The Rebel Media has apologized over allegations that former employee Jack Posobiec engaged in plagiarism by lifting sections from the video of another political activist.
On Sunday, right-wing political activist Jason Kessler tweeted his March 13 video side by side with an April 20 video The Rebel posted featuring Posobiec, prompting the company to issue an apology.
“Today we learned via social media that extended passages of this video by Jack Posobiec were copied word-for-word from original work produced by Jason Kessler, which can be seen here and here,” the company said in a statement.
“Although Kessler’s original work is briefly shown on-screen and is mentioned in passing, the work was not properly attributed. The Rebel would like to apologize to Mr. Kessler, and has sent him all advertising revenues earned from this video.”
An analysis of the comparison shows that both videos contain many of the same lines word for word.
“When they come together in a mass demonstration or riot, they are effectively Antifa,” Kessler says in his video.
“But when they come together in a mass demonstration or a riot, they’re effectively Antifa,” Posobiec says in his.
“It refers to agitators dressing all in black, wearing masks or scarves over their faces, and marching together in hordes,” Kessler says. “The reason that they do this is to make it hard to identify any particular member who has done some illegal activity like break a window, start a fire, steal a camera or pepper-spraying an innocent victim.”
Virtually the same exact paragraph appears in Posobiec’s video.
“It refers to the agitators dressing all in black, wearing masks or scarves over their faces, and marching together in hordes,” Posobiec states. “The reason they do this is to make it hard to identify any particular member who’s done some illegal activity like breaking a window, starting a fire, stealing a camera, or pepper spraying one of their innocent victims.”
In a much longer section, Kessler says
Antifa, or Black Bloc, terrorists are given a color designation of red, yellow or green. Reds are willing to do illegal shit. Yellows aren’t, but they work to disguise the reds – blocking police or anyone else who would try to apprehend the criminal. Greens are basic, low information people who just show up and really don’t know anything about the tactics. When a red commits an illegal act, he will run into a crowd of greens to disappear before the police can identify him. Swarming. After an act of violence, vandalism or theft has been perpetrated on a victim by a red, the yellows will surround the victim, blocking view of their attacker. Then, they will begin screaming and shoving signs in the victim’s face until the attacker has made their getaway. The effort is to create an immediate feeling of confusion and disorientation in their victim.
Posobiec further stated:
So, the Black Bloc terrorists are given a color bloc designation of red, yellow, or green. Reds are willing to do illegal acts, yellows aren’t but they work to disguise the reds by blocking police or anyone else who would try to apprehend the criminal. Greens are basic low-information people who just showed up and aren’t really in on the tactics. When a red commits an illegal act, he’ll then run into a crowd of greens to disperse before the police can identify them. Swarming is a tactic they use that takes place after an act of violence, vandalism, or theft has been perpetrated on a victim by one of these reds. The yellows will surround the victims, blocking view of the attacker. Then, between screaming and shoving signs in the victim’s face until the attacker can, you know, make a clean get away. The effect is to create an immediate of confusion and disorientation in the victim.
When asked for a comment, Ezra Levant, who runs The Rebel Media, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he was “shocked” by the allegations.
“I immediately reached out to Mr. Kessler by e-mail and look forward to talking with him to properly and fully correct matters,” Levant told TheDCNF.
In a conversation on the matter, Posobiec told TheDCNF that the allegations of plagiarism were a “complete lie” and said he “gave [Kessler] credit.”
“I also had permission from the editor of GotNews,” Posobiec added, pointing to Kessler’s article on the site.
Posobiec then handed over private Twitter exchanges between him and Kessler from back in April to TheDCNF, which seems to make it clear that Kessler and Posobiec did indeed have a dispute about the closeness of Posobiec’s content to Kessler’s.
“I see what has happened,” Kessler said in April. “I’m not going to be a dick about it. Please tweet out my original video with Twitter handle. If you credit me and my original video as inspiration that will be fine.”
“If we agree on that,” Kessler added, “I will delete my angerey [sic] reacts.”
Posobiec no longer works at The Rebel, having left the company in late May.
Alexa Archambault and Jennifer Duplessie contributed to this report.
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