A 3-Year Campaign to Coerce/Intimidate Us Into Censorship: Targeting Guest Writers (Intimidation)
When did Neil stop/start intimidating gay men who write online?
TODAY'S part is relatively short and straightforward to write. All we wish to show is some incident where the serial defamer sought to intimidate a guest writer, Ryan Farmer, who has been a regular in our IRC network for over 15 years! Yes, 15+ years!
Why would he do this? Why would Neil Brown help him? Is this their idea of diversity and inclusion? Ryan Farmer is a gay man and I assume Neil Brown knew that. The serial defamer knew this for sure. Why pick on him? Bad optics.
Some high-profile people have told me that the serial defamer is a "monster" (their word), so why would Neil Brown wish to help him?
The problem is not limited to Ryan either; they tried again when we published the articles from Daniel Pocock, but that's a subject to revisit some other day.
My wife and I have been subjected to years-old campaigns of harassment online and offline because we merely reprint or give a voice to certain people. Do we deserve this? Put another way, is there anyone out there who can give them a voice without receiving similar (or worse) harassment?
Are we living in China?
Do we?
Do we want to?
This site is almost 18 and it has always attempted to publish material other sites would not (despite them being based on facts). We want to give suppressed facts (or opinions) a voice. Does Neil Brown have a grasp of what free speech means?
Either way, the absolutely hilarious aspect here is that Neil Brown and the serial defamer were talking in public about using Signal (yes, two fools basically confirming to the whole world they would use encrypted chat to discuss legal matters of a nature already revealed in the public "toot").
You cannot make this stuff up!
This is very "two-digit IQ" territory.
What sort of sane person coordinates this thing in public toots anyone can openly access, even without a Mastodon account?
This boasting-in-public culture is a big liability for both of them. The harassment by the serial defamer is very trivial to demonstrate because of this spontaneous, care-free behaviour. The reflexive "tweets" and "toots" didn't age well and posting like 1,000 tweets with numbers in them (to make scrolling harder) does not interfere with Twitter searches, so this is another "two-digit IQ" moment! Maybe it is implicit recognition that deep inside he realises he wrote very many bad things that can make him liable (legally).
When you give away the true intentions, calling bullying "funny", what do you expect law firms and judges to think? Oh yes... "hahaha, very very funnnnnny!!!"
"For the lols!"
Anyway, here they are talking about how to effectively intimidate a gay person.
I saw some more toots in there back then, so they seem to have deleted these communications since then (or took them private, but I took notes and made backups).
Clearly not the sharpest pencils in the box. Here they are even named explicitly ("neil"), so one can sense the absence of context, i.e. revisionism:
@mjg59 there is @neil who seems to be up for fun things and is well-versed in many topics, you'll have to ask for his rate though and see if it fits your budget :-)Edit: see neil's reply for tone clarification
The emphasis above is ours.
Here's the partly-deleted thread:
Notice Nicolas Dandrimont in there. He must be very upset at Daniel Pocock for exposing him bringing a girlfriend, (mis)using "diversity" funds [1, 2]. His sole desire is to suppress/censor uncomfortable information.
This was months ago and someone explained to me that he did this (after some advice from another bully) just to "scare you" or, the way I see it, he was trying to somehow imply I was fully accountable for anything another person (in the US) ever said, even if it's just some guest post expressing an opinion.
At this point I should also note that, as rather expected all along, this censorship attempt intensified or escalated when embarrassing but factual material came out amid attempts to deplatform (i.e. silence at DNS level) Mr. Pocock's writings. They just waited to "pull the trigger", but they lacked any real legal basis.
The law is designed to protect the innocent, not just to empower eager bullies with money to spend on "fun things" (quoting the above).
There's some collective interest in the details; this is why he pursued this further, likely to protect his buddies at Cambridge and elsewhere from unfavourable coverage. Either way, the serial defamer was talking to some lawyer (Neil Brown) in the UK over Signal.
It should be noted that the term "serial defamer" did not come from us. Other victims of this "serial defamer" contact us, claiming they too have been the victim of his defamation, set aside the horrible things he did (for Microsoft) to computer users everywhere. There's a long history to it (12+ years).
At worst, the bullies can slow us down a little. We're not only innocent; as my wife stubbornly says, "WE ARE THE VICTIMS!"
In this case, while trying to fix some 30-dollar home appliance to save money, he reckoned he can look big and dangerous (and well-funded) but in reality he was putting together pots of money, maybe popping a pension fund decades early, just to get a "funny" sort of "revenge" against someone he despises (and his wife). Oh, look how much he respects women...
It was only a short time later that I received this E-mail (almost certainly drafted by or with Neil, including the typos!).
To quote:
Query about poster on your website
Hi Roy,
https://techrights.org/o/2023/07/30/matthew-garrett-collaborator-and-conference-pervert/ is a post on your website that contains defamatory claims about me. Under section 5 of the defamation act of 2013, you are not liable if someone else posted this. However, if you did not post it, you are required to provide me with the details required to contact the individual who did post it - therefore, within the next 48 hours, you are required to provide me with the name and contact details of the individual who did post it, since the available details do not provide enough information for me to bring action against the poster. Failing to do so would result in you being liable for the content the section 5 of the defamation act of 2013.
The post in question is allegedly posted by "Ryan", and includes the assertion that "His latest antics are to set up sockpuppet accounts and repeatedly post about being a “dope dealing n******”". This statement is untrue and unsupportable. It falsely asserts that I have set up sockpuppet accounts, and falsely asserts that I have posted about dealing drugs while using racist terms. Providing me with the poster's name and email address is sufficient to satisfy your obligations under the law.
Failure to provide me with this information will, under section 5 of the defamation act of 2013, prevent you from asserting a defence that you did not post this defamatory content. In the event that you do not feel that this is not a compliant notice, section 4 of the defamtion (operators of websites) regulations of 2013 require you to notify me of which requirements have not been met.
You may contact me via email at mjg59@srcf.ucam.org.
I took a look at the post in question (again). Nothing wrong with it, that just shows someone writing about Web browsers, the Web, and then expressing an opinion along the way (about someone who boasted/bragged that going to conferences for sex is OK, anything else would be "missing out"; he also implied in his Web site he'd do coding for "sexual favours").
Anyway, I never responded to the above E-mail. I never responded to anything from Mr. Garrett at all. I don't speak to serial defamers and bullies.
This E-mail is phrased to scare the recipient, but it is Neil talking under the name of Mr. Garrett, working at the behest of Mr. Garrett and his Debian/GNOME friends who seek to cover up what Daniel Pocock had exposed and basically silence online critics. That's the way I see it anyway.
The intimidation did not stop there. Stay tuned for the next part. █