 Twitter's idiotic owner, Elon Musk, is being sued for defamation after his irresponsible tweets ruined a young man's life. The young man in question is 22-year-old Ben Brody, who became the target of right-wing conspiracy theorists after he was mistaken for a neo-Nazi that they thought was a fed, and Elon Musk amplified those conspiracy theories about this young man. In July, Vice News reported, it was halfway through the daughter's game he was attending with his mother when Ben Brody realized some of the worst people on the internet believed he was a federal agent pretending to be a neo-Nazi 800 miles away. Earlier in the day, Brody, a 22-year-old recent political science grad from UC Riverside, had noticed people commenting on his Instagram account and calling him a fed, but he thought it was just trivial and would blow over. But while at the June 25th game, which saw the Houston Astros beat the Dodgers, his phone kept going off until he and his mother realized something horrible was underway. Before they left the game, their home address would be leaked online. By the time they got home, they decided they couldn't stay there that night. So the question is, what the hell was going on? They're at a game trying to enjoy themselves. When his phone is blowing up, you have people accusing him of being a fed, and all of a sudden, he can't even return home because the harassment got that bad. What happened? Well, here's what happened. As HuffPost explains, on June 24th, members of the Portland Proud Boys went to Oregon City's first-ever Pride Night Fest to disrupt the event and spew anti-LGBTQ-plus rhetoric. Along for the homophobic protest were members of the Rose City Nationalists, a neo-Nazi group that had recently been involved in an online dispute with members of the local Proud Boys chapter, Vice News reported at the time. The protest quickly devolved into violence with members of the Proud Boys striking RCN members with American flagpoles and telling them to be gone, bitch. One still unidentified member of RCN is seen on video being propped up by his fellow neo-Nazis after he had been bowled over by the Proud Boys. Moments later, his mask is ripped off, revealing his face. The black-haired man bleeding from his head looks bewildered in the video as he goes to cover his face with his hands. Now, I can't play the video for you since it depicts violence and that'd be against YouTube's terms of service. But this moment on screen right now where this Nazi was unmasked is crucial because people on Twitter quickly tried to identify this guy who, again, they believed was a federal agent who infiltrated the Nazi group to cause chaos and make all of them look bad as if they weren't already making themselves look bad by being Nazis. But regardless, rather than identifying that actual person, somebody online found Ben Brody's information instead and falsely claimed that it was him. A claim that was then amplified by Elon Musk. For example, this is a screenshot circulated online where Ben Brody says that he is a poli-sign major at UCR and plans to work for the government after he graduates. So I mean, I guess since he looks like the guy in question and expressed his interest in working for the government, they took this as confirmation that he was indeed a fed. Now, the irony is that this photo of Brody is actually a picture from his Jewish fraternity. So you have a bunch of people online claiming that this Jewish man is a Nazi. But Elon Musk responded to that post saying, always remove their masks. So they thought that they successfully identified this unmasked Nazi who happened to be a fed in their opinion. But in actuality, they just dug up the social media profile of an innocent 22-year-old. Now Ben Brody tried his best to tell them that this isn't actually him because he was getting harassment. And once that started to gain traction, thanks to Elon, he even gave them evidence. He shared debit card receipts showing that he was in California on the day that the fight occurred in Oregon. And on top of that, he posted a video of himself to Instagram explaining, hey guys, that's not me. I understand that there's a bit of a similarity in the way that we look, but I am a different person. That's not me. I'm getting harassment. Please stop. Hey, what's up guys? My name is Ben Brody. I wanted to address the false accusations against me. I wanted to first off say that I am not a part of the patriotic front as a member and that people who are claiming I am, I'm being confused with someone who looks similar to me. And I've never been to Oregon City for any protest whatsoever. Recently I've just been so busy in terms of graduation from UC Riverside and stuff like that. I've been in Riverside only. This is just crazy to me. And I graduated on June 21st and I've just been hanging out with my friends. And then all these accusations are kind of just crazy and incorrect. And my family and I are just being harassed completely. And I would be more than happy to clear up any confusion if necessary. This is just so ridiculous. And I really just can't believe this is happening to me right now, guys. Now, that video was posted on the same day that Elon Musk amplified conspiracies about Brody being the Nazi. So how did Elon Musk respond once Brody came out and said, you've got the wrong guy and provided evidence showing that he's not that person? Well, Elon Musk did the same thing. In response to a now-deleted tweet by Zero Hedge, Elon Musk referenced Brody again saying, looks like one is a college student who wants to join the government. And another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless, a probable false flag situation. And then he added community nodes, presumably for additional context about this individual who he thought was identified by the right online. But therein lies the problem. There was already no evidence that Brody was that individual in the video, even if they looked the same. But after Brody already came out and identified himself as Ben Brody and not that Nazi, well, Musk continued to tweet about him. And to make matters worse for Elon Musk, he wasn't ignorant or at least there was an opportunity for him to inform himself because multiple users warned him that he's got the wrong guy. Ben Brody is not that Nazi. And his tweets about him are causing harassment. And you're seeing a couple of examples provided by HuffPost. But Elon Musk never corrected the record. And to make matters worse, those tweets are still up till this day. So Elon Musk ruined a kid's life with a couple of tweets, a couple of reckless tweets. And now what? Well, he's being sued for defamation and Brody is seeking over one million dollars in damages. And his attorney is Mark Bankston. Now, we'll get to Mark Bankston in a moment, but he made a lengthy Twitter thread about this and he's going to take us through the timeline in painstaking detail to show us just how damaging this was and how reckless Elon Musk's behavior was. He writes the lawsuit alleges that on June 27th and yet another example of his growing tendency to spread false information, Musk falsely told the world there was evidence indicating Ben Brody participated in a violent street brawl on behalf of a neo-Nazi extremist group. On June 25th, a Dogecoin-themed Twitter user showed Musk a tweet from an anonymous right-wing extremist griper account making the accusation against Ben Brody, which included screenshots of the fraternity social media post stating Ben planned to work for the government. Musk responded by stating very odd. While not yet defamation, this was already pretty bad. Musk was amplifying unvetted slander against an innocent young man being disseminated by an anonymous extremist troll and an anonymous cryptocurrency fan. As detailed in Ben's lawsuit, numerous Twitter users began immediately informing Musk that Ben was innocent. Yet early the next morning on June 26th, Musk also responded to Twitter user Matt Wallace, a cryptocurrency YouTuber who frequently vies from Musk's attention after Wallace tweeted the same screenshots noting that Ben planned to work for the government. That same morning, Ben made an Instagram video trying to dispel the accusations. He also posted screenshots of debit card payments in Riverside. He even went as far as to request video footage from a restaurant he visited at the time of the brawl, which he also posted. Throughout the day, Twitter users continued to inform Musk that Ben Brody was innocent and many of them provided a link to Ben's Instagram video, but it was to no avail. The following day on June 27th, Musk threw the full weight of his celebrity behind the accusations and defamed Ben. He did it in a response to a tweet from anonymous blog, ZeroHedge. In this case, ZeroHedge's tweet on June 27th stated, "'Patriot front white supremacist unmasked as suspected fed.'" Musk responded to the ZeroHedge tweet and he declared to the world, "'Looks like one is a college student who wants to join the government and another is maybe an Antifa member but nonetheless a probable false flag situation.'" Now some of those details were redundant but I think that the timeline is really important. It's important to know when Musk made these tweets and when the information was out there that would have allowed him to educate himself and correct the record in an attempt to mitigate the damage. Now the actual thread by Mark Bangston is much more detailed so I'm gonna link to that down below if anyone wants to read it, but this is very, very serious and you might be thinking still it's Elon Musk. He's the richest man in the world, therefore he's gonna have access to the best attorneys in the world, right? And that may be true, but allow me to let you know who Mark Bangston is. Mark Bangston is the attorney who represented Sandy Hook families and their defamation lawsuit against Alex Jones and not only did he win, he gave us this viral moment where Alex Jones knew he was screwed. So you did get my text messages and then you said you didn't. Nice trick. Yes, Mr. Jones. Indeed. You didn't give this text message to me. You don't know where this came from. Do you know where I got this? No. Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorney's messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years and when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way. And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text message about Sandy Hook. Did you know that? I see, I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment. I gave them my phone and it- Mr. Jones, you need to answer the question. No, I- Did you know this happened? No, I didn't know this happened. But I mean, I told you, I gave them the phone over and just said no. Just answer the question. You said, in your deposition, you searched your phone. You said you pulled down the text, did the search function for Sandy Hook? That's what you said, Mr. Jones, correct? And I had several different phones with this number, but I did, yeah, of course. I mean, that's why you got it. No, Mr. Jones, that's not what I have. My lawyer's sending it to you, but I'm hiding it. Okay. Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones, that's- You just answered questions. There's no question. Mr. Benson also only asked questions. Sure. Mr. Jones, in discovery, you were asked, do you have Sandy Hook text messages on your phone? And you said no, correct? You said that under oath, because you got it, didn't you? I mean, I was mistaken, I was mistaken, but you got the messages right there. You know what Perker is, right? I just want to make sure you know before we go any further. You know what it is. Now, if you couldn't make out what he was saying at the end there, he was asking Alex Jones if he knows what Perker is since Alex Jones was caught dead to rights, yet still lying. That was absolutely incredible, one of my favorite clips of last year. And I just want you for a second to imagine Elon Musk in that same predicament getting grilled by Mark Bankston. It's a wonderful thought, isn't it? I, for one, am very excited about the prospect of watching that. Sometimes, you know, powerful people do get held accountable, and it doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes it does happen. And when it happens, you really love to see it. Now, whether or not that's going to be the case here with Elon Musk and Ben Brody, we'll have to wait and see because defamation lawsuits are notoriously difficult to prove in the court of law. Having said that, though, if anyone is going to be able to do it, if anyone is going to be able to hold Elon Musk accountable, I'm going to place my bets on Mark Bankston. Not only is he a phenomenal attorney, but he is a very progressive guy who just genuinely seems to care about justice. And what happened to Brody is awful. It's a great injustice, and Elon Musk needs to right this wrong. Now, whether or not this goes to trial is a different story. Perhaps Elon Musk will be inclined to settle. I'm not really sure. We'll just have to wait and see, but I'm even more excited about the prospect of Elon Musk facing accountability, especially after shenanigans that occurred this weekend. So for those unaware, he showed up to the border wearing a cowboy hat backwards like an idiot, and he treated migrants like there was zoo animals there for his amusement. As Alejandro Cabello points out, I don't think there's a better picture that encapsulates the pure evil of our system where the world's richest man can live out his midlife crisis playing a fake cowboy in front of desperate and impoverished immigrants, while broadcasting it to the world to incite hatred. That's exactly what he's trying to do. In the same way that he incited hate against Ben Brody, he's now trying to do that against immigrants. He's not done terrorizing innocent people because he's taking pictures of them specifically to demonize them and perpetuate the myth that America is being invaded by migrants when in actuality, these are human beings who are desperate and they're looking for a new life. They're looking for a new home after our country's policies destroyed their homes, destroyed their countries. And for this elitist asshole to show up and then take pictures of them and dehumanize them and treat their suffering as if it's some sort of a form of entertainment is genuinely sickening to me. This man has enough money to feed and house all of them for the rest of their lives. But what is he doing instead? He's taking pictures of them like they're fucking animals. It's despicable. So even though a successful defamation suit against him isn't even gonna put a dent in his wealth. I mean, again, Brody is asking for over a million dollars. That's nothing to Elon Musk. That's like 10 cents to you and I. Just the mere possibility of Mark Bankston humiliating him on the stand is exciting enough for me. So Mark, give him hell because this asshole absolutely deserves it. He deserves the treatment that Alex Jones got because he is a terrible person and what he's doing is not okay. And he's going to continue to tweet recklessly and endanger other people's lives unless he learns that there's a cost for this type of misinformation that he's spreading.