Tony Kornheiser Show sports podcast. In April 2017, Cillizza began working for CNN, including writing and onscreen appearances. He was terminated by CNN in December 2022. Currently, he maintains a political blog on Substack.

Above the Law (ATL) is a news website about law, law schools, and the legal profession. Established in 2006, the site is owned and published by Breaking Media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Randazza</span> American First Amendment attorney

Marc J. Randazza is an American First Amendment attorney and a legal commentator on InfoWars.

BitterLawyer.com is a legal humor and news blog targeted at disgruntled lawyers. The site features a webshow titled Living the Dream, created by Rick Eid, which follows the bumblings of fictional big law junior associate Nick Conley. Accompanying blog posts describe the real-life inspirations behind each webisode. There are also many columns: an advice column authored by "an Ex-Bitter"; "Associate Abuse," which posts associate war stories from all over; "Bitter by Numbers," an opinion column appearing in list form; "Loose Ends," which covers legal news; "Bitter Rant," which posts lawyer rants from all over; "Pictures Framed," which posts images or illustrations of lawyers and invites readers to submit captions; and "Temper(a)mental," written from the point of view of a legal temp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet censorship in South Korea</span> Overview of Internet censorship in South Korea

Internet censorship in South Korea is prevalent, and contains some unique elements such as the blocking of pro-North Korea websites, and to a lesser extent, Japanese websites, which led to it being categorized as "pervasive" in the conflict/security area by OpenNet Initiative. South Korea is also one of the few developed countries where pornography is largely illegal, with the exception of social media websites which are a common source of legal pornography in the country. Any and all material deemed "harmful" or subversive by the state is censored. The country also has a "cyber defamation law", which allow the police to crack down on comments deemed "hateful" without any reports from victims, with citizens being sentenced for such offenses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Goldman</span> American law professor

Eric Goldman is a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. He also co-directs the law school's High Tech Law Institute and co-supervises the law school's Privacy Law Certificate.

Prenda Law, also known as Steele | Hansmeier PLLP and Anti-Piracy Law Group, was a Chicago-based law firm that ostensibly operated by undertaking litigation against copyright infringement. However, it was later characterized by the United States District Court for Central California in a May 2013 ruling as a "porno-trolling collective" whose business model "relie[d] on deception", and which resembled most closely a conspiracy and racketeering enterprise, referring in the judgment to RICO, the U.S. Federal anti-racketeering law. The firm ostensibly dissolved itself in July 2013 shortly after the adverse ruling although onlookers described Alpha Law Firm LLC as its apparent replacement. In 2014, the ABA Journal described the "Prenda Law saga" as having entered "legal folklore".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Tushnet</span> American law professor

Rebecca Tushnet is an American legal scholar. She serves as the Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law at Harvard Law School. Her scholarship focuses on copyright, trademark, First Amendment, and false advertising.

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.

References

  1. 1 2 Wofford, Taylor (December 23, 2014). "Interview with the Authors of the Fake North Korean Twitter Account that Fooled Newsweek". Newsweek. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Stop Demanding Dumb Answers To Hard Questions".
  3. ↑ "Posts by author Ken White". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  4. ↑ SHG (November 11, 2015). "Cross: Ken White, The Man Beneath The Popehat". Simple Justice. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
  5. ↑ "The Kimberlin Saga". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Is Anybody Down?". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Prenda Law". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  8. ↑ "Anatomy of a Scam". Popehat. September 26, 2011. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Anti-SLAPP". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  10. ↑ "The Popehat Signal". Popehat. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Last word for now". Pharyngula. August 13, 2013.
  12. ↑ "The 5th Annual Blawg 100". ABA Journal. December 1, 2011. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The 6th Annual Blawg 100". ABA Journal. December 1, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  14. ↑ "The 7th Annual Blawg 100". ABA Journal. December 1, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  15. ↑ "The 2014 ABA Journal Blawg 100". ABA Journal. December 19, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  16. ↑ "The 2015 ABA Journal Blawg 100 Hall of Fame". ABA Journal. December 1, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Why I Blog Anonymously, And Why It's OK: Ed Whelan of NRO Outs Blogger Publius of Obsidian Wings". Popehat. June 8, 2009. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  18. ↑ O'Keefe, Kevin (December 30, 2011). "Popehat unmasked : For a good cause". Kevin.lexblog.com. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  19. ↑ "How is the lawyer known as 'Popehat' on Twitter keeping busy during the pandemic?". www.americanbar.org. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
  20. ↑ Adam
  21. ↑ White, Ken (June 8, 2017). "Op-Ed: Actually, hate speech is protected speech". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  22. ↑ White, Ken (March 9, 2019). "6 Reasons Paul Manafort Got Off So Lightly". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  23. ↑ White, Ken (August 13, 2019). "Thirty-Two Short Stories About Death in Prison". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  24. ↑ Now Posting At Substack
  25. ↑ Horton, Alex (June 3, 2021). "Rep. Dan Crenshaw's search for 'woke military' complaints draws ridicule — and war movie quotes". The Washington Post . Retrieved August 5, 2022.
  26. ↑ Goodbye, Twitter
  27. ↑ "North Korea's News Service Barely Needs to be Spoofed but This Duo Nails It". The Washington Post . Retrieved April 21, 2016.
  28. ↑ "DPRK News Service". Twitter . Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  29. ↑ Newman, Lily Hay (December 22, 2014). "North Korea's Internet Is Down, and It's Probably Not a Coincidence". Slate.com . Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  30. ↑ Avni, Benny (December 22, 2014). "U.N. Security Council to Debate North Korea Human Rights". Newsweek . Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  31. ↑ Payne, Ed; Acosta, Jim; Liptak, Kevin (January 4, 2015). "North Korea pushes back against U.S. sanctions for Sony hack". CNN . Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  32. ↑ "Popehat overview of hoax picked up by mainstream media". Popehat.com. December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  33. ↑ Pick, Rachel. "Why Do Media Outlets Still Fall Victim to Twitter Parody". motherboard.vice.com. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  34. ↑ Taylor, Adam. "No, North Korea Did Not Offer Support for Noted Scholar Donald Trump". WashingtonPost.com. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.