Our class action against Autism $peaks

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Who's in? I am! We can brainstorm in here, and also write what we plan to put in the papers submitted to the court.

The 4th page in the thread I linked you to above has some ideas.

These people need to be put in their place!

So for ways in which A$ harmed us, for example, we can put:

They...

1) make employers scared of hiring us,
2) give us low self-esteem by making us believe we were a disease,
3) encourage parents to murder their autistic children, which happens a lot, and encourages courts to give light or no sentences to those parents,
4) encourage abusive and/or harmful autism "treatments" and even endorse them, like they did for the electric skin shocks at the Judge Rotenberg Center (where they shock kids for nagging, swearing and stimming)
5) encourage others to see us as a disease and pick on/ostracize us,
6) steal money from people under the pretext that autism is a disease that needs to be cured and that money must be donated for a cure,
7) encourage abortion of autistic fetuses by asking for money to fund research to develop a prenatal test,
using research for a genetic test to discourage people from having children at all if their child might be autistic,

more.

Technically speaking, we could probably get them for defamation against/of a group or citizenry, based on the amount of lies that have been proliferated by A$. Their followers are the worst about this, so at the very least there is the basis for a case. The only problem is, without direct victims, it'll be hard to do much of anything.

WE are the victims. All of us can testify how Autism Speaks has hurt us and our reputations.

As a group, yes, but the courts rarely consider a lawsuit based on the defamation of a group, that's my point. Without individual cases, there's little that can be done. There is so much deniability in favor of A$ that it's going to be nearly impossible to connect them with any individual defamation suit. The only thing they have to do is deny any responsibility and/or connection and/or intent that led to any actual harm to said individual, or even group, and regardless of how we see their messages to the world, there's an obvious lack of the same perspective with most other people, given how many support the organization. Without concrete evidence to support that their messages are leading to real, tangible damage, that has harmed us and is continuing to do so, it will be just their word against ours.
Yes, they and their followers continue to harm our image, but that is unfortunately not an actionable instance because they're speaking with completely acceptable terminology, and they're letting everyone else draw their own ideas from that. And since, as far as I can tell, they haven't outright lied about Autism itself, we can't get them for slander either. Yes, they've exaggerated, and played on fear using catch words like "epidemic" and "disease", among others, but that's also, unfortunately, acceptable under legal constraints.
Should they be taken down? Absolutely, but I highly doubt it will be through a lawsuit. You can go ahead and try, I of course won't stop you from doing so, I just won't be holding my breath because they've got millions of dollars to work with, and with those millions come some of the best lawyers who will twist everything to make them seem like the ones in the right, and there can be no justice won against that.
The only option to take down A$ is to take away their support, and since people are ignorant and don't listen to us, that'll take years, if ever.

This won't work. Even bigots have freedom of speech.

Exactly.

Unfortunately a thoughtful and accurate analysis of the current situation.

Should we keep on posting the "I am Autism Video" to demonstrate who I believe they really are? They took it down after a week, but it's messages remain online because of mostly neurodiverse advocates that keep on posting it.

What we have to do is somehow find out where the money is really going not where there PR says it's going, especially the research and that will have to come from online/alternative media.

To clear up a few things:


Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right, even in the USA.

Large class actions in the USA have succeeded and brought about enormous change.

Hate speech does not have total protection even in the USA

Please read the other thread as it provides information and links to these issues

Anyone can also take action as an individual instead of joining the class action - the option remains.

Class actions have even forced Big Pharma to stop some of its worst abuses.

Legally speaking the video has been "published" so it is evidence.

I won't be posting maybe for a while as I have just come back from being in hospital 2 days and am not well yet. PM if you wish as I won't be checking in to the forums and may stop posting all together to lower my stress levels.

1. For a blatant violation against a people or group, absolutely, but the unfortunate reality is, regardless of how we see the situation, A$ can deny any wrong-doing because they haven't directly caused anything that can legally be construed as harmful, and the very fact that they took down the "I am Autism" video after only a week, leads in their favor, regardless of it's message, because all they have to do is claim a huge PR mistake which they "fixed" after hearing how it was received. The fact that the information is still out there for people to see is irrelevant, legally speaking, because it's not A$ who is reposting the video. Deniability.

2. Do you know how hard it is to convince a judge that what's being sent out, especially in our case, is actually hate speech? There are only a handful of cases where that's ever been successful and legally speaking, the messages sent out by A$ are not even close to the criteria used to legally define the term in a court of law. It sucks, yeah, but that's what we're up against. A$ has been very careful to stay within the confines of the law, in terms of what they say, how they say it, what gets out, how it gets out, and to whom it gets out to. Like I said before (though not in as directly), the majority of actual damage comes from A$'s followers, and all they have to do is deny responsibility for their followers' misguided ideas surrounding how to interact with those on the spectrum.
If it were that easy to take A$ down, they'd already be defunct because of the fact that they stand behind parents who murdered their Autistic kid(s), and even had someone talk about doing so, within their organization. And yet, they still breathe their vile breath upon the world, despite both being an actionable situation.

I think ASPartOfMe is correct, we need to follow the money, because I guarantee you, an organization like that, has spent money on something or someone, somewhere that was dishonest or in some way tipped the scales in their favor, in terms of public relations. If people knew about even their current supposed expense report, they might think twice before donating because of how little (<5% of their millions) amount of that money goes to real services that help people on the spectrum here and now. And given that fact, we can also prove that they ignore the vast majority of those on the spectrum who need help, in favor of their paychecks, nonsensical "research" into finding a "cure", and marketing campaigns, all of which have ~3-5 times the expense than what they're currently allowing for services that help.
Cut off their support, and you cut off their funding, which means they have no money for business. But it's an uphill battle, one that we've been losing for at least a few years.

What could you do to follow the money? Certainly all information released on money will be heavily edited and looked at.

You need someone with good research skills, an understanding of how organizations hide and lie about money, who won't be intimidated by threats and action, and a sense of justice.

Public organizations and companies are governed by law to provide access to certain of their financial records. Any financial auditor or accountant can study them if he or she wishes to take the time and effort to do it. Whether this organization is public, I don't know.

I am an entrepreneur with ASD and someday want to take down Autism Speaks. Lawsuits defanielty aren't the way to do it. I want to start a large business to compete against Autism Speaks and prob get sued a bunch of times for it. I wouldnt f*****g give a s**t if I got threatened or intimidated by that bastard organization that promotes profit in torturing those with ASD. If they sue me, I'll just learn enough law to protect myself and testify in court and organize efforts against them to not constitute as libel (info against them backed up by facts and data). Many people with ASD are locked up in legit state institutions TODAY I have met someone HIGH FUNTIONING in a mental hospital being sent there in 2014. I have not ever been to JRC but been to many like it. Autism Speaks makes up lies. The deinstitutionalzation of ASD is BS. I definitely make up a person one poster put about who is needed to fight Autism Speaks:
---doesn't care about being ridiculed, intimidated, or threatened
---has the means to protect myself in court (law comes very naturally to me)

Molly, your wrong.

I run a legit 501(c)3 nonprofit with 10yrs business experience when saying this.

Many "nonprofits" are also for profit. This is 100% legal for them to do. As for profit records are private, the nonprofit ones are inadequate to do a complete audit/investigation on a business.

I'm curious, abtsalow; are you a shill for Autism Speaks trying to intimidate us into doing nothing? False advertising is illegal; calling something nonprofit when it's for profit should and probably can be prosecuted.

I am a person with ASD and an entrepreneur who runs a legit nonprofit. Look me up (Avi Satlow). I am all for people with ASD having their voices heard and shutting down Autism Speaks which is why I wrote what I said. CharityGoodyGrace, I just reported you for a personal attack on me making two false claims about myself without any actual evidence (calling me a shill for Autism Speaks and trying to intimidate you to do nothing). Just because I talk and think like a CEO actually means I actually support what Autism Speaks does. I am also interested in destroying Autism Speaks but do not think the very emotional autistic community on Wrongplanet is going about it the right way. I am speaking up against the autistic community as a result.