“Militant pro-trans organization” hacks UK Free Speech Union and exposes its backers

Individuals who donated £50 ($67) or more to the Free Speech Union (FSU), a UK-based membership organization, have had their names publicly listed online. The organization was hacked by trans activists, who blame it “for defending bigots.”

The list of the FSU supporters has been made publicly available on Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit whistleblower site.

The UK-based FSU is a membership organization that aims to protect people from censorship or retribution for expressing lawful opinions. It was founded in 2020 by journalist Toby Young, a member of the House of Lords known by the title “Lord Young of Acton.”

However, according to the data leakers, the FSU is “a group associated with far-right activist and eugenicist Toby Young.” The leakers’ website describes the hack as targeting “fascists.”

The FSU was hacked by an activist group calling itself Bash Back, which also posted the leak on its own website.

“They work to protect transphobes, racists, and anti-choice ‘activists,’” claims Bash Back.

“They move heaven and earth to defend every sexist, racist, and transphobe that crosses their path.”

The FSU’s website has been disrupted and currently displays a temporary landing page with a notification and a crowdfunding campaign to cover the losses.

“We’ve temporarily disabled our website following a cyberattack by a militant pro-trans organization that openly boasts about breaking the law and encourages its supporters to steal hammers and take ‘direct action’ against members of parliament,” the website reads.

The FSU also states that it has identified the hacker, is working with the police, and is also pursuing civil damages.

What’s in the leak?

The leak contains full names, date and time of the donations, the amount, type, whether it is a single donation or a subscription, payment method, and also the comment left by the donor.

“Keep up the good work. Please help Reform and Tories with free speech policy – we need protections as strong as the USA,” one of the comments by the supporters reads.

The full list contains 3171 individual transactions – some donors have made more than one transaction.

Some of the largest donations come from individuals with significant influence in UK public life, including figures from national media and politics. The largest donation in the list is £25,000, and there are also dozens of four-digit donations.

Bash Back claims that the data includes donations of £50 or more since January 26th, 2024.

“We have no way of verifying/validating these names, so take that into consideration,” the hacker said.

“The FSU decided to make the very... interesting choice of using WordPress for their website. Sadly for them, we like fucking around and found a vulnerable plugin. That meant we could access their donation records without any authorization.”

According to the Telegraph, FSU was granted an emergency injunction by the High Court, and Bash Back was banned from publishing the list of donor details. However, the data had already been disseminated publicly

What’s the gang’s motivation?

Bash Back states that its motivation is to use “direct action” to resist what it sees as the oppression of transgender people in the UK.

“Organizations that promote transphobic rhetoric – from banning hormones and puberty blockers, to confining us to or defining us out of categories of woman and man, to promoting conversion therapy and facilitating hideous harassment campaigns – should come to expect us,” the website reads.

With the leaked data, FSU also released a press release listing and blaming the most notable donors.

While the FSU describes itself as non-partisan, some critics characterize it as aligned with right-leaning causes.

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