Fundraiser for Temple student feuding with Dave Portnoy over antisemitic sign to be investigated by host site
A fundraising campaign on the crowd-sourcing site GiveSendGo has raised over $15,000 for a Temple University student intending to wage a legal battle amid his feud with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
The student, Mo Khan, was thrust into national controversy after Portnoy accused Khan of posting a video to his Instagram story showing a waitress inside the Barstool Sansom Street bar holding up a sign that read "F--- the Jews."
Portnoy initially offered to send the student on a trip to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust in response to his alleged role in the incident, but Khan declined. Instead, the 21-year-old is raising money for legal defense on GiveSendGo.
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However, a video that Khan posted on X advertising the campaign received a community note after Portnoy disputed the student's account of what happened.
GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells has told Fox News Digital the company will be "looking into" the validity of the campaign.
"We want to make sure campaigns are as truthful as possible so we take reports of disputes seriously, we have our verification team that can take a look, and we'd be happy to take a look at this as well," Wells said, admitting he did not previously know of Portnoy's dispute and the community note on Khan's post.
"It's not our responsibility or job necessarily to fact-find around every single campaign unto the nth degree, so there's a balance there, but we'll commit to doing our verification process… We will definitely commit to looking into the campaign as we would any other campaign and go after making sure it is truthful as can be placed in a platform like ours."
Wells added that if Khan misrepresented the events leading up to his fundraiser in the campaign summary, it "could be" grounds for removal of the campaign.
"It could be. I hate doing hypotheticals because there are so many variables in these situations," Wells said.
"If there are egregious examples of outright lies in campaign stories, for sure, that would definitely be a terms of service violation and something we would seriously consider for removal."
Khan claimed in his video that he had nothing to do with bringing the sign to the bar and was simply "reporting" on it. Khan also expressed anti-Israel beliefs in the rant.
"Although I had nothing to do with the sign coming out, nor do I know who did it, I know that the sign was provocative because it reminds people a lot of the unjust things that Israel is doing around the world, thus leading me to report on it," Khan said, later adding, "Israel kills thousands of people on a daily basis!"
Portnoy re-posted Khan's video disputing Khan and calling the student "a liar."
"This dude is a flat liar. I talked to him on the phone with his buddy and they both owned up to it and cried about it. He then lawyered up after speaking with his family," Portnoy wrote in response to Khan's post on X.
Khan has since responded to Portnoy on X, disputing the founder's claim that the student has retained a lawyer and cried over the phone.
The initial community note on Khan's post read, "The story is different from the story that he originally told Dave Portnoy, to the point where Portnoy called him a ‘liar,'" and included links to Portnoy's response and a New York Post article covering the exchange.
However, the post appears to have a new community note that points out a different factor in Khan's history as it relates to the incident.
The new community note now reads, "Several incidents of Mo Khan committing antisemitic acts have surfaced online, including him throwing quarters at Jewish students at Temple University." The new note includes links to an NBC Philadelphia story about the incident, but that article does not mention any of Khan's past antisemitic behavior.
Still, the new note also points out that Khan did an interview on a podcast run by Stew Peters, who is known to harbor and spread antisemitic beliefs, including operating the website "dontbeajew.com.
Temple University president John Fry appeared to condemn Khan's interview in a statement.
"Yesterday, we became aware that a student participated in an interview with a media personality who has a history of producing extreme antisemitic and racist content," Fry said. "The content of this interview was both appalling and deeply offensive. Antisemitism is not tolerated at Temple."
Temple has confirmed it suspended two students as part of its investigation into the matter. Khan has said he's been suspended by the university.
Khan has not been charged with any crime. Philadelphia police said they were gathering information about the incident earlier in the week.
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