As noted by others, I am also regretful to reflect on how much stress this has caused the FLI team.
However, I think it’s important to note I still have some concerns, for 2 reasons:
1) The FAQ linked makes a lot of sense assuming a Texas Sharpshooter setup (i.e. many far-right newspapers apply for grants from FLI, and one makes it through ), but I think this seems much less plausible because of the personal connections FLI board members have to the newspaper.
5) Was nepotism involved? In particular, would FLI’s president’s brother have profited in any way had the grant been awarded?
This is the only section of the FAQ I can see this that addresses this concern. However, the prompted question I read as a (perhaps accidental) straw-man. I have not seen any comments on the associated blog posts, around the concern that the brother would financially benefit. I don’t generally assume that being a far-right journalist/communicator is particularly profitable. My understanding is that far-right communicators exist because of ideological motivations.
2) There seems to be a repeated subtext, that it was initially hard to identify the newspaper as far-right. I reject this proposition in entirety—a cursory glance of the website will immediately inform you they are not aligned with FLI’s goals. I find it much more plausible there was no background check whatsoever in the initial stage, or that said background check was done by someone with a nepotistic bias.
The following statement is what prompted me to leave this comment:
He [The brother who wrote for the newspaper] was shocked by the recent revelations of extremism and plans no further association with the newspaper.
I find it extremely unplausible that the brother, despite contributing significantly to the newspaper, had no-knowledge that he was writing for a far-right newspaper.
I am not sure why FLI would suggest this with high confidence, especially since it has little relevance to the matter at hand.
I can imagine that Per Shapiro is much more conservative (?) than say the AngloAmerican left, and wrote for conservative venues, but did not know specifically about the neo-Nazi stuff from Nya Dagbladet. People of Jewish descent, even very conservative ones, don’t to my knowledge regularly support neo-Nazis. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but this is generally pretty unlikely enough that we should not assume guilty until proven innocent.
Like Elliot, while I think the FLI team has handled the whole thing just fine, I also find it confusing people think the far-right connections of Nya Dagbladet would have been difficult to identify. I didn’t know anything about Nya Dagbladed in advance so I checked it:
”Nya Dagbladet is a Swedish online daily newspaper founded in 2012,[1] which has a historical connection to the National Democrats, a far-right political party in Sweden. It publishes articles promoting conspiracy theories about the Holocaust, COVID-19 vaccines, climate change, mobile phone towers, and others. Other common themes include immigration, GMOs, Israel, the EU,[2] and pro-Kremlin propaganda regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[3][4] Markus Andersson is its editor-in-chief.”
I tried to check what the newspapers’ tone regarding Jews is, and I found this letter from the editor kind of strange. (If my Swedish does not fail me it claims that the Holocaust memory day is “real antisemitism” as many horrors of the Holocaust didn’t actually happen.)
Also, Per Shapiro has written a commentary titled “Den extrema högern” (“Far right”) in 2021 about people’s negative reactions to his previous article, saying that people on social media accused him of writing in an far-right paper, while (according to Shapiro) the biggest Swedish newspaper is actually a lot more far-right (because it’s editor in chief supports American war crimes and Israeli occupation). What I understand from this (again with my limited Swedish and Google Translate) is that Shapiro both strongly rejects far-right but is well aware that many people perceive writing in NyD as far-right associated. So I wonder what the recent revelations of extremism are that shocked him are – maybe something happened that I cannot identify just by looking at the newspapers post history.
Note that the English page was created in January of this year. The stuff on the Swedish page about Nordiska motståndsrörelsen and vaccination scepticisim and pseudoscience was added on September 14, after FLI signed the letter of intent.
Good observation, I didn’t notice that! Sure makes it harder for non-Swedish speakers to for example become aware of “should I check whether there is a connection to Nationaldemokraterna” if there is no English page that points to that direction.
What comes to Swedish speakers: If the letter of intent would have been signed because of nepotism, the vaccination skepticism part probably would not have come as a surprise since it seems to be a recurring theme in Per Shapiro’s NyD contributions (again, if my Swedish does not fail me). Which to me seems evidence to the direction that nepotism did not influence the decision.
The English Wikipedia page was made Jan. 15, so my first guess would be that it was created by Mvolz in response to the Expo article or follow-on discussion. (Possibly including follow-on discussion on the EA Forum.)
As noted by others, I am also regretful to reflect on how much stress this has caused the FLI team.
However, I think it’s important to note I still have some concerns, for 2 reasons:
1) The FAQ linked makes a lot of sense assuming a Texas Sharpshooter setup (i.e. many far-right newspapers apply for grants from FLI, and one makes it through ), but I think this seems much less plausible because of the personal connections FLI board members have to the newspaper.
This is the only section of the FAQ I can see this that addresses this concern. However, the prompted question I read as a (perhaps accidental) straw-man. I have not seen any comments on the associated blog posts, around the concern that the brother would financially benefit. I don’t generally assume that being a far-right journalist/communicator is particularly profitable. My understanding is that far-right communicators exist because of ideological motivations.
2) There seems to be a repeated subtext, that it was initially hard to identify the newspaper as far-right. I reject this proposition in entirety—a cursory glance of the website will immediately inform you they are not aligned with FLI’s goals. I find it much more plausible there was no background check whatsoever in the initial stage, or that said background check was done by someone with a nepotistic bias.
The following statement is what prompted me to leave this comment:
I find it extremely unplausible that the brother, despite contributing significantly to the newspaper, had no-knowledge that he was writing for a far-right newspaper.
I am not sure why FLI would suggest this with high confidence, especially since it has little relevance to the matter at hand.
I can imagine that Per Shapiro is much more conservative (?) than say the AngloAmerican left, and wrote for conservative venues, but did not know specifically about the neo-Nazi stuff from Nya Dagbladet. People of Jewish descent, even very conservative ones, don’t to my knowledge regularly support neo-Nazis. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but this is generally pretty unlikely enough that we should not assume guilty until proven innocent.
Like Elliot, while I think the FLI team has handled the whole thing just fine, I also find it confusing people think the far-right connections of Nya Dagbladet would have been difficult to identify. I didn’t know anything about Nya Dagbladed in advance so I checked it:
The complete English Wikipedia article on Nya Dagbladet:
”Nya Dagbladet is a Swedish online daily newspaper founded in 2012,[1] which has a historical connection to the National Democrats, a far-right political party in Sweden. It publishes articles promoting conspiracy theories about the Holocaust, COVID-19 vaccines, climate change, mobile phone towers, and others. Other common themes include immigration, GMOs, Israel, the EU,[2] and pro-Kremlin propaganda regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[3][4] Markus Andersson is its editor-in-chief.”
The Swedish summary/beginning of the Wikipedia article on Nya Dagbladed:
”Nya Dagbladet är en svensk nätbaserad dagstidning grundad 2012.[2] Tidningen är nationalistisk, vetenskapsskeptisk och partipolitiskt obunden, med historisk koppling till Nationaldemokraterna. Den betecknar sig som humanistisk och etnopluralistisk med en antiglobalistisk hållning.[3] Den refererar ofta pseudovetenskap och vaccinationsmotstånd.”
I tried to check what the newspapers’ tone regarding Jews is, and I found this letter from the editor kind of strange. (If my Swedish does not fail me it claims that the Holocaust memory day is “real antisemitism” as many horrors of the Holocaust didn’t actually happen.)
Also, Per Shapiro has written a commentary titled “Den extrema högern” (“Far right”) in 2021 about people’s negative reactions to his previous article, saying that people on social media accused him of writing in an far-right paper, while (according to Shapiro) the biggest Swedish newspaper is actually a lot more far-right (because it’s editor in chief supports American war crimes and Israeli occupation). What I understand from this (again with my limited Swedish and Google Translate) is that Shapiro both strongly rejects far-right but is well aware that many people perceive writing in NyD as far-right associated. So I wonder what the recent revelations of extremism are that shocked him are – maybe something happened that I cannot identify just by looking at the newspapers post history.
Note that the English page was created in January of this year. The stuff on the Swedish page about Nordiska motståndsrörelsen and vaccination scepticisim and pseudoscience was added on September 14, after FLI signed the letter of intent.
Good observation, I didn’t notice that! Sure makes it harder for non-Swedish speakers to for example become aware of “should I check whether there is a connection to Nationaldemokraterna” if there is no English page that points to that direction.
What comes to Swedish speakers: If the letter of intent would have been signed because of nepotism, the vaccination skepticism part probably would not have come as a surprise since it seems to be a recurring theme in Per Shapiro’s NyD contributions (again, if my Swedish does not fail me). Which to me seems evidence to the direction that nepotism did not influence the decision.
The English Wikipedia page was made Jan. 15, so my first guess would be that it was created by Mvolz in response to the Expo article or follow-on discussion. (Possibly including follow-on discussion on the EA Forum.)