Social Murder on Social Media
How woke extremists, abetted by Taylor Lorenz (then a reporter at the NYTimes, presently at The Washington Post), imposed the digital death penalty on an innocent man.
This is a longread. For the shortread, go to this Twitter thread.
Originally Published: 12/12/21
Updated: 7/14/22
Your name is David Markovich.
You Google yourself and see a new #1 result:
You’re not just THE MOST HATED.
You’re also XENOPHOBIC, a BULLY, and a BELITTLER OF ANTI-SEMITISM; you had a MELTDOWN, OUTBURST, and TANTRUM; and you GASLIT, TRIGGERED, INVALIDATED, BERATED, INTERRUPTED, SHOCKED, and SILENCED ASIANS and other PEOPLE OF COLOR.
The next day, aYahoo! Finance article echoes many of these claims and suggests you’re a predator – of black women, especially.
You soon realize half your friends are ghosting you; you’re deplatformed from a social network in which you’ve invested hundreds of full-time, unpaid hours; and every aspect of your life, online and off, will be negatively impacted by a scarlet letter you can never fully wash off.
Your crime: saying hi to people of a different race.
This may feel like a dystopian nightmare, and it is. It’s also exactly what happened to a guy named David Markovich.
This is the true story of a social murder.
It’s a few other things, as well:
Second, it’s an examination of an ideology threatening liberalism from the inside, with adherents who commit acts of social terrorism under the guise of social justice.
Woke extremists, aka wokists, come in all colors but tend to be under 40 and college educated. They see everything through the lens of identity – in particular, race.
Other Wokist hallmarks: the weaponization of baseless bigotry accusations; sanctimony and mirthlessness; sadism and a lack of empathy; extreme narcissism; and authoritarian tendencies, e.g. policing speech.
Third, it’s a forensic examination of a digital murder that began on the then-ascendant audio social network, Clubhouse. (We’ll also be calling the perpetrators the WOKE RACISTS and the INQUISITORS.)
The woke racists loathed Markovich – primarily because they abhor power and white men. When he resisted their attempts to control him, they went nuclear.
They fomented mass hysteria and mob dynamics across the Clubhouse app by manipulating hundreds of thousands of users into believing, falsely, that Markovich had committed racist and abusive acts.
That mob, in turn, helped woke racists burn Markovich at the stake. Clubhouse’s founders sat idly by, doing nothing to extinguish the flames.
The lead inquisitors then got the press to write defamatory articles, citing the mass hysteria they created as evidence of Markovich’s guilt: a false flag attack born of Cluster B ingenuity.
To this end, they even chronicled Markovich’s “crimes” in a crowdsourced, Shitty Media Men-style Google doc. Contributors claimed he made thousands of people suicidal and promoted civil war. They also conspired to destroy his ability to make a living.
Fourth, it’s an exposé of journalistic malpractice.
Three reporters, including TAYLOR LORENZ of The New York Times, legitimized the woke racists’ lies and ensured Markovich would pay a lifelong price for crimes he never committed. Lorenz and another non-Jewish reporter, WAYLAE GREGOIRE of NextShark, went so far as to insinuate Markovich is a non-Jewish anti-Semite.
This is David Markovich at his bar mitzvah.
Fifth, it’s a blueprint for defending liberalism.
How can targets of unjust cancellations, especially private citizens with limited resources, fight back? How can sane liberals deter would-be cancellers in an ethical, legally defensible way? The Inquisition is writing a new playbook. Consider this a first draft.
Last – and yes, I know I’m cramming far too much in, here – this is a cautionary tale.
Don’t think what happened to David Markovich could happen to you? Don’t be so sure. As investor and entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan told Tim Ferriss last month, “With the algebra of intersectionality, everybody’s an oppressor on some axis.”
Cancel culture doesn’t just hurt the cancelled, anyway. “There is a universe of people who stay silent because they fear cancellation,” said journalist Kmele Foster on a recent Intelligence Squared debate.
Alongside their chilling effect on open discourse, false and exaggerated claims of identity-based harm make it harder to address real discrimination. It’s time for people who truly do care about social justice to heed Foster’s call: Be Brave. Call Bullshit.
Wokists claim to fight Goliath and defend David. As you’re about to read in this inaugural feature from THE INQUISITION, nothing could be further from the truth.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
“Let’s Talk About Clubhouse 🙄”
DAVID MARKOVICH, a 32-year-old marketing entrepreneur in Los Angeles, is moderating yet another discussion on Clubhouse – the first audio social network. At the time, it’s The Next Big Thing, with myriad celebrity users and funding from top-tier Silicon Valley VCs.
Clubhouse “rooms” are akin to audio-only Zoom calls with speakers (between 1 & dozens) and listeners (between none & thousands).
Moderators (between 1 & several per room) serve as traffic cops, ensemble conductors, and radio call-in show hosts.
Markovich is a bona fide Clubhouse influencer, accumulating over 35,000 followers by hosting marathon discussions on politics, finance, self-help, and other water cooler topics.
In late January 2021, Clubhouse goes live in Asia. On February 2nd, Chinese and Japanese users show up in a Markovich room for the very first time:
Everyone hits it off. “We were talking about learning English, and apps, and VPNs, and stuff like that,” says “ALAMO”, a Korean-American.
Markovich and several of his Asian interlocutors decide to reconvene the next day in a room dedicated to informally welcoming Asian users to the app.
Direct Messages Markovich Gets Afterwards:
🇯🇵 “Hi David, I just wanted to say thank you for the room @ clubhouse earlier… It was great opportunity for me to hear the conversation of you and some international users. I would love to join the conversation if I get an opportunity next time. Thank you :–) ”
🇨🇳 “Today thank u soooooo much! I really appreciate that you can provide the opportunity for me ! ❤️ And I will try my best to practice my oral English and listening ability to follow you. 🤣”
(Message screen shots in Appendix, Exhibit 1)
The Following Evening – Wednesday, February 3, 2021
“Let’s All Welcome China and Japan to Clubhouse 🎉🎉"
It’s Wednesday night in the west, Thursday morning in Asia. Part two of the discussion gets underway. The new Asian users are doing most of the talking. “It was actually just great vibes all around,” said Alamo.
“This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to speak to China before China cancels this app. I thought it was such a thrilling moment in history,” says “BLAKE”, an American also present both nights.
(Markovich’s room turns out to be the final conversation most attendees will have with mainland Chinese; the Chinese government bans Clubhouse on February 8th.)
A protest room run by the Woke Racists springs up. Nearly all American, they’re apoplectic.
A white man?!
Speaking to Asians?!
In English?!
On Clubhouse, putting someone on blast in a room title, visible to thousands of people, is rare – and prohibited.
WILLIAM, a Chinese-American in California, leaves the inquisitors’ room for Markovich’s discussion. He sabotages the room by interrupting abruptly in Mandarin, welcoming the Chinese listeners and promoting an upcoming Mandarin-language room that he’s hosting.
Adrenaline pumping, Markovich dresses William down for interfering, taking more time to do so than he should. “I was tough with him,” he later acknowledges.
At no point does Markovich say or do anything racist, threatening, or otherwise abusive, but it’s neither’s finest moment. After removing William from the room, Markovich spends a few minutes in an unapologetic crouch toward other wokists now challenging him. Room derailed, Markovich closes it down prematurely.
At this point in the cancellation, here’s the scorecard:
But reality no longer matters. The woke racists immediately decry the confrontation – falsely, obviously – as a racist attack by a white man on an Asian-American.
Markovich’s Chinese interlocutors, listening in on the fallout, send him supportive DMs:
These are the people the American inquisitors claim Markovich exploited.
“I’m Korean-American, but by no means do I speak for people from a fucking different continent,” says Alamo.
Still Wednesday, February 3, 2021 – Later in the Evening
Woke Extremism & The Big Lie
Blake describes several speakers in «Why’s David Markovich moderating a room dedicated to Asians?» as “frothing at the mouth” – in particular, SAM (see below, middle row), a political operative and critical social justice diehard who takes a leading role in this social murder.
The inquisitors ignore the simple answer to their own question: David Markovich was moderating a room dedicated to Asians because Clubhouse just went live in Asia, there was a serendipitous conversation the day prior, and people all around the world wanted to run it back.
Should Markovich have had co-moderators translating into Mandarin and Japanese? Perhaps. But this would have hampered conversational flow and given fewer people a chance to speak. Besides: Clubhouse’s own founders have hosted numerous official welcome rooms entirely in English for users in countries with a different primary language.
Should Markovich have dealt with William more diplomatically? Sure, ideally. Was William victimized? Fuck no – the guy went out of his way to sabotage the room!
This is all a bunch of middle school bullshit no credible person would dwell upon – to say nothing of blaming MARKOVICH for what went down.
But none of this matters to the woke racists, whose reaction has little to do with Markovich’s venial sins. They’re merely pretextual.
The inquisitors abandon any sense of proportionality, fairness, or intellectual honesty to promulgate THE BIG LIE: David Markovich is a privileged white male abuser and racist who exploited Asian users, accosted an Asian man, and disrespected & silenced Asians by declining to join their (current) room.
By extension, THE BIG LIE goes, Markovich committed grievous offenses against all Asian people and all people of color generally.
Alamo explains, “As an Asian-American, I could definitively say, they do not speak for the people of the Asian continent. Whereas they think that they do. And that’s where a lot of cultural lines were blurred. The people in Asia were completely lost in it.”
A Revealing Moment of Intra-Wokist Squabbling
The woke racist war room gets sidetracked when William interrupts a female wokist in the same abrupt way he did Markovich moments earlier.
“She fucking lets him HAVE it,” Blake says, cracking up. “Her reaction to him is sooo much fuckin’ anger. She doesn’t like what he did, and that’s what’s so ironic. Because if she doesn’t like what he did to her, she sure wouldn’t have liked being David Markovich. Because what William did to David was much more rude.”
The Woke Racists Get Back to Business
But the inquisitors soon return to screaming The Big Lie into existence. They refuse to air dissent, giving the appearance there’s an Asian consensus about Markovich’s wickedness.
From the audience, Alamo messages multiple people on stage. The Inquisition has reviewed Alamo’s messages to Sam, specifically:
“Hi Sam. I’m in your room. Korean American here. I was in the room last night. And I saw how this room started. I can give some perspective. I promise I won’t flame the stage. Just want to give perspective.”
Sam ignores him: dispositive evidence of his bad faith. The others do, too. “They do not engage. Like, Oh, there’s another Asian over there that has a different perspective? We won’t even fucking bother with him.”
The twisted irony of the Markovich Affair: Asians and Asian-Americans really ARE exploited and silenced. There really is racist aggression that triggers mass hysteria. But the guilty party isn’t Markovich. It’s his accusers.
Things Get Worse. Way Worse.
The woke racists keep pushing The Big Lie. It spreads like wildfire on Clubhouse, Twitter, and group chats. “A lot of other Asian-Americans start teaming up on him. The mob just kind of takes over to where people who weren’t even in the rooms before and didn’t have the context, were just like, Yeah Fuck David, he must be a fucking racist.”
Alamo recalls trying to start a his own room, titled something like David Markovich is my friend and I’m Asian-American.
“It got, like, 20 people in it.”
Many non-Asians are seduced by The Big Lie, as well. In short order, Clubhouse is engulfed by rooms demonizing Markovich.
Why Does The Big Lie Set Clubhouse on Fire?
i. Spike in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes
Early in 2021, violent hate crimes against Asian-Americans continue to occur with alarming frequency. Footage like this fills our social media feeds:
So when Clubhouse users hear about an act of anti-Asian hate in their own backyard, Asians and non-Asians alike are primed to stand up for Asians by standing against David Markovich.
Markovich then becomes a jumping-off point for broader conversations about abuse and racism toward not only Asians, but also other groups.
ii. Markovich's Notoriety
Markovich isn’t a public figure, but on Clubhouse, everyone knows his name. He attracts big audiences and popular speakers. Envy alone creates a lot of haters.
Moderators sometimes must muzzle disruptive speakers, some of whom (oft-falsely) cry discrimination. As a solo moderator with large stages going 8-12 hours per day, 6-7 days per week, Markovich accumulates more enemies than most this way.
Still others don’t like his at-times prickly affect, or that his rooms seem more focused on growth than quality. He’s a clout chaser, they say.
Here’s what William messages Markovich just days prior to the cancellation:
iii. Identity Politics Prime Users to Villainize Markovich
On Clubhouse, the only identity it’s socially acceptable for everyone to hate on, right out in the open, is white people – white men especially.
Most people ignore that Markovich is Jewish, i.e. non-white and, to use wokist parlance, a member of an oppressed/marginalized community.
What happens to David Markovich on Clubhouse could only happen to a white(-passing) man perceived as influential. He becomes a synecdoche for everything wokists hate: power and privilege held by people they don’t like, masculinity, whiteness, etc.
In a sense, this is a poetic and hilarious inversion of how society has usually worked.
But it’s also an ugly display of woke racism. At least one lead inquisitor, a woman named Celia, even calls Markovich a white supremacist, and claims that anyone defending him is also a white supremacist.
(Who’s gonna tell her?)
iv. Clubhouse is Ideal for Mobs and Drama
– Clubhouse at this time is ephemeral audio only: there’s no source of truth to refer back to. Welcome to the world’s largest and most toxic game of telephone.
– Collective catharsis feels good. It’s the dead of winter during a pandemic. People are lonely and stressed. Markovich becomes a human piñata to hit as hard as they want without consequence. Textbook displacement.
– Even those who don’t get directly participate can’t resist rubbernecking from the audience:
– There’s a strong auto-catalytic bias to Clubhouse’s room recommendations: growth in a room’s audience begets even more growth.
– One person can inflame hundreds or even THOUSANDS of people at once through the medium of voice. A tweet just doesn’t activate people the same way.
Upshot: Clubhouse is uniquely conducive to mobs.
v. Defending Markovich Makes You a Target
People on Clubhouse know the risks of questioning a wokist grievance narrative. White skeptics are often derided as racists and gaslighters. Minorities, traitors in thrall to internalized white supremacy.
While Alamo heroically stands up for Markovich, few follow suit.
However, messages of private support pile up in Markovich’s DMs.
A universally beloved Korean-American Clubhouse user – like Markovich, a regular moderator of popular rooms – reaches out on WhatsApp:
Still February 3, 2021 – Just Past 11:00pm EST
Users Abuse Clubhouse’s Reporting Tools to Deplatform Markovich
The burgeoning mob brigades Markovich’s account with frivolous abuse reports. This triggers an automatic, temporary suspension. (Clubhouse will ultimately clear Markovich of wrongdoing and reinstate him, but in craven fashion, waits an unprecedented TWO WEEKS to do so.)
The haters celebrate.
Twitter:
Clubhouse:
Still February 3, 2021 – Approaching Midnight EST
Taylor Lorenz of The New York Times Sadistically Slimes a Private Citizen, Part 1
Cancellations against innocent people require BULLSHIT LAUNDERING: turning lies, gossip, and hyperbole into something more credible-seeming, sinister, and compromising.
If MasterClass ever develops a course on this practice, TAYLOR LORENZ, a high-profile New York Times technology reporter, should teach it.
Lorenz amplifies and legitimizes The Big Lie, gleefully maligning Markovich to her 200,000+ Twitter followers:
(Clean/unannotated version of Lorenz’ tweets in Appendix, Exhibit 2)
LORENZ’ TWEETS: A MASTER CLASS IN SOPHISTRY
First, notice Lorenz’ hashtag (1): #DavidMarkovichIsOverParty. Her malice and sadism is palpable.
Lorenz claims that Markovich “… told Jewish users who were subject to anti-semitic attacks that CH didn’t have issues with anti-Semitism” (2). She also asserts that he “minimized anti-semitism” (7). She quotes Markovich’s 12/10/20 tweet (3), ostensibly as evidence of these claims.
However, he simply stated that in his first 2 months on Clubhouse, he had not personally witnessed anti-Semitism on the app:
Lorenz, who IS NOT Jewish, conveniently omits that Markovich IS. He and 5 siblings grew up poor in a Yeshivish Orthodox community in Far Rockaway, Queens, and he spent 3 years studying Talmud at a yeshiva in the center of Jerusalem.
In fact, her phrasing – “David is the man who told Jewish users…” (2) – actively insinuates that Markovich is *NOT* Jewish!
Jewish law has a term for this: MOTZI SHEM RA, the grave sin of saying defamatory lies.
LORENZ’ OTHER EXECRABLE ACCUSATIONS
Lorenz also accuses Markovich of The Big Lie: “attacking POC” (4) and “being insensitive to the Asian community” (5).
She even throws in “allowed medical disinfo on Covid 19 to spread” (6) for good measure.
Then a few minutes later, she further erases Markovich’s Judaism by retweeting the racist tweet we showed you earlier:
At no point does Lorenz provide any evidence or ask Markovich for comment.
But no matter. Her libel gains the imprimatur of the New York Times, which routinely publishes her stories on its front page.
~4:00am EST, February 4, 2021
A “Cancellation Dossier” Accuses Markovich of Making Thousands of People Suicidal
Rooms denouncing Markovich rage through the night. «David Who? Someone Please Explain» is uniquely toxic. JEDDY, the architect of this cancellation, steps up to the mic: “Could I just make a really quick statement? I am, right now, as I’m coordinating all the — juggling all the different balls, I’m also doing the Google Doc.”
This isn’t just any Google Doc. It’s a crowdsourced, 12-page, 2,000+ word tome that’s key to the bullshit laundering process – and to the cause of destroying David Markovich.
Let’s call it the CANCELLATION DOSSIER.
Jeddy continues: “And if you think that, uh, the work is going to do itself, and that is just gonna go? Well, I would encourage you to take a look at the Google doc that's linked to my profile and see how it is currently actively being trolled. Just saying.”
Hahaha.
Highlights of Jeddy’s Cancellation Dossier
The Dossier contains voluminous accusations and zero actual evidence.
First highlight:
“David had a known history of tolerating speakers promoting anti-vaccines, medical misinformation, and civil war, and being the single moderator for topics he has no expertise in, like Venture Capital.”
Anti-vax! Misinformation! Civil war!
“He is known to vindictively remove speakers who presented facts conflicting with his bias and has incited off-platform backlash by weaponizing his rooms and followings against those speakers to personal threats.”
Vindictiveness! Bias! Incitement! Weaponization! Personal threats!
“Thousands of users have claimed that there’s suicidal ideation after being in rooms
Users need clinical intervention”
David Markovich: INSTIGATOR OF MASS SUICIDALITY?!
Two different contributors suggest destroying Markovich’s livelihood:
“It may be worth noting he runs Online Geniuses - if you haven’t looked that up. And, as this continues to take on life it’s important for others in that “community” to be aware of the leader of that group.
Follow up on online geniuses - there are some prominent people associated with this in the testimonials [link redacted]. These include Gary Vaynerchuk,, G****** W******* (D********* CEO), and S***** G***** (T***** Marketing VP). Might be worth reaching out.”
(Names redacted by The Inquisition.)
And here, we see wokists’ pigheaded illiberalism summed up in one shitty sentence:
You can’t be in a community and society and say harmful things without consequence.
As Jonathan Rauch writes in Kindly Inquisitors: “People who like authoritarianism always picture themselves running the show. But no one stays on top for long.”
Jeddy on Mental Health and Masculinity
I check out Jeddy’s Instagram. This post from October 2018 stands out:
“You’re not alone”, says the guy trying to make someone a pariah, everywhere he goes, for the rest of his life.
Two months after he masterminds the vicious social murder of someone he’s never even met, Jeddy posts an autobiographical meditation on the meaning of manhood to YouTube:
Toward the end, he says, ”[My manhood is] owning my mistakes, being accountable, and having integrity.”
Neither Jeddy, Sam, nor William responded to The Inquisition’s request for comment. As of 7/14/22, Jeddy hasn’t even bothered to take the Cancellation Dossier he created offline. This comes as a surprise, if only because his full name is all over it:
Taylor Lorenz of The New York Times Sadistically Slimes a Private Citizen, Part 2
Jeddy gets another assist from Taylor Lorenz when she ACTUALLY FUCKING TWEETS OUT A LINK to the Cancellation Dossier.
The drama.
“I just couldn’t understand. Like, how could somebody from The New York Times go after me on such baseless claims?” Markovich says.
A few weeks later, Lorenz tweets the following:
The Inquisition thanks Lorenz for the inspiration to write this exposé.
Thursday, February 4, 2021 – Daytime
Yahoo and NextShark Bullshit Launder The Big Lie Into Real(-Seeming) News
It’s the day after Clubhouse melts down over The Big Lie. The woke racists have inflicted major damage on Markovich: he’s humiliated and deplatformed, unable to use the app he’s been all in on for months. And suspension aside, he’s radioactive.
Who wants anything to do with an abusive racist, after all?
But that’s not enough for Jeddy and his co-conspirators. Cancellation Dossier in hand, they hawk The Big Lie to reporters.
“They want it to be a life sentence,” Markovich says. “That’s their goal.”
Newsweek Rejects The Inquisitors’ Pitch
A reporter for Newsweek tells Markovich they’re not moving forward with the story Jeddy & Co. pitched them:
“We actually decided to kill the story. It seemed like there wasn’t really enough to go with in terms of accusations, etc.”
(Message screen shot in Appendix, Exhibit 3)
Yahoo & NextShark Join Taylor Lorenz’ #DavidMarkovichIsOverParty
However, later that day, Asian-American news publication NextShark publishes a 1,500+ word article by WAYLAE GREGOIRE. Yahoo publishes it, too.
The Big Lie has now been bullshit laundered into what looks exactly like news written by a media company that everyone knows and whose content ranks highly in Google searches.
“February 4th is when it became a life sentence,” Markovich says. “It wasn’t just some shit on Clubhouse. Up until this, my name was crystal clean. This was the first bad thing. And it was the worst, right?”
Put another way, February 4th is the demarcation line between Markovich’s old life and his new one. He even got a tattoo to commemorate this: violet for the month of February, and the Mayan numeral four:
Article Breakdown
Let’s look at a few notable passages from the article.
Gregoire acts not as a journalist, but as a stenographer for for the inquisitors, drawing directly on the Cancellation Dossier to write his article.
“Markovich allegedly also failed to reach out to any API members of the community, lumping in Japanese and Chinese users without regard to the difference in language.”
Where could Gregoire have gotten such a bizarrely misleading claim? Could it be from this section of the Cancellation Dossier?
“Did not ping or include other people from the Asian community”
Back to the article:
“Users claim that Markovich “butchered” pronouncing names of Asian users even after having asked how to pronounce them — he was, however, able to flawlessly pronounce all the English names.”
Any hypotheses on why an English speaker might have an easier time with English names?
“Visibly flustered, he allegedly claimed in front of listeners that the greeter [i.e. William] was ‘disrespecting his space’ and that he didn’t ‘have the right to speak out for Chinese people.’”
How nice that William, the CLEAR antagonist and saboteur, is now framed as “the greeter”!
Contrast that with the description of Markovich as “visibly flustered”. ON A VOICE-ONLY APP. Pulitzer-worthy stuff.
Hat tip to this line in the Cancellation Dossier:
“References the Anti-David room overtly many times and is noticeably flustered”
Back to the article:
Despite its deletion from Twitter months ago, Taylor Lorenz’ libelous tweet (bolded below) not only makes it into the piece, but also remains there to this day. Gregoire himself goes out of his way to repeat her smear:
“Markovich’s alleged past problematic behavior was also brought to light, from reports of him bullying other Clubhouse users before last night’s events to the time he allegedly told Jewish users who claimed to have experienced anti-Semitism on Clubhouse that he personally never witnessed anti-Semitism, which was seen as belittling the problem.
David is the man who told Jewish users who were subject to anti-semitic attacks that CH didn’t have issues with anti-semitism https://t.co/mQwqEgqCyc
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 4, 2021”
Waylae! Find a better NYT reporter to rip off! Jayson Blair, even!
Later in the article:
“Throughout the night after Markovich had retreated from the platform, discussions on his display of White privilege, his outright bullying of other Clubhouse members, his gaslighting, calls to cancel him, his xenophobic comments, and the triggering effects his actions had on the many POC who initially joined Clubhouse to escape the toxic culture of being ‘othered,’ raged on.”
Classic wokism: a kitchen sink of unfalsifiable bullshit, and “White” as a casual slur.
Moving on:
“By Thursday morning, the events of last night had become so popular that a Google Doc roughly recounting events began circulating on Twitter.”
Remind you of anything?
Even More Proof The Accusations Against David Markovich Are Fraudulent
The NextShark/Yahoo article claims:
“As of Thursday, Markovich was removed as an admin on Talk Club for violating Clubhouse’s Community Standards.”
“Community Standards” aren’t a thing at Clubhouse. Never have been. Like, dude, you couldn’t even take 5 seconds to check Clubhouse’s website?
Far more importantly, though, Markovich didn’t violate shit. Here are the facts.
FACT #1: Markovich is Removed as an Admin of Talk Club Because of Wokist Coercion
The founder of Talk Club (a community on Clubhouse) messages Markovich the night this cancellation goes down:
This man did what most of us would do in response to the extortive tactics of the wokists:
Nice reputation you got there: would be a shame if something happened to it…
FACT #2: Clubhouse Clears David Markovich of Any Wrongdoing
On February 3, Markovich’s Clubhouse account is automatically suspended, pending a company investigation, due to a barrage of frivolous abuse reports.
On February 17 – a full two weeks later – the company finally exonerates and reinstates Markovich:
“While we determined that your account did not formally violate our rules, we’ve received several user reports regarding the rooms which you have created.”
(Full email from Clubhouse to Markovich in Appendix, Exhibit 4)
Clubhouse is under enormous pressure to find Markovich guilty of something, but after listening to the tapes, they clear him of ALL wrongdoing.
Friday, February 5, 2021
More Defamation and Bullshit Laundering from Yahoo
The next day, Yahoo Finance publishes this article, about 10% of which pertains to Markovich. Reporter MELODY HAHM contacts Markovich for comment 9 minutes before the piece goes live.
“I hopped on at 7 a.m. PT to find several groups reeling from one man’s racist behavior the night before and later listened to Lindsay Lohan and Perez Hilton talk about a potential “Mean Girls” reunion before a surprise appearance at the end of the day from Mark Zuckerberg.”
Hahm links only to the NextShark/Yahoo article to give the appearance of substantiating her accusation, establishing a human centipede-style chain of wokist lies. She’ll link to it a second time later in the article.
But the links aren’t the only evidence Hahm is a great admirer of Waylae Gregoire. Compare this line from Hahm…
“This triggered chef Matt D******* to create a room called ‘Why’s David Markovich moderating a room dedicated to Asians?’”
… and compare it to this one from Gregoire:
“The disorganization of Markovich’s room led fellow Clubhouse user and Philadelphia-based Chef Matt D******* to create a room named ‘Why’s David Markovich moderating a room dedicated to Asians?’”
(Last name redacted by The Inquisition.)
Two more passages to compare. First, from Hahm:
“Markovich, who runs a digital marketing firm called Online Geniuses, was removed as an administrator on Talk Club for violating Clubhouse’s community guidelines, but his profile remained intact and he continued to amass followers.”
Next, from Gregoire:
“As of Thursday, Markovich was removed as an admin on Talk Club for violating Clubhouse’s Community Standards. While users have claimed he may have been suspended, his Clubhouse profile remains intact.”
The Inquisition will reserve judgment on whether this constitutes capital-P Plagiarism. At the very least, it’s a very fucking lazy regurgitation of a false claim.
Hahm also writes:
“Upon opening my app, the top conversations stemmed from Markovich. I joined one called “Safe from ‘David on Clubhouse’ - what happened?” where 150 people were discussing Markovich’s behavior in a forum hosted by three Black women who work in media.”
Why would Hahm mention this particular room? Perhaps for the same reason she mentions host demographics?
Is there any doubt that both Waylae Gregoire and Melody Hahm, and by extension NextShark and Yahoo!, went out of their way to paint David Markovich in as negative a light as possible – facts, journalistic norms, and basic human decency be damned?
In recent memory, has any other private citizen been defamed by the press this brutally for such frivolous reasons?
The only person who comes to mind is Nicholas Sandmann.
Sandmann filed defamation lawsuits against multiple outlets that targeted him, reaching settlements with NBC, the Washington Post, and CNN.
The Ongoing Damage Done by NextShark’s and Yahoo’s Journalistic Malpractice
The NextShark/Yahoo and Yahoo Finance articles are the only ones written about the Markovich Affair. Their impact is devastating. Within days, and to this day, every search engine’s results for ‘David Markovich’ looks the same:
Markovich tells me, “If you’re accused of racism in any way, and that’s findable on Google, if you want to have a career, speak to customers, it’s going to be an impossible journey. I can’t go to Google and say, Hey, by the way, Clubhouse emailed me this, and that’s just from a blog. It’s just, Oh well, like my life's essentially ruined.”
Clubhouse’s Complicity
Blake, one of the few users to hear this entire sordid affair unfold, pulls no punches when I ask him about Clubhouse’s handling: “If we’re talking about anyone who really gets it wrong, Clubhouse is who gets it wrong. Not William. Not Markovich. Clubhouse. They let somebody be tarred and feathered publicly for a nothing offense.”
It’s true. How could Clubhouse’s founders – advised by their VC masters of the universe – not intervene? It’s not as if they weren’t listening:
Why not shut down rooms with Markovich’s name in the title? Or at least restore his account in a timely manner, lest his suspension appear inculpatory?
Probably because they’re terrified the wokists might go after them, too.
Blake says, “They don’t do anything other than sweep this under the fucking rug. And what they don’t realize is that lots of people observe that and don’t fucking forget it.”
We underestimate the destructive power of social media at our peril.
“I Felt Like a Tiny Ant Shunned from Society”
I jump on the phone with Markovich in November 2021 and get the full story of what happened in the wake of his cancellation.
“I was embarrassed to show my face. Especially with clients. I wasn’t in the head space mentally and I didn’t have that confidence. So whether it was perceived or real, I didn’t have the confidence to jump on a phone call and ask people to do business or whatever. I felt like a tiny ant totally shunned from society.”
Markovich continues: “I didn’t know who knew and who didn’t. It was hard for me to reach out to people even to get help. When I’m speaking to people, I have to mention it or have to worry that they’ll find it. So it was causing me so much anxiety that I chose to totally not communicate with anyone, and to stop working, too. I closed down a program I was making a lot of money off of because I just couldn’t talk to customers.”
Why not?
“Humiliation is a very, very tough thing to go through,” he says. “It’s one of the worst parts, beside basically everything getting ripped from you.”
February 2021 slips into March. Markovich feels like a pariah in his own country, so he ditches Los Angeles and moves to Mexico. The change of scenery only helps so much as the lasting consequences of cancellation fall into sharper relief.
In April, he leaves “David” behind and starts going by his Hebrew name, MOSHE. (To avoid confusion, The Inquisition continues to use his old name).
In May, violence breaks out between Israelis and Palestinians. Markovich, barely on Clubhouse post-cancelation, starts a room called Meet Palestinians and Israelis. It becomes one of the most popular rooms in Clubhouse history.
Clubhouse tweets out gushing NPR coverage in which MOSHE Markovich is quoted and favorably portrayed!
A Silicon Valley technologist with 200,000+ followers promptly responds:
“This was a reminder that whatever I do in life, this will always follow me around,” Markovich says.
Update, 7/14/22: After The Inquisition contacted this tweeter with its findings last December, he deleted his tweet. Good on him – better late than never. However, we’d be remiss not to show you yet another tweet of his we recently came upon:
UPDATE, JULY 2022: #UncancelDavidMarkovich
There are few victims of cancel culture who have paid a bigger price than David Markovich for fictional transgressions.
He was executed without a trial in the court of public opinion. He deserves exoneration there, too.
The ongoing damage to Markovich is mostly from the NextShark/Yahoo and Yahoo Finance articles. The Inquisition continues to call for their full retraction.
In addition to those retractions, the full story of what happened to Markovich – of his innocence! – needs wider distribution. The Inquisition continues to encourage any and all journalists, podcasters, YouTubers, and even just ordinary citizens to get the truth out there.
I’ve still never met David Markovich, but everything I’ve learned about him so far is that he’s a uniquely resilient guy. A fighter. Loathe to be a victim.
But 18 months post-cancellation, it’s clear that thanks primarily to the fake news just a Google search away, Markovich still can’t move on with his life.
The publication of this article in December 2021 was a step in the right direction toward exonerating Markovich, but the honest truth is, it failed to catalyze sustained coverage from a critical mass of established actors in media to fully #UncancelDavidMarkovich. (That said, many thanks to people like Andrew Sullivan, Peter Boghossian, Pamela Paresky, and Benjamin Boyce for signal boosting the story on Twitter. See next section.)
That’s the main reason The Inquisition is now redoubling its efforts with the release of several podcast episodes / YouTube videos – our inaugural content in those mediums – that is far more comprehensive and compelling than this article, proving both Markovich’s innocence and the sinister behavior of his inquisitors.
Episode 1, to be released in several days, is called TAYLOR LORENZ: HATE HOAX HYPOCRITE. You can find the links here and on our Twitter page once they’re live.
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David being Jewish doesn't make him non-white. There are idiots who believe those two things are mutually exclusive, but like I said, they are idiots.