COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE | JULY 21, 2021

STAND Launches Investigation Into Enablers of Hate Blogger Tony Ortega

STAND is calling for individuals to step forward with information about the anonymous enablers of hate blogger Tony Ortega—those who, radicalized by Ortega’s disinformation, post hate speech under pseudonyms on his anti-Scientology blog.

Tony Ortega, an unemployed blogger, was dismissed from the Village Voice in 2012 after years of defending Backpage.com, the Voice’s primary source of funding and a site that facilitated child sex trafficking. (Backpage has since been seized by the FBI, with Ortega’s former bosses, whom he gloated were “smart enough to start Backpage” currently awaiting trial.)

Described by former colleagues as “twisted,” “abusive,” and anti-Scientology obsessed, Ortega in his nine years of joblessness has devoted his time to an anti-Scientology harassment campaign—one involving thousands of blog postings intended to intimidate, smear, dehumanize and shame Scientologists. Ortega employs his fringe platform to give daily voice to what can only be described as his deep-seated, un-American objection to the First Amendment rights of Scientologists to practice their religion in peace.

Ortega is financially supported in this endeavor by his wife, Arielle Silverstein, a United Nations employee described by a fellow anti-Scientologist as “the power behind the throne” of Tony Ortega’s internet hate domain.

Whether out of a desire to avoid public association with a documented sex trafficking advocate or be revealed as supporters of an abusive and obsessed anti-Scientologist, Ortega’s enablers attempt to remain anonymous as they cheer on this toxic extremist.

STAND encourages those with information to write in to info@standleague.org.

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