Sorry Appin, We’re Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts To Silence Reporters
from the we-stand-by-our-reporting dept
Back in December, we wrote about Appin. We were not writing about the reports (of which there have been many) that the organization that started as a sort of cybersecurity training school, but morphed into a kind of “hack-for-hire” scheme was involved in all sorts of nefarious activity. Rather we wrote about their (ab)use of the Indian court system to order Reuters to remove a big, detailed, investigative report on the company.
The history of Appin, and reporting on its involvement in hacking schemes, goes back a over a decade. Reports of Appin trying to hide and suppress such stories is a bit shorter but are abundant. And Appin has, at times, been quite successful, especially in trying to remove the name of the guy regularly accused of being behind Appin, Rajat Khare. See this SwissInfo report on how Qatar “spied on the world of football,” which was forced to remove Khare’s name while leaving in Appin’s.
Or how about the Bureau of Investigative Journalism story published in 2022, Inside the Global Hack-for-Hire Industry. An earlier version of that report names Khare. In April of 2023, the article was updated, and all mentions of Khare disappeared. There are many more examples as well.
Back in December, the Daily Beast finally had an article entitled “Who is Killing all These Stories About a Controversial Tech Mogul?” highlighting how stories about Khare and Appin have a noticeable history of suddenly disappearing.
In a move that has press freedom campaigners troubled, Rajat Khare, co-founder of Appin, an India-based tech company, has used a variety of law firms in a number of different jurisdictions to threaten these U.S., British, Swiss, Indian, and French-language media organizations.
On Nov. 16, Reuters published a special investigation under the headline “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailing how Appin allegedly became a “hack for hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe”—a claim that Khare strongly denies. Khare retained the powerhouse “media assassin” firm Clare Locke LLP, which boasts on its website about “killing stories,” to send Reuters several legal threats over the past year about the story, according to two people familiar with the matter.
After the removal of the Reuters story, which at least involved an actual court order, others appeared to be bullied into submission as well. Perhaps most shockingly, Lawfare (who, of anyone, should understand how ridiculous this is) redacted their version of the story about Reuters pulling down its article, saying that they did so after receiving “a letter notifying us that the Reuters story summarized in this article had been taken down pursuant to court order in response to allegations that it is false and defamatory. The letter demanded that we retract this post as well.” And they did so, despite no legal basis:
Unsurprisingly, we also received similar demands. We received multiple emails claiming to represent “Association of Appin Training Centers” legal department, and claiming (falsely) that by quoting the Reuters article (which we did not even do) we were also liable for violating the court order. Similar demands were also sent to our CDN provider, our domain registrar, and the domain registry.
The only thing we quoted from Reuters was their announcement about the removal — not from the original article. The other parts we quoted were from SentinelOne, the security research firm that Reuters used to analyze the data. At the time we wrote the article, SentinelOne’s report remained online (it, too, has since been removed “in light of a pending court order … out of an abundance of caution”).
In the meantime, though, all these attempts to pull down and hide the content appears to be causing a bit of a Streisand Effect. Beyond the Daily Beast article calling out the campaign, the website Distributed Denial of Secrets decided to republish the Reuters piece as part of its new “Greenhouse” project, noting:
In response to the unacceptable censorship by Appin and the Indian courts, Distributed Denial of Secrets is launching a new initiative to combat censorship: the Greenhouse Project. The Greenhouse Project continues DDoSecrets’ mission of ensuring the free transmission of data in the public interest by making the ‘publisher of last resort’ concept proposed by George Buchanan in 2007 a reality. By ensuring the reporting and source files are preserved, the Greenhouse Project builds on previous efforts creating a “warming effect” to reverse the chilling effects of censorship.
In addition, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Politico, and Columbia Journalism Review have all run stories on Appin’s attempt to silence reporters. And, of course, all of this just keeps bringing more and more attention to the underlying claims about Khare and Appin. If Khare disputes those claims he could respond to them and refute them directly. Instead, he appears to be continuing a campaign of legal threats and dubious legal filings to seek to scare off reporters.
A few weeks back, we found out that our friends at Muckrock, the operators of DocumentCloud, had also received similar threats regarding documents hosted on that site.
Earlier this week, EFF sent a letter to the Association of Appin Training Centers, on behalf of both us and Muckrock, pointing out that the arguments they made in their letters to both of us did not appear to match what was in the actual court filing, which (1) does not clearly establish that the articles were defamatory based on the full evidence and a complete defense by Reuters, and (2) very clearly only apply to Reuters and Google. Furthermore, the letter points out that we are protected by the First Amendment, and any move to enforce a foreign order that violates the First Amendment would be barred under the SPEECH Act.
You can find Muckrock’s article about this here. Andy Greenberg, at Wired, also has a story about this.
This kind of censorial bullying may work on other publications, but Techdirt believes that (1) important stories, especially around surveillance and hacking, deserve to be read and (2) it’s vitally important to call it out publicly when operations like Appin seek to silence reporting, especially when it’s done through abusing the legal process to silence and intimidate journalists and news organizations.
We want to thank David Greene and Aaron Mackey at EFF for their help with this.
To the Association of Appin Training Centers:
We represent and write on behalf of Techdirt and MuckRock Foundation (which runs the DocumentCloud hosting services), each of which received correspondence from you making certain assertions about the legal significance of an interim court order in the matter of Vinay Pandey v. Raphael Satter & Ors. Please direct any future correspondence about this matter to us.
We are concerned with two issues you raise in your correspondence.
First, you refer to the Reuters article as containing defamatory materials as determined by the court. However, the court’s order by its very terms is an interim order, that the defendants’ evidence has not yet been considered, and that a final determination of the defamatory character of the article has not been made. The order itself states ‘this is only a prima-facie opinion and the defendants shall have sufficient opportunity to express their views through reply, contest in the main suit etc. and the final decision shall be taken subsequently.
Second, you assert that reporting by others of the disputed statements made in the Reuters article ‘which itself is a violation of an Indian Court Order, thereby making you also liable under Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.’ But, again by its plain terms, the court’s interim order applies only to Reuters and to Google. The order does not require any other person or entity to depublish their articles or other pertinent materials. And the order does not address its effect on those outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts. The order is in no way the global takedown order your correspondence represents it to be. Moreover, both Techdirt and MuckRock Foundation are U.S. entities. Thus, even if the court’s order could apply beyond the parties named within it, it will be unenforceable in U.S. courts to the extent it and Indian defamation law is inconsistent with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 47 U.S.C. § 230, pursuant to the SPEECH Act, 28 U.S.C. § 4102. Since the First Amendment would not permit an interim depublication order in a defamation case, the Pandey order is unenforceable.
If you disagree, please provide us with legal authority so we can assess those arguments. Unless we hear from you otherwise, we will assume that you concede that the order binds only Reuters and Google and that you will cease asserting otherwise to our clients or to anyone else.
———————————————————–
David Greene
Civil Liberties Director/Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, free speech, hack for hire, india, rajat khare, streisand effect
Companies: appin, muckrock, techdirt
Comments on “Sorry Appin, We’re Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts To Silence Reporters”
Fuck yeah. That’s how you stand up to censorship.
Seeing you getting hit with another attempt at legal intimidation makes me curious: did you ever hear back from Stuart Gibson?
Re:
Lol, no. He disappeared without even a whimper.
Re: Re:
Im changing my status from “Long time lurker” to “finally joining in the comments” just to tell you that I admire and appreciate your commitment to free speech, and we’d do well to have more journalists like you and your colleagues
Re: Re:
Oh now that was a fun trip down memory lane…
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
They should take action against you for regularly hosting content glorifying Nazism and racism and trans-genocide.
Re: Wat
Um…do what now? My first guess was that you are trolling, but I figure I’d give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are making a joke.
…you are joking right? Nobody can be that stupid
Re:
Yeah, see, the only reason that happens is because you post that content. Techdirt’s writers don’t post that sort of shit. Trusted longtime commenters don’t post that sort of shit. A lone Anonymous Coward who is likely sockpuppeting both the “I’m ultra-far-right, look how much I want to be a Nazi” schtick and the “I’m ultra-far-left, look how much I want to be a Nazi but against white people” schtick is the only person who posts that shit—and I have no choice but to assume that said Anonymous Coward is you.
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…said no human, ever.
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It seems as though you’ve forgotten the existence of §230, which requires you to sue the publisher of such content (the individuals making the comments), not the platform they’re hosted on.
Re:
You mean the right-wing screeching that you and your ilk do in the comments section here?
Fighting the good fight.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re:
By platforming Nazis, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, and Republicans… 🙄
Re: Re:
That is a side effect of refusing to kill anonymous commenting. But yes, go ahead and whine about the thing that gives you the ability to post bigoted bullshit without an identity attached to it. I have the nuts’n’guts to slap my government-ass name on my comments—what’s your excuse, other than “I can’t effectively sockpuppet and troll if I have to use an account”?
Re: Re: Re:
Anonymous commenters being bigots (that are subsequently flagged into oblivion) is what this person is referring to?
That doesn’t seem to be fair criticism, especially in light of how often posts on techdirt bash transphobes like DeSantis and Abbot.
Re: Re: Re:2
#NotAllAnonymousCowards
Re: Re: Re:2
Yes and no…
No, in that it doesn’t fully capture the spirit of the “criticism.” Some ACs (at least one specifically, and likely a couple more) are highly triggered by criticism of their beliefs, which are often the exact same beliefs as Nazis, transphobes, and all manner of other trash. Specifically what they are triggered by is the public recognition by TechDirt writers and commenters that those beliefs are hate speech.
The reaction to being triggered is to “diversify” their comments. Some comments are just hate speech. Other comments poorly mimic logic in order to defend hate speech or attempt to point out flaws in the criticism of their hate speech. Finally, there are the many comments criticizing TechDirt, its writers, and the bulk of its commenters–often using lies, mistruths, and misinterpretations (all knowingly) out of sheer spite. The comment above falls into that last category.
So yes, what appears to be a criticism of TechDirt is, in fact, a self-own–it somewhat accurately captures the inanity of the comments, which are almost entirely posted using the anonymity features that TechDirt allows.
I, like several other Anonymous Cowards, use the feature because we are either too lazy to create an account, or have some paranoia about comment attribution. (I’m just lazy.) If the anonymous comment option were removed, I would probably end up either commenting less often or finally creating an account.
Re: Re: Re:3
But see, there are reasons to be anonymous, such as the Singaporean who criticizes his government. Do you really want to compromise that person’s safety by revealing their identity? I wouldn’t!
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s a desperate attempt to DARVO
Re: Re: Re:
“That is a side effect of refusing to kill anonymous commenting.”
Incorrect. There are individuals such as Hyman Rosen and Koby who obviously don’t feel the need to use the ‘Anonymous Coward’ tag to post such hate speech.
Re: Re:
Sorry sir, this isn’t Xitter.
Re: Re:
I had DARVO on my fascist Bingo card!
Someone didn't do their homework...
If only there had been some way for Rajat Khare and Appin to know how well attempting to silence TD would go for them, perhaps a long-running but ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against the site or, I dunno, some sort of effect tied to the idea of attempting to silence someone only for that attempted censorship resulting in way more attention drawn to something than it otherwise would have garnered…
Re: Do your homework...
Hi, my name is Streisand.
Maybe you’ve heard of me…
RandomTroll
Re: Why would
Rajat Khare what Appins?
Posts like this
It’s posts like this that bring me the most joy when I read TD. I love that Rajat Khare, someone who appears to be a pathetic, low-life criminal, tries to use abusive tactics to disappear from sight so he can continue his criminal enterprise activities, yet only brings many of us true happiness. I find such weak people to be fascinating.
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Kids these days. Why, back in my day we had real villains, like Paul Duffy, and John Steele. These guys really kept my popcorn business rolling!
Re: Re:
Talk about memory lane! One of my favorites has always been:
But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain”
Check it out: https://www.techdirt.com/2010/11/04/how-cooks-source-magazine-learned-that-reputation-is-a-scarce-good-as-reddit-applies-the-social-mores-of-justice/
Mike, maybe it’s time for a “worst of the Internet Villains” post?
Re: Re:
You mean this Paul Duffy? Seems very recent to me!
Re: Re: Re:
No, there are several persons using that name, most of them proudly, I’m sure. The particular person we’re speaking of, remembering with irrreverence here, is this guy:
https://madisonrecord.com/stories/510633057-chicago-attorney-paul-duffy-dies
It’s more likely that the AC above really should’ve mentioned Paul Hansmeier, most recently noted here:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/minnesota-attorney-sentenced-168-months-prison-multi-million-dollar-pornography-film
The whole thing comes from the outfit Prenda Law, as noted many times here on TD. Search on that tag, and you’ll be brought up to date. But like the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy says, take along your towel, that rabbit hole is pretty deep!
Because nothing says “we’re totally not criminals” like committing fraud to cover up your other misdeeds.
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He’s just very shy and unassuming.
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when the only tool you have is a hammer ….
Re: Re:
.. you’re screwed?
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I see what you did there, Hammer, that’s awesome!
Fcuk Yeah!
GOOD ON YOU, MASNICK!
Good thing ya got the alternatives others don’t.
Nothing funny to say, nothing snarky.
Just an ‘atta-boy’ to give ya.
EFF took a lot of words to say, “Appin, I’m writing to let you know some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.”
Appin Security just sounds like a bunch of international, criminal, blackhat mercenaries-for-hire.
Rajat Khare needs love
This fine gentleman needs more attention. The more his lawyers get up to, the more clear it is there’s an interesting story there.
Anyone with anything interesting to say could do worse than posting it here…
Fight the good fight
Nice job.
Check
Mate.