Gil Duran Faked A Quote For the New Republic
Then they stealth edited the piece. They knew they'd committed libel.
UPDATE: Duran’s fake quote got hit with a Community Note!
Gil Duran’s fake quote was just hit with a community note. Here’s the link to 3:19:51 of the original video, so you can see for yourself.1
Sure, the lie got around the world — but the truth now gets its boots on. Because everyone who liked, replied, or reposted his tweet just got a notification informing them of the actual context.
The New Republic is in crisis
This is shaping up to be another Shattered Glass-scale disaster for The New Republic, at a time when they can least afford it.
The New Republic editor is @mtomasky, their CEO is @MichaelCaruso, and their editor-in-chief who lost the $34M is Win McCormack (whose public email for contact is info@winmccormack.com). Maybe you can ask them why they've decided to let Gil Duran endanger their entire publication? Libel is not a profit-maximizing activity.
The original piece is below.
How Gil Duran Committed Ethics Cleansing
Years ago, the New Republic published a series of false stories that were so egregiously fake that a movie was made about it called Shattered Glass.
Now it’s happening again.
A “journalist” named Gil Duran just committed a act of ethics cleansing. He posted a fake quote, monetized the traffic, and then stealth edited (v1, v2, v3) his lies days later without running any correction — hoping you wouldn’t see the change!
This is so egregiously unethical that even people who dislike me saw immediately that it was literally libelous:
Fortunately, we have Twitter. Gil Duran faked around — but you found out. So read this piece, then fact check his fake quote with a Community Note.
The Details
Here’s what happened.
A Democrat operative named Gil Duran — who was apparently fired from the San Francisco Examiner after making up stories in similar fashion about Michelle Tandler — recently posted a fake headline complete with a fake disclosure, and then consciously hid the replies that pointed out his lies. His libel got many views on Twitter and spread to Hacker News, Reddit, and Threads. Then the New Republic stealth edited the fake quote in his article…multiple times (v1, v2, v3)…after they’d monetized the traffic…without publishing a retraction!
A genuinely insane series of events. Let’s take it in turn, starting with the fake quote.
I. THE FAKE QUOTE
In the fake quote, Duran claimed I’d called for “ethnic cleansing”. But as you can see at 3:19:51, I actually said that largely Asian technologists — like myself! — are being ethnically cleansed out of San Francisco by a Democrat establishment that has legalized crime, including brutal attacks on Asians. To address this, I called for Democrats to be pushed out of power in the city via non-violent political warfare.
Now, you may not agree with my point of view. You may think random murders of immigrant engineers like Hanako Abe by Democrat-released criminals are just part of living in a big city. But you have to admit the New Republic completely inverted the meaning of what I said. In fact, Duran’s lie was so egregious that even people like Glen Weyl who strenuously disagree with me noted the libelous misrepresentation warranted an immediate correction!
After this, the New Republic knew they were dead to rights. So first they stealth edited the headline. Then, later, they stealth edited the body copy. Here’s the v1, v2, and v3. Obviously, the multiple stealth edits betray mens rea — guilty conscience.
They knew they’d faked around and been found out.
II. THE FAKE DISCLOSURE
But the fakery actually goes deeper than that.
As mentioned, the author of the article is a guy named Gil Duran. Duran spends his time fruitlessly attacking just about anyone in tech who’s critical of California Democrats, from Elon Musk to Garry Tan. And in his disclosures under these articles, he says only that he’s a “journalist”:
But in reality, Duran is a lifelong Democrat operative! He’s been paid by just about every major California Democrat —including Kamala Harris, Jerry Brown, Tom Steyer, Dianne Feinstein, and Antonio Villaraigosa — to help them gain and maintain power. He’s thus one of the people most responsible for the descent of California into feces, needles, and bankruptcy. That’s why he endlessly attacks anyone who criticizes California Democrats. And — very consequentially — in those New Republic articles he conspicuously omits any disclosure that he’s ever been paid by California Democrats.
He does brag about it when he’s soliciting consulting money, though:
I mean, to understand what’s going on visually, Gil Duran was once paid by just about every California Democrat, and now spends his time attacking just about every California Technologist:
That’s three indisputable propositions:
Gil Duran received past payments from California Democrats
Gil Duran attacks current critics of far left California Democrats
And Gil Duran didn’t disclose those past payments in his recent attacks
The question then arises: is Gil Duran currently being paid by California Democrats to astroturf attacks on their critics? Did one of his patrons like Tom Steyer get tired of these tech guys speaking up — and order a hit? Someone should find out.
Regardless: Duran is a Democrat when he wants to collect consulting fees and a “journalist” when he wants to lie to the public.
III. THE FAKE DISCOURSE
After Duran posted his fake quote, several people pointed out he was making it up. He hid all these replies, because he knew he was lying. All he cared about was maximizing the traffic! See for yourself:
Then, a few days later, after The New Republic realized they might have a libel suit on their hands, they stealth edited (v1, v2, v3) the headline and then the article.
But hiding the replies fits Duran’s MO. He’s all about faking the discourse in the name of “framing” the discourse. He even admits to it on his blog: to not reply to critics, to block rather than engage. He calls Elon a Nazi, he calls Substack Nazi, and he attacks everyone in tech from Michelle Tandler to California Forever.
Why? Because he wants California Democrat Forever. He wants a one-party state in the name of democracy. His entire life’s work is about ending democracy in the Golden State, in the actual sense of competitive multiparty elections, as you can see here:
Duran even admits this too! He proudly writes about turning San Francisco into a one-party state where "no Republican has been elected in decades.” Whatever this is, it ain’t democracy:
And that’s where the rubber hits the road.
Democrats like Duran hate democracy. They’re about as “democratic” as the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. They built a one-party state by driving Republicans out of California and into a permanent minority through a conscious multi-decade strategy. They gained total political power only to bankrupt the Golden State, steal millions for toilets and billions for trains, and literally cover its beautiful cities in feces and trash.
Their only possible remaining competition within California comes from tech. And that is why they hate us.
IV. THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION
Just to recap, here’s the level of fakery we’re dealing with:
The New Republic has faked stories before
Duran also faked a story before on Michelle Tandler
Duran was apparently terminated from the SF Examiner for that fake
Duran faked his disclosures, hiding his highly relevant past payments from California Democrats in articles that attack critics of those self-same California Democrats
Duran faked the quote on ethnic cleansing
Duran even hid the replies pointing out he’d faked the quote!
Then, days later, the New Republic stealth edited the article multiple times (v1, v2, v3) without publishing a correction.
I mean, come on.
This is the pathetic state of California Democrats, journalists, and legacy media. They’ll make things up to cling to power. This is why tech must check their power. Fortunately, with social media we can rebut their lies. So if you want to help, add a Community Note to Gil Duran’s libelous post. Point out how the New Republic silently changed (v1, v2, v3) their false headline without running a correction.
They faked around.
Make them find out.
Hope this is the last time mr Duran gets to do this. Folks like him belong in jail cells not mastheads.
Community vote affixed and voted up to correct his ‘error.’