Remember Ammon Bundy from Oregon standoff? Court orders him to pay $50M in new case

Ammon Bundy, the antigovernment extremist who led the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016, has been ordered to pay $50 million in damages to an Idaho hospital he defamed. Meanwhile, one of the speakers at the deadly 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville was extradited to Virginia this week and charged for participating in the rally's infamous torchlit procession. And an anti-hate alliance calls on Twitter to reinstate its Trust and Safety Council to protect users from hate speech.

It's the week in extremism

Ammon Bundy ordered to pay $50+ million

Bundy, who gained national attention after he organized the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, leading to a standoff with federal agents, this week lost a defamation lawsuit brought by St. Luke’s Regional Health, a healthcare provider in Idaho.

• The case stemmed from an incident where Bundy and another man, Diego Rodriguez, accused the healthcare company of kidnapping Rodriguez's infant grandson. The 10-month-old was removed from his family and taken to St. Luke's for treatment after a doctor expressed concern about the infant's apparent malnourishment.

• Bundy led a campaign against St. Lukes, accusing the company of child trafficking and spreading lies about the child's treatment online, according to court documents.

• Bundy told the Idaho Statesman, “I owe St. Luke’s nothing.” He actually owes them (with Rodriguez) $52.5 million.

Augustus Invictus charged

Augustus Sol Invictus, one of the invited speakers to the deadly extremist far-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, appeared in court in Virginia this week on charges of burning an object with the intent to intimidate.

• The Charlottesville rally, which took place a few months after the election of Donald Trump, was a watershed moment for far-right extremists in America.

• Invictus never spoke at the Charlottesville rally. The speeches never took place because the event quickly descended into violence.

• According to local Charlottesville journalist Molly Conger, Invictus bonded out of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail on Tuesday evening.

Coalition asks Twitter to reinstate Trust and Safety Council

Since being taken over by billionaire Elon Musk last year, Twitter has seen thousands of hateful accounts reinstated, including those of neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracy theory adherents and users that spread racist and antisemitic hate speech. Now, a coalition called the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism has written a letter to Twitter asking the company to reinstate its Trust and Safety Council, which once helped tamp down extremism on the site.

• According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which is part of the coalition, Twitter's self-monitoring group was disbanded in 2022 when Musk took over.

• “Members of our alliance have witnessed first-hand the real world implications across the globe of allowing hate and lies on Twitter,” said Wendy Via, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “We cannot strengthen democracies and protect human rights while Twitter amplifies, rewards, and profits from hate, extremism, and disinformation."

• The letter was addressed to Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino.

Statistic of the week: 5

That's how many popular online multiplayer games the Anti-Defamation League reviewed when it found extensive use of hateful terms in usernames.

The league's Center for Technology and Society was "easily able to find usernames in five categories of hate (antisemitism, misogyny, racism, anti-LGBTQ+ and ableism) across five popular online multiplayer games (League of Legends, PUBG, Fortnite, Overwatch 2, and Call of Duty)," according to a report published this week.

Researchers concluded: "Our results demonstrate that the game industry is not invested enough in the simplest solutions to address hate and extremism in online games."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ammon Bundy loses Idaho defamation case, ordered to pay $50M