• AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I wonder what has to go through a persons head when they threaten to fight amnesty international?

    I mean I don’t believe AI is impartial when it comes to geopolitics and providing cover for war and invasions and conflicts, but they are still mostly on mission.

    • 𝙈𝙞𝙖@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      Probably I have billions and a single minded goal to ruin the rights of trans people and make their lives miserable.

  • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Back when she was something, Rowling’s attention to human rights inspired me to do better, and even to try and start a career working with human rights NGOs.

    It’s insane to me how she’s come right around and is now attacking what she once stood for, and using the might of her wealth to do it (something she also used to despise).

    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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      2 days ago

      Voldemort got the giants on his side (other than Grawp) by promising them equal rights. The Ministry of Magic is very oppressive towards magical creatures, and this is intended by the author. Dumbledore points it out after he and voldemort wreck the wizard supremacist statue. So Voldemort is (dishonestly) promising equality to the giants to get them to revolt. The giants want equal rights.

      So at the end of the last book, Harry kills Voldemort. And the giants lose their rebellion and go back to being excluded from society and denied the right to wands. And the final line before the epilogue is “all was well”.

      Rowling is savvy enough to identify problems in society, but she cannot write stories about solving problems in society, because she doesn’t know how. She doesn’t understand human rights. She never stood for improving rights.

      • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        She was working for Amnesty international when she came up with the book idea.

        And the books are filled with examples of the need for human rights. She had clearly spent a lot of time on the topic, and cared enough to make them a core part of the books.

        Sirius’s lack of a trial, the forbidden curses (torture, slavery, death). Rita Skeeter and Dolores Umbridge taught me about media propaganda and the creep and pomposity of authoritarianism.

        Yeah she wasn’t great at follow through but in the early days, the hope was there.

        Also, they’re kids’ books. They’re supoosed to introduce concepts to the reader, not analyse or prosthetylise over them.

        • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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          The Owl House is a kids show, yet Luz Noceda manages to completely reform the demon realm’s education system and government. It is possible for heroes to actually improve the world they inhabit to a better standard than when they found it. Harry just didn’t do that.

  • Alfredolin@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    What a fucking waste.

    Never wanted to look into it, now I had to scroll her Twitter to see that response of her is genuine, now I am mentally unstable.

    Disclaimer: it might be the Twitter experience all in all, I usually do not set foot in that realm.

    Thanks JK Rowling.

    OF COURSE all the press support she gets is from the Telegraph, aka the Daily Telegraph, paper owned by Axel Springer Konzern, which gives its best award to Peter fucking Thiel.

  • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Wow, the PDF was scrubbed thoroughly from the net. archive.is doesn’t have it (just a screenshot of the first page), archive.org has removed it …

    Has anyone managed to find the original PDF elsewhere?

    the document was named

    “Report_-_A_growing_threat__the_anti-rights_movement_in_the_UK_July_2026.pdf”


    EDIT: Found a copy elsewhere. https://wingsoverscotland.com/Report_-_A_growing_threat__the_anti-rights_movement_in_the_UK_July_2026.pdf

    I haven’t read it yet and thus have no opinions on it. But I object to Orwellian memory-holing, so f*ck censorship.

  • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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    What i dont get is how can she be as rich as she is, with as much inherent admiration, adoration and respect that comes with how she got that rich, and this is how she chooses to spend life?

    Fucks sake you could live in Disneyland microdosing LSD while everyone who sees you is absolutely thrilled just to be near you.

    With such options she selected hatred.

    Why bother?

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      I think for a lot of people once their needs are met, they’re free to find out what an asshole they really can be.

      People working through life often don’t have time for frivolities like boosting a worldwide hate club that tries to take away human rights.

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      We can’t know for sure, and I won’t definitively say it or use male pronouns for her. But a lot of her past comments hint that she may actually be a repping trans guy. Hell, some of the broader themes of Harry Potter are trans-coded. It would explain a lot. This seems very personal to her.

      And at this point, if she really is a repping trans guy, could she even come out and transition? If she did, it would be a very lonely experience. It’s not like she would be welcome in the trans community. You can’t do that much harm to a group, even while secretly a member of that group, and expect to be accepted by them. And she would in turn lose all her connections among the TERF crowd.

      • EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        It’s not the first time I’ve heard that idea. I recall a comment once in which it was claimed that JKR said that if she were a teenager in the present time, she would probably have transitioned. Unfortunately I could not find any source for that claim, but given just how insane she’s been on the matter, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there. Same for Linehan, honestly.

        Personally I would forgive her, IF that turned out to be true, AND she made a public apology for everything awful she ever said, AND threw her financial weight behind actually fighting for trans rights, AND opened a school or something specifically for disadvantaged trans kids, and kept doing such things to the point that it actually made a positive impact, then I would say she had redeemed herself.

        But I’m not holding my breath for even one picosecond, thinking that it would actually happen.

          • EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            20 hours ago

            That’s fair, I mean there’s so many awful things she’d have to make up for before I even started to feel any sort of forgiveness.

        • LwL@lemmy.world
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          What I remember is an interview where she said “I should have been born a boy” or something to that extent.

          It is all too easy to see how you can fall into the TERF mindset as a transmasc in denial because it probably makes about as little sense to her why anyone would want to be a woman as it makes to me why anyone would want to be a man, therefore anyone who wants to transition to a woman must have ulterior motives. But it really shouldn’t be a high ask to have a modicum of empathy to realize other people just feel different lol

          • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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            2 days ago

            Okay so I’ve read a LOT of analysis of that line, and done a fair amount Myself. There are two camps on it: One group says Robert is a repressed trans guy. The other group says Joanne is pretending to lean trans, in order to present herself as an insider and speak from a position of both authority and sympathy, so she can lie to people better.

            Personally, I only found out about that interview during the research phase of a blog article I had already decided to write, about how Robert really hates women and views womanhood negatively, so maybe he’s trans. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/does-jk-rowling-want-to-be-a-man-568cb1aa4ca5

  • vanillama@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    Amnesty international has been shit for a while, they have some Ws but they always help manufacture consent for war and then say “oopsie, didn’t know it wasn’t true that comically evil fabrication wasn’t true”

  • Ech@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    A tangible example of where the money people spend on harry potter goes.

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        Which is weird because there are much better books to read. There are even books that don’t start to completely fall apart when you think about them for more than five minutes. There’s yet more books where they’ve done a basic amount of research of how names work in different cultures so that they don’t make mistakes like “Victor Krum, the Bulgarian”.

        • forkDestroyer@infosec.pub
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          I think the issue is that a lot of the fan base got into it before the mold got to Rowling. It’s hard to pull away, and easy to look past the issues like that Victor Krum sentence, or having the Irish kid be the one always blowing up, or (insert other item that can reasonably be viewed as a stereotype when you remove your rose colored glasses).

          Especially if you were part of the midnight releases for the books or movies (do they even do those anymore?).

          Most especially when viewed in the light that most people are detached from this discourse entirely. Old fans likely view the series through their eyes when they were younger.

          That being said, I think it’s morally important to not put money into it. If you hold it close to your heart already: there’s no need to buy more HP merch. If you don’t already own the books: use a library or borrow from a friend if you feel the urge to read it. If you don’t like it or want to give people alternatives in the genre: advertise alternatives without mentioning HP at all.

          I’m not rationalizing this as acceptable. I’m just taking time to talk about the mindset. It’s similar to the mindset that people have when it comes to other social issues related to our purchase habits, and I think that’s the reason why it’s important to understand.

          • Deyis@beehaw.org
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            15 hours ago

            I unfortunately can’t understand this viewpoint of it. There’s a myriad of other things which people enjoyed as children which they grow out of naturally, lose interest in, dive into something better, or abandon when it comes apparent that people involved were awful. It’s not difficult to pull away from it unless, perhaps, you made it your entire personality which is indicative of much more serious issues.

            • forkDestroyer@infosec.pub
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              15 hours ago

              To understand the viewpoint: think of the products you feel like you justifiably have to buy that support evil corporations that also donate to political orgs that go against rights. A $20 book (or <$70 box set) costs less than the amount of money most people put towards buying Coca-Cola products. And this can be difficult to change when you’re used to certain products, especially if you don’t know about the trouble from their corporations/parent corps/etc.

              The banality of evil, yo. Our society has structural problems and people can’t pay attention to all of it.

  • KaChilde@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    What a bunch of cowards.

    They talk about human rights and post evidently empty shit like “We exist so that a world where everyone can live freely, fairly and with dignity is possible”, but fold like a wet napkin when Rowling threatens legal action.

    Good to know that we can’t rely on AMNESTY to protect basic human rights anymore.

    Fucking hell, we are absolutely fucked, aren’t we?

    • WanderingThoughts@europe.pub
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      When Amnesty reported on Ukraine but stayed silent over what Russia was doing in the special military operation, they already lost a lot of credibility.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    She’s using all of that Harry Potter money to create a brave new world. She’s not so different from the rest of the stinking, filthy rich. She was once poor and she should be championing the poor, not stepping on fellow humans.

    • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      I still have some contacts in Amnesty from when I went through sone interview rounds for a position I didn’t end up taking. They all seemed pretty friendly and direct, and like they’d be strongly opposed to this. Kinda tempted to mail them to see whether they have anything to say.

    • hobwell@sh.itjust.works
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      I understand being upset with AMNESTY, but having people pull support is exactly what JK Rowling’s goal is. This call to action is a house dividing against itself.

      • kevinsbacon@lemmy.today
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        No JKs goal was to get Amnesty to pull support for trans people, which she succeeded at.

        Now it’s our turn to use our voices and throw our weight at Amnesty to do the right thing.

        If Amnesty is incapable or unwilling to care, it must fall.

        • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          If a wall has a hole in it, you patch the hole, or build a new wall. Tearing it down before building a new wall would demonstrate a level of recklessness bordering on suicidality.

        • Mika@piefed.ca
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          3 days ago

          Amnesty do the right thing

          Sorry this made me laugh in Ukrainian

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          4 days ago

          it must fall

          That seems very radical. Why entirely abolish an organization that generally fights for the greater good, just because it failed once or a few times? What is going to take its place?

          • AmyAye@nord.pub
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            Because next time it will be gay people.

            Next time it will be Muslims.

            Next time it will be Black People.

            Next time it will be Women.

            Because Fascism does not stop and must not be tolorated.

            • Logi@lemmy.world
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              You could also say that Amnesty is doing something, and if you tear it down, then nothing will be done.

                • Awooooooga@lemmy.world
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                  You don’t have the ability to build anything that does anything nearly as useful as amnesty international does for humanity.

            • LemmyPlaceDN@europe.pub
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              Have I ever implied that nothing should be done? Of course we need to fight for change. I simply doubt that axing the entire organization is a good solution. That would be like fighting your potential ally.

              • Blibly@lemmy.world
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                We’re not axing them, we don’t have that power it’s just rhetoric. We’re pressuring them. They need to know that the general public will NOT stand for billionaire bigots sticking their ugly noses in our affairs. That’s the position we’re in now because THEY caved.

      • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Most of the people who enabled the Holocaust did so by convincing themselves what they were doing was for the greater good.

        The ordinary German police officers who did most of the actual grunt work of rounding people up? Those who didn’t actively support it probably told themselves, “I’m just enforcing the law. I may not agree with it, but I can’t judge the law. And if I don’t follow orders, I’ll lose my job. Then I won’t be able to do any good at all in the community, including arresting actual thieves and killers.”

        The university professor that handed a list of Jewish students to the Gestapo? “I don’t support this. I have nothing against Jewish people. But if I don’t do this, I’ll lose my job, and then I won’t be able to help any students at all.”

        Sure, the worst crimes of the Holocaust were carried out by true monsters that fully supported it. But the vast majority of the actual work was carried out by people “just following orders.” And I’m sure they told themselves all sorts of stories about how they were picking the least evil or destructive path.

        There’s a reason in On Tyranny, the first rule is Don’t Comply in Advance. Authoritarians can accomplish some of their goals through direct state power, but most of their authority is just given to them by cowards not wanting a fight. Look at Trump’s attempts targeting the healthcare of minors. He issued a completely illegal executive order trying to ban minors from receiving trans healthcare. He has absolutely no authority to do so. Those hospitals that have fought back have won easily in court. But a lot of hospital administrators, even those in blue states, are craven cowards. We saw a lot of hospitals in blue states complying with this illegal order rather than put up a fight.

        What Amnesty should have done is use this as a fundraising opportunity. Do you have any idea what kind of funding and publicity they could have achieved if they had stood up to the witch? Sure she’s a billionaire, but Amnesty is not some small operation on a ragtag budget. They have 2500 employees and a budget in the hundreds of millions. They have the money to hire lawyers. And they could easily have used the fight as a massive fundraising opportunity. The ads write themselves. “We stand for the rights of even the most vilified people!”

        Instead they chose the path of cowardice. They’ve damned themselves.

        • hobwell@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Thank you for putting it in perspective like this. I agree, this should have been an opportunity. My take was not well considered, my apologies.

      • EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Why support an organisation that won’t support us? That’s just pointless. They’ve made their position clear: They don’t care about us enough to stand by us.

        What they should have done is take up the fight and start a fundraiser if needed. Instead they decided to be useless cowards and run away.

        The idea is to put pressure on them in hopes they’ll do the right thing, and if not (as is most likely), then put your support towards someone who will, instead.

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          It’s as mercenary as deciding they didn’t want to spend the financial and political capital on a war against child-wizard-nazi-Karen given the way the shit winds are blowing, Randy

        • Logi@lemmy.world
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          No, they caved to legal threats. That’s an entirely different thing to agreeing with these anti-rights people. Their opinion is in the documents that got pulled but they’re not strong or brave enough to stand by them.

          Or they may really be reviewing them to republish when they’re sure they can legally defend every statement in there.

            • Logi@lemmy.world
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              Not having the guts to follow through when attempting to fight for a cause is not collaborating against that cause. Sheesh.

              E: What you are teaching Amnesty, and anyone else watching, is that it is better not to try to fight for human rights. Because if you ever have to take a step back, you will be dragged through the mud.

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        3 days ago

        They already divided the house by betraying the people they are supposed to speak for in an effort to appease bigots.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.caBanned from community
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      Dude. They are a great organization. This isn’t their fault. Don’t be a fuck.

      • Blibly@lemmy.world
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        They were great. This is their fault. Refusing to stand up to bigots is tacit approval of their disgusting behavior

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        If that’s how you feel, let them know that in the first paragraph, and in the second explain why they should have stood up to her and her anti-trans-rights tyranny. Don’t let them throw trans people under her bus and think people won’t care. Let them know how disappointed you are that such a great organization, which produced such a truthful call to justice, would fold rather than defend its truth in court just because the hate has deep pockets. Remind them that there’s plenty of evidence showing the list is correct and if they counter-sue they could reach into those deep pockets and win enough to fund years more of their good work in the world.

      • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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        It’s worse than before now, because they apologised to a genocidal bigot. The BBC is reporting the TERF side of the story with no opposition.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          Jk Rowling’s? The UK government that places the burden of proof in libel cases on the defendent to prove that their statement is true in a court of law, while the plaintiff just has to show their reputation was damaged?

          I’m not at all a fan of them removing the report, but it’s not exactly a mystery who else you could blame for the situation.

          • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            If only Amnesty were a massive organization with a budget in the hundreds of millions, and an opportunity to use this fight as a massive PR coup and fundraising opportunity.

            No. I place the blame on Amnesty. They’re just doing the Nazi “I’m just following orders” line.

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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              Retracting a report that they didn’t think they could legally defend in court is a long way from justifying comparisons to Nazis.

              Personally I would have rathered that they removed the report and released the information from the perspective of the US chapter with mildly revamped wording, but I get the course of action.
              I’m not convinced it would be a pr coup or net financial win for them to publicly be unable to prove that “gender critical” organizations are defacto anti-rights in general, or that Rowling’s sexual violence charity that was mentioned in specific was.
              When the argument is that they over generalized and named organizations as guilty by association without justification, they wouldn’t be arguing trans rights or equality but specific public policy stances.
              Appearing to argue that a rape support center is in violation of human rights by catering to cis women isn’t going to be the pr coup.
              It doesn’t matter that they’re clearly anti trans and founded because the alternative didn’t exclude trans women and had a trans director: amnesty would need to show they were an an anti rights organization.

              I’m not saying that I like that they took down the report or apologized. Nor am I saying that any of the groups are accepting or good.
              I’m just saying that Rowling and the stupid uk libel laws are better targets for ire.

              • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 days ago

                No, the comparison to Nazis is perfectly appropriate. If you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t pick up where they left off. If you do the work of the Nazis, you are a Nazi.

                You ever seen this photo before? It’s often included with little context in school history books. It was one of the first major Nazi book burnings.

                What history books often leave out is that this book burning was the torching of the archives of the Berlin Institute for Sexual Science. This was an early queer and transgender support and research center. They provided some of the first trans hormone and surgical treatments. The institute’s founder, Magnus Hirschfeld was an early pioneer of trans studies and even coined the term “transsexual.”

                In 1933 the Nazis raided the institute and burned its archives. Magnus had to flee for his life to France. Many of those involved in the institute fled the country as well. And countless trans people in Germany ended up rounded up and dying in Nazi concentration camps.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_transgender_people_in_Nazi_Germany

                This purge actually predicated much of the advancements in trans healthcare in the US. Just like how many German physicists fled to the US, many of the early pioneers in trans science ended up in the US and helped start programs here.

                This has actually been adjudicated in court:

                In 2022, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that denying that transgender people were victims of the Nazis qualifies as “a denial of Nazi crimes”.[127][128] The ruling was an outcome of the civil libel suit of German biologist Marie-Luise Vollbrecht, who alleged libel against the German Society for Trans Identity and Intersexuality over their response to comments she made calling transgender people not “true victims” of Nazi crimes.[129][130][131] The court ultimately ruled that she had to accept the response made to her comments labelling her as a denialist.

                If you don’t want to be compared to the Nazis, don’t do Nazi shit.

                And yes, the comparison with Amnesty is perfectly valid. Amnesty aren’t themselves involved in the persecution of trans people, but they’re looking the other way, just as countless regular Germans did.

                • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                  The disagreement about a comparison to Nazis isn’t about what the Nazis did, or that doing what they did would justify comparison, it’s that I fundamentally disagree that taking down an allegedly libelous document is the same as mass murder.

                  I’m familiar with the horrors of the Nazis, you don’t need to rehash.

                  I’m not sure how a German court case about denying Nazi crimes has bearing on a theoretical UK court case about if an organization has a specific policy position.

                  You earlier mentioned that the case could be a PR and fundraising opportunity.
                  Have you considered if you would want them to fight it if they thought it would do the opposite? What if they just spent a bunch of money giving the assholes a platform to spew hate?

          • NightFantom@slrpnk.net
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            So Amnesty’s reputation was damaged by rowling’s forcing the retraction, does that work for a revenge libel case?

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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              I think they’d need to argue she said something about them, not just an action or statement.

              Be funny for someone to sue over defamation for being accused of defamation though.