Controversial activist Eliza Bleu set to debate 'content moderation' at Austin free speech festival

Minds Festival is hosting Eliza Bleu on a panel about content moderation at their upcoming Austin event. Bleu made headlines recently when she was accused of censorship in the wake of the Twitter suspensions of prominent YouTubers Brittany Venti and The Quartering. 

The live event, slated for April 15 at Austin’s storied Vulcan theater, will feature many notable names in the contemporary free speech movement, including Peter Boghossian, Daryl Davis, and Jack Posobiec. But Bleu is a recently new voice who is focused on speaking up against human trafficking. The celebrity she gained after speaking out about human trafficking, claiming that her empathy for the victims was based on her own experience having been trafficked, quickly turned to notoriety when she used her purported victim status to censor others. After Elon Musk took over Twitter, Bleu was commended for working with Twitter to fight child exploitation on the platform, and Musk announced that the removal of child exploitation imagery was the platform's number one priority.

"As always," Minds’ Bill Ottman told The Post Millennial, "we host conversations and debates between figures with wide-ranging views, often opposing. Minds.com the social network and our live events are built on the principles of free speech and civil discourse especially with those we disagree with. The Austin panel about social media moderation was launched well before all the stir, but now seems poised to be even more of an intense and powerful discussion given recent events. Minds Fest also features comedy and live music so we hope people come out in the spirit of celebrating diversity of thought and culture."

After Bleu made an appearance on Timcast, reading statements from alleged human trafficking victims who were accusing internet personality Andrew Tate of trafficking them, questions began to rise on social media, specifically from YouTubers, about Bleu’s background.

Threads began unfurling with insinuations and implications about Bleu’s past, lists of her former monikers began to circulate, and timelines popped up on Reddit and other locations trying to puzzle together what the internet knows of her history with what she has stated in recent months.

One item that many YouTubers found that cast doubt on Bleu’s story was a music video in which she performed on in 2016. That video, from World Star Hip Hop, opens up with credit reading "WorldStar presents Eliza", while Bleu, who then went by Eliza Knows, dances provocatively. Bleu has said she is currently 41, which makes her 34 in the video.

Bleu gave an interview about that video shortly after it was released, speaking with pride about her performance, and how grateful she was to be in the video. In it, she said that she had approached the director and asked to be considered, and was overjoyed when she was cast in the video. Bleu said she was excited to work with the director, and that she appreciated the camera he used, which was top of line. She further said that her parents hadn’t seen the video yet, and intimated that the video had a lot of her own ideas and "vision" in it.

Several YouTubers posted stills of Eliza from that video on Twitter. Bleu felt that the Twitter posting of images that were publicly available on the rest of the internet was a violation. She reported the posts to Twitter, and Twitter had the allegedly offending accounts locked pending deletion of the posts. 

"I’m going to address this one time and one time only," she posted on January 20. "A non-consensual photo was posted of me yesterday on Twitter. The photos have been removed. The source of the photo has also been contacted and I’m preparing to escalate to the full extent of the law. Twitter did an outstanding job and will be excluded from legal action." 

She did not say outright that she had danced in the video against her will, nor did she say that she promoted the video under duress, though she later had the World Star video removed from YouTube. World Star issued a statement saying that Bleu, then Knows, "was paid for this video and we own full rights."

When backlash erupted after the accounts were locked for posting publicly available images, Bleu again addressed the controversy, and her actions. She redefined the concept of being trafficked to include having others share photos of her online that were from a publicly available video performance she seemingly willingly gave and publicized.

"I haven’t asked for a censorship of words etc. Any screenshot or repost of the World Star video specifically can get your account in trouble on multiple platforms. These are not my rules and it’s not a threat I’m just letting you know because there is confusion," she wrote. She criticized the motivations of those who posted the videos, Tweeting that she felt exploited anew after the images were shared.

"I felt so digitally sexually exploited on a massive scale that it’s hard to articulate," she wrote. "My body & trauma has once again provided funding for others personal gain. The only thing that I can possibly think to do is to turn this pain around to help others in similar situations."

The next day, she posted "Today, I have decided to change my story as a survivor. I have been abused a third time on a massive digital scale. It’s called Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA.) Every individual who knowingly profited off of this content without my consent has become my abuser in my story."

In her view, the posting of the images constituted abuse, and was further exploitation. "You didn’t fight censorship, you fought to exploit me," she wrote. "Nude/partially nude sexually suggestive content without my consent. If you would have asked, I wouldn’t have consented. You believed that I consented previously so you decided to take my body & use it for your gain."

She alleged that sharing the photos "made me a victim again," and that claims countering her allegations that she had not been sex trafficked were now moot because the sharing of the images was, in essence, sex trafficking. 

When and if Bleu takes the Minds stage to address the topic "How To Moderate and Decentralize Social Networks" alongside panelists Ian Crossland, Luke Rudkowski, and Steven "Destiny" Bonnell, she will most likely have to face some pressing questions from panelists and audience. There will be an open, uncensored Q and A.