Just got threatened with a lawsuit by supporter of A$

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The age of that video seems irrelevant as a legal issue, because age doesn't minimise harm - quite the opposite - the longer it runs the more harm it spreads. However if a statute of limitations applies (I don't know if it does) then the age of the video would be an issue - if you are outside the time limit of the number of years people have to lodge a civil action. Can anyone enlighten me as to whether in the USA an SOL would apply to a civil action for damages?

The first step in a class action would be gathering a selection of legal opinions on how viable an action would be - in terms of law, in terms of precedent judgments, in terms of anything that is pertinent; these can be obtained free of charge by the firms that do this kind of work. Here is a link to a website of just one of these firms (as an example) so you can see what services and information they typically offer:

http://www.schneiderwallace.com/expertise_ada.php

If a class action was viable then it would be optimal for a coalition to be formed linking all the groups that share the same viewpoints on AS propaganda, and as for WP, I don't know how Alex would feel about WP itself being nominally involved or not - his view is that primarily WP is a support site, and it is his site. So maybe WP members who wanted to be part of a class action would have to join other groups (I don't know, it's just one of the issues that theoretically would have to be negotiated). We can already broadly define the "class" of people who have suffered harm - ie people on the spectrum - and membership of that spectrum would entitle any individual (not just members of support groups) to join the class action if they chose. The members who are self-diagnosed would probably have to get some written material demonstrating their status on the spectrum from credible sources.

I do see and agree with your point CGG that to take an action like this, it has to be done as a "disability rights" case (there seems no other way legally open) and there are many of us who don't accept disability identity. I don't describe my self as "disabled", though there are specific areas in which I am hampered compared to NTs.

Still, I would join an action for disability rights, because the harm the potential defendant is doing is harming me and members of my family by depicting all people on the spectrum as psychopathic. The more people who join the class action, the stronger its political impact will/would be. But first things first, you would have to find out if an action is legally viable in the circumstances that apply.

PS Remember that the USA has signed (but not ratified) UN Conventions that describe relevant rights and principles. Presumably they were signed because the USA had read and accepted those principles were true and fair. The case would have to be filed in the USA because the harm originated in the USA (assuming the video was made there and shown there).

Theoretically if it became an international class action, it could become huge, and the more people who joined it, the more damages the lawyers acting for the plaintiffs would seek.

I meant to add that a relevant factor may be the intention that Autism Speaks has in the claims it makes. Intention is always important in law. Over in the general forum there is a thread started by ASS-P about the percentage of ASD people who are (said to be) employed. People who have joined the thread are now discussing that no evidence or research seems to exist that demonstrates the 85-87% figure. Several of us have done searches and can't find anything at all that shows that.

Bob Wright has claimed that this figure is about 85% (there is no credible research to support the claim, it appears to be made up) and that ASD people are a big drain on resources as they each cost 3.2 million to others in their lifetimes. There is no good evidence for either of these claims - none for the 85% claim at all, and one spurious study AS funded which came up with the absurd $3.2 million claim.

Propaganda which makes false claims is a distinct form of harm - I believe it is Bob Wright's intention to cause harm - the misinformation does specific harm to the target population (us) and is likely to promote stigmatising myths that the general public take as fact (which is another harm). So just in this example, the harm takes a multitude of forms. Primarily though it is "likely to increase prejudice against a protected group" and further disable their attempts to obtain viable employment.

The UK Trades Union Congress also used the 85% figure in their guidance document distributed to UK based businesses last year. I have no idea how they came across this figure, but know that we still use 1:100 as the estimated rate of prevalence.

This is the website and the guide is linked from there halfway down the page.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/equality-issues/ ... -workplace

80% seems about right. The problem is, that the bigots of the discrimination/cure culture camp, will then say that the cause of that egregious number, is due to Autism or Asperger's itself, despite AS people being arguably better at most jobs. When in reality, those numbers are caused by discrimination and prejudice in the workplace, and also that potential employers are terrified to hired AS people because of strange preconceived notions that come from the vile stigmas.

Only now is it starting to sink in that my unemployed status isn't my fault... I'd do better at most jobs too, minus the fact that things have to be done in a way that suits the work environment... I am so glad I read your posts!

I never meant it has to be disability rights... just autism rights. Or maybe minority or culture rights.

The only figure I could find that was researched in a seemingly plausible design put the under or unemployed rate of people with autism in the 60% range, though its big fault was that it did not include people older than YOUNG adults. So even that was sectional, not representative, though it seems to have been quoted as if it applied to everyone (typical). The older members of WP - 30 years up - seem to have a relatively high rate of employment, including self-employment.

However older adults are generally left out of the research....which is a bias of omission; another design fault (arguably) is that everyone on the spectrum is lumped in together as if there were no differences in ability and aptitude. In all human groups there is a range of ability and aptitude, and possibly HFAs have a higher or much higher rate of being employed than other parts of the spectrum. No-one has bothered to research this in any credible way, so far as I could find in my literature searches. Research perspectives are attitudinally influenced by the "met one, met them all" attitude, so findings are generalised in completely invalid ways.

Bob Wright's figure of 87% seems to be completely plucked out of the air. It should not be used by him as if it was established fact. But it is...

I agree with you, B19. We should write a timeline about all the bad things Autism Speaks has done and put it on their Wikipedia page, erasing all other stuff.

So far we have:

1. "I Am Autism" video
2. "Autism Every Day" video
3. unemployment rate lie
4. wanting a genetic test to eliminate us from the gene pool
5. thinking all our thoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions are a disease
6. supporting the Judge Rotenberg Center
7. supporting abusive ABA and punishing kids for stimming
8. making autism seem all bad and no good, and normality seem all good and no bad

...more...

I changed Wikipedia's Autism Speaks page before, to make them seem like the demons they are, and us seem like the regular people we are, but someone changed it back to the "it's an advocacy organization for autistics" crap.

CGG it is people like you who give me hope for the future. There are always possibilities, always. I love your energy and enthusiasm - you make me wish I was young again so that I could be around to see the achievement of new possibilities (and be part of the organised opposition to the manufactured lies).

That's the problem with wiki, people will just keep vandalising the page. Happens to many other wiki pages as well. Perhaps a better strategy is to draw attention to the fact that it's being vandalised on other websites. For example, making a petition on change.org to petition the website owners, to have them ban the people that are vandalising and censoring the wiki, to try and paint A$ in a positive light.

Wikipedia an organization based on modern technology is inherently biased against it. Their guidelines consider mainstream media and government as reliable sources and anything remotely internet be it blogs, forums (unless they are mainstream media created blogs) as unreliable sources. Take this blog on the very subject we are discussing
Is Autism Speaks a Hate Group? by Amy Sequenzia for the Autism Women's Network. The editors will regard it as unreliable personal blog. Their are no Wikipedia articles for Amy Sequenzia or the Autism Women's Network probably because unlike John Elder Robinson they have not gotten mentioned in the mainstream media.

I can understand their weariness because anything can be claimed on the internet. But by refusing to look at more modern methods of communicating they are by design going to miss a lot. They are missing out on the primary means millennial's and younger communicate. That makes them problematic for us.

Besides the system missing out by design Wikipedia has been around long enough that organizations with agendas learn their guidelines and intentionally bias articles.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/c ... lice-plaza. If Autism Speaks is trying to bias the article they are doing a horrible job of it. Half of the article is criticism. That much more then most articles about organizations.

In the long run there may be much more to gain by being proactive rather than reactive (though reactivity has its place).

This is the big picture as I see it, and all can be turned to our political and legal advantage IMO:

1) Autism Speaks thinks it is untouchable - that it can denigrate people on the spectrum and stigmatize their existence with impunity. (This is perhaps our greatest advantage, politically speaking)

2) It exists for two reasons: a "good" ie stated reason (help families etc) and a set of real reasons (more than one, though the main one is to stigmatize autistic people and wipe autism off the map (us)

3) Because of their narcissistic belief that they are in total power and control of "the message" and untouchable, the Wrights have made reckless statements and disseminated and/or funded reckless material.

4) The one area that they cannot recruit and brainwash is the legal system, because legal evidence relies more on facts that can be demonstrated than opinion and bigotry.

5) There is a substantial body of evidence to demonstrate that AS has consistently denigrated autistic people and spread myth and stigma. This can be demonstrated as a consistent theme, not isolated events.

6) There is research evidence which demonstrates the harms done to individuals and groups which are the targets of stigma campaigns and hate speech. You could get 10,000 expert witnesses on that.

7) The video is perhaps the strongest piece of evidence because AS funded it, used it, promoted it at a public event. That the video script represents the features of psychopathy not autism, but its clear intent is to confuse the two in the mind of any viewer, and that the video is still available, that AS has made no public apology for all this time - makes the video a centrepiece of a potential claim against AS for damages. You could get 1000 expert witnesses to attest that autism is not psychopathy.

Autism Speaks is a 'greedy' charity. It gets a bad rap from charity analysts who analyse how funds go. This will also count politically when allied to the context of points 1-7

9) The value of a class action is that there is no limit to the number of qualified plaintiffs (those who have been harmed) and it can be international. The publicity would be huge. Skilled contribution to that publicity would or could undo much of the stigma-myths that AS has planted in a calculated campaign (and still does).

10) The wider context - the United Nations stand on disability rights of protection, previous legal cases which have been successful against hate speech and hate action. (In some cases the speech may be protected, but the actions are not - the good thing is that action could be demonstrated clearly regarding AS).

The above summary is of course "just my opinion" - my perspective on what is possible, if there are a few dedicated, able and visionary people to set things in motion. Only a few need to find a law firm willing to take the case, because the law firm usually handles it from there.

The process is that the firm then publicly advertises to alert potential claimants that a class action is planned, and to outline their opportunity to register as claimants by advising the law firm. This is time limited (say a year). There is no charge to register as a class claimant (usually). Once all plaintiffs to the action are listed, they form "the class". The next steps are that the lawyers will advise each one that two things must be demonstrated: 1) that they are qualified ie on the spectrum; and 2) that they believe they have been harmed, directly or indirectly, outlining the nature of the harm (eg impact of stigma on opportunity, well-being, economic oppression etc etc etc). Forms are sent to each claimant in the class and there is a set time to have them completed and returned (say a year). At some stage in this process, notice of action will be filed in the Court. This is a document which must be served on the defendant/s, so that they have the opportunity to offer a defence.

Defendants may choose to not offer a defence but to settle out of court. Autism Speaks won't do that. It may take quite a while for the case to get a hearing date - so the dedicated and able leaders have to be there for the long haul.

Finally, the case opens and evidence is heard. In a class action, generally, the plaintiffs are not called as witnesses in person; the lawyers present all the claimant evidence - by statement of claim, by calling expert witnesses, referring to actual evidence eg AS publications, statements etc.

Even if the class action failed (I doubt it if it is handled competently) the balance of information in the media would be so great that this in itself would be a victory, and AS would have to modify its hate speech and actions to maintain its public donations and goodwill. So either way the claimants could achieve something huge. As a sequel to the case there could be the start of a Foundation for Autism Truth as an alternative for the media to go to for comment on autism matters. The publicity to launch such a foundation would be free, if it rode on the coat-tails of the action (especially if successful) but worth millions.

If the class action succeeds, the court can determine how much compensation each plaintiff shall receive and may invoke a scale of harms - ie greater harm, greater damages; not all have to receive the same amount (though this could happen). The court can freeze the assets of the defendant and order disclosure of all documents, so that money can't be "laundered" by the defendant.
...

I hope it will happen! In my remaining years! Petitions have their place though personally I don't think they have the potential to set huge change into momentum.

"If a thing is not absolutely impossible, then there must be a way to do it" - Sir Nicholas Winton

Cool, B19! I'll start a thread linking to this one and asking who's in.

I suppose we could also make some anti-A$ Wikipedia pages, but what would they be? We can definitely, though, put anti-A$ stuff on WrongPlanet's page and such though. I had also changed WP's and other pages on Wikipedia, btw, to include their stance on the "hate group Autism Speaks Inc." I don't know if that stuff was erased too. If you guys re-edit it, make sure to include the "Inc." to make the point that needs to be made.

ASPartOfMe: And yeah, I totally HATE it that they are so blissfully unaware that they trust the mainstream media (which is known to lie about just about everything) over other sources.

How many Scientologists are on Autism Speaks' board of directors?

Just wondering ...