FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Christian satire site The Babylon Bee is considering legal action after the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed the names of anonymous contributors who write for Not the Bee, the satire site’s real-news partner.
“We are considering all our options, including legal action,” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told The Daily Signal in a text message Wednesday.
The SPLC—a far-left organization that brands mainstream conservative and Christian groups with a “hate group” label and puts them on a hate map alongside the Ku Klux Klan—reached out to Not the Bee writers for comment. Dillon revealed the outreach in a post on X Tuesday.
“The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our ‘Not the Bee’ writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear,” he wrote. “The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used that information to contact our writers directly.”
Dillon said the SPLC went digging for the information “because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists.”
“They did it because they lack principles,” he added. “They did it because they’re vindictive bullies who’ve admitted their aim is to ‘completely destroy’ individuals and organizations they disagree with by making them pay a steep price for speaking freely.”
Dillon acknowledged that since he’s a public figure, he accepts that getting attacked “comes with the territory.”
“What I won’t accept is the doxxing and smearing of our staff because they said some things the SPLC doesn’t like,” he added.
‘Publicly Viewable Source Code’
The SPLC’s Megan Squire and Creede Newton published the names of the anonymous writers Tuesday afternoon in a post titled “Inside the Beehive.”
Squire and Newton claimed that they discovered the information by accessing Not the Bee’s “publicly viewable source code,” which exposed “contact information for several dozen authors, including the real names of many of the most prolific pseudonymous content creators.”
“The source code, visible to anyone with a web browser and not requiring an account on the site to view, also revealed email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, social media accounts, subscription and payment information, and more,” the SPLC writers added.
It remains unclear what legal claims The Babylon Bee may have against the SPLC.
In a statement to the Montgomery Advertiser, the SPLC condemned the work of Not the Bee, claiming that it “has no place in our society.”
“The SPLC is committed to transparency and is dedicated to protecting the safety of trans and genderqueer individuals when they are publicly attacked,” the SPLC said. “Hateful content like the material created by Not the Bee writers works to dehumanize transgender individuals, the entire LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities, and people of color. This divisive commentary has no place in our society.”
The SPLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the possibility of facing legal action over the story. This article will be updated with any response.
