THOMAS A. CLARE, P.C.
tom@clarelocke.com
(202) 628-7401

10 Prince Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
(202) 628-7400
www.clarelocke.com
October 24, 2018

By U.S. Mail & Electronic Mail
Matt Rivitz
REDACTED

Re: Legal Hold Notice: Obligation to Preserve Evidence of
Tortious Acts
Dear Mr. Rivitz:
I write on behalf of my client, Breitbart News Network, LLC. As you of course know,
Breitbart has been the target of a months-long smear campaign by the online activist group “Sleeping
Giants.” It has recently been revealed that you are a founder and leader of this group. My client is
considering potential legal action against you, and we therefore demand that you preserve and retain
certain documents in your possession that may be relevant to potential civil claims.
These include potential claims concerning unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices
intended to cause Breitbart economic harm. We believe that Sleeping Giants has sought to deceive
the public and, in particular, purchasers of online advertising, by making false, deceptive, and
disparaging claims about Breitbart and the news content it publishes — including, among other
things, accusing Breitbart of distributing “anti-Semitic” propaganda, of promoting “white
supremacy,” and of being a “neo-Nazi propaganda” website.1 Sleeping Giants has directed these and
similar deceptive and misleading statements to companies that purportedly purchase advertisements
appearing on Breitbart’s website — and has encouraged its members and others to do the same2 — in

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The official Twitter and Facebook sites for Sleeping Giants have continued to publish these and similar statements
about Breitbart on a near-daily basis since late 2016. See, e.g.,
https://www.facebook.com/slpnggiants/photos/a.1801761530066488.1073741828.1799342366975071/209331420
0911218/?type=3&theater.
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These efforts include providing a script for members and followers to use to contact companies and demand that
they cease advertising on Breitbart.com.

 an effort to drive advertising revenue away from Breitbart, and to solicit donations3 and sell Sleeping
Giants’ branded merchandise.4
As you well know, Breitbart News is none of those things. It is the 48th most trafficked
website in the United States (according to Amazon-owned Alexa), the 3rd most trafficked news site,
and the 15th highest engagement Facebook publisher in the World (according to NewsWhip).
According to NPR, it is read every morning by the White house Chief of Staff. It is, in short, an
influential, conservative-leaning news outlet that is read by millions of Americans every day. But
Sleeping Giants’ campaign has never truly been about purported anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism,
which Breitbart has always and will always continue to condemn; rather, it is about Sleeping Giants’
desire to stifle speech that does not adhere to its narrow liberal politics. The oft-repeated accusation
that Breitbart is “anti-Semitic” is particularly revealing and farcical, given that Breitbart is a
demonstrably and staunchly pro-Israel website that was founded by two Jewish men. Moreover,
according to a 2017 New York Times Magazine piece, Breitbart’s masthead is notably diverse and
international, and Breitbart has a strong record of promoting women and minorities — including its
lead defense correspondent, the national security editor and the copy chief, all of whom are women
of color, as well as the editor of its entertainment coverage, who is an African American man.
Unlike Breitbart, which has always been open and transparent about its political point of
view because it has nothing to hide, Sleeping Giants has falsely portrayed itself as an apolitical
grassroots movement of citizen-consumers that is simply trying to provide information to companies
that advertise online. But the claim to be apolitical is belied by the facts that Sleeping Giants only
targets conservative media, and that it was created in direct response to the Republican successes in
the 2016 elections. In reality, Sleeping Giants is a highly-orchestrated, partisan campaign whose
organizers have proven willing to use deception and harassment to achieve their goals. This
campaign appears to include the development and utilization of software applications that created a
master list of companies whose ads may or may not have appeared on Breitbart and encouragement
of activists to target them. Many of these lists were apparently compiled through the use of
automation software and bot accounts, designed to mimic human browsing behavior and trick
advertisers to unwittingly serve online ads to a bot. These bots were also designed to screenshot each
ad that was served to them. This deceptive practice enabled Sleeping Giants and its activists to
misrepresent themselves as customers of a company and members of an advertising audience. After
tricking companies into serving ads to a bot, Sleeping Giants pre-packaged these screenshots into
tweets that its activists could then send to companies along with a complaint about that company’s
ads appearing on Breitbart. Given that most internet advertising is designed to target individual
consumers rather than specific websites, companies perceived these tweets as customer feedback —
even though in many, if not most, cases the activist sending the tweet never actually saw that ad on
the Breitbart website. As if these deceptive practice were not enough, Sleeping Giants and its
supporters then decided to accelerate their illicit activity by developing an “automated” approach
through which, at the click of a button, an individual could automatically have up to ten of these
software-generated messages appear on their Facebook or Twitter account daily — each directed to a
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https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/867033146625146881.
https://cottonbureau.com/people/sleeping-giants.

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 different company and accompanied by the false claim that the individual tweeting or posting the
message was a potential customer who saw that company’s ad on Breitbart’s website and was
outraged by it. Sleeping Giants and its co-conspirators utilized these fraudulent practices with the
intention of harassing companies that purchase online advertising with tweets and Facebook
messages regarding Breitbart in order to intimidate those companies into “blacklisting” Breitbart
from their online ad buys — even though, in many cases, the persons sending the tweets were simply
blasting out auto-generated tweets and messages and had never even seen that company’s ads on
Breitbart.com.
We also suspect that the leaders behind the Sleeping Giants group have committed these
fraudulent and deceptive acts in conjunction and coordination with other members of the
advertising and ad tech worlds for an additional, improper commercial purpose. Namely, we suspect
that communications in your possession will show that Sleeping Giants and its secret network of
supporters have sought to promote their shared business interests by tarring Breitbart as a white
supremacist and hate speech website, while simultaneously seeking to promote their own online
advertising marketplaces that claim to better promote “brand safety” by “blacklisting” Breitbart from
online ad buys, thus helping advertisers to avoid unwittingly becoming the target of a Twitter mob
outraged by the websites on which a company’s ads appear.
Although, as stated above, the group and its organizers have long attempted to conduct these
tortious actions behind a veil of anonymity, a recently-published article identified you, Matt Rivitz,
as the founder of Sleeping Giants and the acknowledged proprietor of its social media accounts.5
That same article noted that you have long worked in online marketing and advertising. Notably,
after your identity was involuntarily disclosed through investigative reporting, you claimed that you
hid your identity and role with Sleeping Giants as an act of humility in order to “keep this about
the mission rather than the individuals involved.” But your past, conflicting explanations for hiding
your identity tell a different story. For example, in January 2017, an individual identified only as a
Sleeping Giants “founder” — who cited biographical details specific to you — told the New York Times
that Sleeping Giants was conducting its campaign targeting Breitbart’s advertisers anonymously
because “some members of the group work in the digital-media industry.”6 Similarly, in March 2018,
a Sleeping Giants “spokesman” acknowledged to GQ that “the people behind Sleeping Giants”
elected to remain anonymous because they “work in marketing-related fields” and their targeting of
online advertisers “might be perceived as creating some kind of conflict of interest.”7 These frank
admissions, made at a time when you and your supporters in the ad tech world expected their
identities to remain a secret, are extremely revealing and hint at a hidden and improper commercial
motivation behind Sleeping Giants’ deceptive practices targeting Breitbart. It appears that the
reason you and your backers did not want their identities known was because it would have revealed
their shared economic interests and deceptive practices.

5

http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/16/sleeping-giants-founder-rivitz/.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/how-to-destroy-the-business-model-of-breitbart-and-fakenews.html.
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https://www.gq.com/story/sleeping-giants-breitbart-nra-interview.
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 These unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices may give rise to civil liability both for you
and the members of the online advertising and ad tech worlds that you coordinated with. These
potential claims include, but certainly are not limited to, claims relating to violation of California’s
Unfair Competition Law (Business and Professions Code Sections 17200, et seq.), fraud, violation
of the Lanham Act, tortious interference with contract, and tortious interference with prospective
economic advantage.
In light of the above, this firm has reason to believe that you have in your possession materials
that would constitute discoverable evidence in potential litigation. Accordingly, you are hereby
directed to preserve — and not to destroy, conceal or alter — any paper or electronic files, other
electronically stored information or data generated by and/or stored on your computer systems,
portable electronic devices (e.g., Blackberrys, iPhones, Android devices, tablets, etc.) and storage
media (e.g. cloud accounts, hard disks, USB drives, CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, backup tapes, etc.),
relating in any way to the Sleeping Giants organization, its social media accounts, its servers, its web
domains, its actions and statements with respect to Breitbart, its fundraising, merchandise sales, and
expenditures, and its communications with members, supporters, and other third parties.
Without limitation, these materials include communications by and among, you, Sleeping
Giants and/or anyone acting on behalf of you or Sleeping Giants, and the following persons and
entities:
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Any and all advertising agencies
Any and all advertising networks
Any and all advertisers
Any and all reporters
Any and all industry publications, e.g., AdAge, AdWeek, Digiday, et al.,
AdStrike
500 Startups
Reboot Democracy
Meghan Larson (REDACTED)
Rob Leathern (formerly CEO of Optimal and presently, Director of Product
at Facebook)
Brian O’Kelley (CEO of App Nexus)
Mark Perlson
Josh Dorf
Blythe Lang
Lawrence “Larry” Rivitz
Jan Rivitz
Tyler Magnusson
Melinda Magnusson

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Britton Taylor
Media Matters for America
Democratic Coalition
Center for American Progress
Think Progress
Southern Poverty Law Center
Facebook, Inc.
Twitter Inc.
Google LLC
Amazon.com, Inc
Angelo Carusone
Any and all George Soros-backed persons or organizations
Marketing Initiative LLC
Open Society Institute-Baltimore
Open Society Foundation
Bet on Baltimore
Green Street Academy
Dent Education
Center for Urban Families
Jennifer Rosenberg (REDACTED)
James Kelly (Partner, Ketchum Public Relations)
(REDACTED)
Kevin O’Connot (REDACTED)
Joseph Savitz (REDACTED)
Deb Simonds (REDACTED)
Clare Lochary (REDACTED)
Josh Dietz
Dr. Caroline Heldman
Shannon Coulter
Scott Dworkin
Devin Sharkey
Craig Mangan
Mike Sweeney
Andrew Rasiej
Lionel Carreon
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Crystal English Sacca
Steve Silberman
Nicholas Reville
Jeff Jarvis
Professor David Carroll
Justin Hendrix
Craig Silverman
Anil Dash
Pagan Kennedy
Nathan Phillips
John Gruber
Phil Kaplan
@supermisha
Mikhail Rutman
Elisabeth Sylvan
@barret_williams
@changetheconvos
@stopfundinghate

The types of documents and communications to be preserved include, without limitation,
paper documents; email and other electronic communications; word processing documents;
spreadsheets; presentation slides; databases; calendars and calendar entries; diaries; meeting notes;
telephone logs; Internet usage files; social media posts, accounts, and direct messages, offline storage
for information stored on removable media; information contained on laptops or other portable
devices; and network access information.
You must preserve all documents, data, and electronically stored information relating in any
way to the topics set forth above. Electronic documents and storage media on which they reside
contain relevant, discoverable information beyond what may be found in printed documents.
Therefore, even where a paper copy exists, you must retain and preserve all documents in their
electronic form along with metadata or information about those documents contained on the media.
You must also preserve paper printouts of only those documents that contain unique information
created after they were printed (e.g. paper documents containing handwriting, signatures,
marginalia, drawings, annotations, highlighting and redactions) along with any paper documents for
which no corresponding electronic files exist.
The laws and rules prohibiting destruction of evidence apply to electronically-stored
information in the same manner that they apply to other evidence. Due to its format, electronic
information is easily deleted, modified or corrupted. Accordingly, you must take every reasonable

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 step to preserve this information. This may include, but would not be limited to, an obligation to
discontinue all data destruction and backup tape recycling policies and procedures.
Failure to abide by this request could result in penalties against you and could form the basis
of legal claims for spoliation. You are instructed to forward a copy of this letter to all persons and
entities with custodial responsibility for the items referred to in this letter. Because we have reason
to believe that you have conducted activities relating to the above topics using electronic devices and
accounts under the custody and control of your employer, you are further instructed to forward a
copy of this letter to the individual at your place(s) of employment with custodial responsibility for
your employer’s electronically-stored information.
Very truly yours,

Thomas A. Clare, P.C.

Addresses and personal identifying information have been redacted from this letter.

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