ACLU rebukes Taylor Swift’s lawyers on threatening a blog writer with lawsuit over defamatory post

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Taylor Swift

The American Civil Liberties Union has rebuked pop star Taylor Swift on her threat to a blog writer who compared Swift to a supporter of the white supremacists and being their pop icon.

Writer Meghan Herning had reportedly published an article titled, “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation” that was highly critical of Swift who wrote that “it befits the movement to have a white, blonde, conservative pop star that has no doubt been ‘bullied’ by people of colour in the media, singing their feelings out loud.”

Herning further added, “While pop musicians are not respected world leaders, they have a huge audience and their music often reflects their values. So Taylor’s silence is not innocent, it is calculated and if that is not true, she needs to state her beliefs out loud for the world — no matter what fan base she might lose, because in America 2017, silence in the face of injustice means support for the oppressor.”

The blog writer further compared Swift’s addressing of drones in her song video to Adolf Hitler’s speeches where she finds the similarities “uncanny and unsettling.”

Not so surprisingly, this article has landed Herning in the bad books of Swift and her advocates who think that the article is nothing other than 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.”

They have further warned Herning of litigation unless she retracts the post on Swift.

However, Swift’s advocates have themselves arrived in unchartered waters as ACLU have come out in favor of Herning’s post claiming that “Ms. Herning and PopFront (her blog) will not in any way accede to your attempt to suppress their constitutionally protected speech.”

The civil body has further said in agreement to Herning’s article, “the blog post is a mix of core political speech and critical commentary; it discusses current politics in this country, the recent rise of white supremacy, and the fact that some white supremacists have apparently embraced Ms. Swift, along with a critical interpretation of some of Ms. Swift’s music, lyrics, and videos.”

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