Matt Walsh is a polarizing figure. He’s praised by the far-right for his documentary “What Is A Woman?” (for which he recruited people to participate deceptively), but reviled by pretty much everyone else for his abusive conduct. He’s long spouted rhetoric that is downright racist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise abusive. Recently, he’s been accused of being a perpetrator of “stochastic terrorism” and his latest victim is a Children’s Hospital. Oh gods.
the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted
stochastic terrorism, dictionary.com
By definition, Mr. Walsh didn’t just commit a single act of stochastic terrorism against Boston Children’s, instead, his entire online and offline presence seems dedicated to the practice. The following acts of Walsh could potentially qualify as stochastic terrorism, and I would argue, do qualify:
- organized harassment campaign against Eli Erlick
- harassment campaign against Boston Children’s
- harassment against a queer harvard law instructor (bonus: direct threat)
- harassment and intimidation against various journalists
- harassment against publications which critique his behavior (older tweet of the same)
Matt Walsh has violated the Twitter Rules on many occasions, specifically the rules against: Violence, Abuse/Harassment, and Hateful Conduct. It is surprising to me that he continues to be able to utilize Twitter as a platform, despite the fact it has suspended people in the past for very similar if not identical violations of its rules. Matt Walsh is indeed a stochastic terrorist, regardless if he likes the term or not.
I have started a petition calling for the removal of Matt Walsh from Twitter on these grounds.