When friends of Kyle Rittenhouse, who on Friday was found "not guilty" by a jury, first tried to raise funds for his legal defense last year, they hit quite a few walls. As Ann Coulter referenced in her Wednesday column for Townhall, "Get Rittenhouse!," GoFundMe, which bills itself as the "#1 Fundraising Platform for Crowdfunding" and says it's "The most trusted online fundraising platform for any need or dream," shut the efforts down.
Over Twitter, however, on Friday evening, the platform addressed the matter.
GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime. In light of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, we want to clarify when and why we have removed certain fundraisers in the past: https://t.co/aTpFpgEE8s
— GoFundMe (@gofundme) November 19, 2021
The tweet references the platform's terms of service to do with agreeing to "not to use the Services to raise funds or establish or contribute to any Fundraiser with the implicit or explicit purpose of promoting or involving," with one specific bullet point referring to do with "alleged crimes."
9. the legal defense of alleged crimes associated with hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination, terrorism, or intolerance of any kind relating to race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, serious disabilities or diseases, financial crimes or crimes of deception;
As some accounts tend to do, when they don't want all the attention for a post they share on a public forum, the tweet in question restricted replies.
That didn't stop people from reacting, with the overwhelming amount of reactions dealing with quoted tweets expressing outage.
Lol they turned off replies
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) November 19, 2021
Cowards https://t.co/5Yx15GOTB4
If this is true, why did you donate $500 to Riot Kitchen last year? The Seattle group was arrested by federal agents after being observed filling up multiple fuel cans with gasoline & driving into #Kenosha. Police said the Riot Kitchen group tried escaping in their minivan. https://t.co/iO1eaP41Ak pic.twitter.com/COSTidb9Sc
— Andy Ngô ?????? (@MrAndyNgo) November 20, 2021
Big Tech ALWAYS lies about its censorship of conservatives. https://t.co/N6irMHVJ5r
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 20, 2021
If someone is convicted of a violent crime, GoFundMe appears to be saying he had no right (retrospectively) to a legal defense. There are few things that are more chilling to one's Sixth Amendment right to counsel than paying lawyers only in the event a person is NOT convicted. https://t.co/TpsP9t6HLp
— American Lawyer ?????????? ?? (@specialreport4u) November 20, 2021
Didn't @gofundme allow the legal defense funds of rioters from Antifa and BLM? https://t.co/bKIM4QPnT0
— Rekieta Media (@RekietaMedia) November 19, 2021
Other tweets pointed out other examples of people who had used the platform for legal defense funds as a matter of self-defense.
It was self-defense. Just like this gentleman, who too had every right to defend his life, and you seem to have no problem with this GoFundMe being on your platform. https://t.co/p3Ese3PGQs pic.twitter.com/XvP5MuCJlT
— Rising serpent ???? (@rising_serpent) November 19, 2021
GoFundMe deleted the example I gave. Here are dozens more: https://t.co/hqcuDATnRK It's almost like they're making it up.
— Ezra Levant ?? (@ezralevant) November 20, 2021
It wasn't merely the fundraising efforts that suffered. Some people had been fired when word got out they had donated to the legal defense fund.
Ultimately, money for a legal defense fund was raised through GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising site, though the Left tried to destroy such efforts as well, as Rachel Alexander wrote in an April column for Townhall.