#online harassment

This story is worth telling because it just keeps getting better.

And by better, the meaning is “worse”.

You might want to catch up on the 10 Everyday Information Warfare Tactics You’ve Already Fallen For - and the case of the AltSciFi zine project (the number has grown to 15 tactics, with examples illustrating how they’re used).

Here’s a timeline of the past year or so:

1. Our Tumblr blog reaches ~1,500 subscribers (unlike AltSciFi Twitter, the Tumblr follower count is not curated, so many followers are probably bots). The AltSciFi Tumblr blog has several hundred posts accumulated over at least four years.
2. A prototype of the AltSciFi gallery/store site is posted to GitHub. Four out of 15 pages have working PayPal links, but the site is obviously not complete. Hint: it’s on GitHub – a site for programming and web development, not e-commerce; 11 pages have no links at all.
3. The attack begins on Twitter. An artist finds the GitHub site. The artist (we’ll call her “MiraKillian”) does not contact AltSciFi, but instead creates a Twitter slander/libel attack about how AltSciFi is “stealing art”. This attack spreads across social media. Many artists on Twitter use copyright-trolling this way to earn “clout”. In this case, MiraKillian is a member of a gang called “The (Twitter) Artist Community” who obsessively Like and Retweet each other’s posts to get more magical “clout”. Ironically, the Like/Retweet game rewards the best narcisssists and biggest bullies who rise to become “Influencers”, some of whom act like megalomanaical miniature Harvey Weinsteins lording their imaginary status over less-popular followers who beg for “signal boosts”, prostrating themselves to win the Influencers’ favour.
4. AltSciFi is accused of “promoting” the unfinished site via Tumblr. The Tumblr blog’s homepage is the only one that links back to the Github site, since that page was used for testing Tumblr’s layout. The Github pages that have PayPal links aren’t connected anywhere on the homepage at all – meaning that no one could find them in any case. (And in case you’ve ever tried to sell anything via social media, it’s a complete waste of time unless you have an extremely specific niche, or ten of thousands of followers. AltSciFi had neither of those, since we haven’t publicly marketed, promoted, or launched the zine yet.)
5. The slander/libel attack reaches GitHub. One sci-fi makeup artist whose work was posted to the AltSciFi Github test site submitted a mostly-false DMCA takedown notice. GitHub never investigates, but rather automatically posts all DMCA takedown notices. This creates the illusion of “guilt” – but also puts the makeup artist in legal jeopardy for libel based on her own gullibility.
6. A few months later, MiraKillian’s name appears above the title of a cyberpunk webcomic created by a popular artist (we’ll call her “Miirai”) who has been publicly scammed quite recently. Miirai has built a public persona around being shy and trusting, which makes her the perfect target for yet another scam. This time, MiraKillian has taken over drawing Miira’s webcomic along with one other artist, while Miirai herself begs her followers on social media for money to “support” the comic due to repetitive-stress injuries (art is hard work). That is a well-known tactic called a “sympathy scam”.
7. The slander/libel attack reaches Reddit. Nona goes on Reddit and creates a topic to ask, “would you raise funds to help Miirai get proper medical attention for her injuries?” One of Miirai’s new “team” appears and lies that Miirai is still creating art for the cyberpunk webcomic herself, which contradicts what she wrote on recent entries of her own blog about being disabled due to her injuries.
8. The slander/libel attack poisons a Reddit community. A day later, Miirai herself shows up and defends MiraKillian, making up a conspiracy theory about how a fake Patreon account claimed to be her – therefore it must have secretly been AltSciFi! And the idea about her being scammed is “fake news”! (Note: a key tactic in any scam, obviously, is to gain the confidence and complicity of a vulnerable person.)
9. The slander/libel attack poisons a subreddit’s moderators. The subreddit in which this conversation takes place starts arbitrarily deleting Nona’s posts about the topic. Nona quickly narrows down exactly which moderator was likely the culprit based on who was active on Reddit when the most recent post was taken down, and asks a different moderator to deal with it.
10. Instead of disciplining the culprit, the moderator starts bullshitting, trying to make the problem about Nona instead. Nona contacted the moderator using a relatively new account to create distance from the attackers who are on Reddit. The moderator used that as an excuse, saying “creating alt accounts and posting about the same thing repeatedly is ‘suspicious’.” The mod also lied that adding links to further information about the incident was “spamming”, and intentionally misinterpreted Reddit’s rules (do not post the same comment repeatedly) to mean, “do not post about similar topics more than once”.
11. The Reddit admins do nothing. Nona messages the Reddit admins. A week passes. No response.

Note: on that same subreddit, Nona previously posted a topic about the zine, and a well-known copyright troll appeared, spamming the comments section. After Nona reported the troll’s comments, Nona was banned for “spamming the moderators”. So Nona wrote a blog entry about it, and two years later, another artist commented on the blog that they were dealing with the same idiot. It’s been _two years_ and the moderators of that subreddit are still allowing the troll to use their sub as his personal toilet for trolling. So much for “just ignore the trolls.”

So you can see that as this story unfolds, it shows how much of a sham the idea of “free speech” really is on social media. Tribalism by a small, aggressive group of motivated (and mostly illiterate) bullies (the “Artist Community” on Twitter, who are actually just a few hundred idiots who are heavy Twitter users) spreads into an internet-wide disinformation campaign.

TL;DR The fallacy of “free speech” on the modern internet is a question of what is deleted or people who are bullied into silence. You can’t know what’s missing if you never see it in the first place.

Sounds like the perfect starting point for a dystopian sci-fi story, doesn’t it?

The AltSciFi project is now fully dedicated to the fight against misinformation, disinformation, internet bullying and copyright trolling. The AltSciFi concept is only the beginning. We are here especially to support members of maginalised communities online (nonwhite, women, LGBT as well as non-neurotypical and older users). A safe and empowering internet for marginalised users creates a better internet for everyone.

If you want more information about ongoing and upcoming efforts to help independent artists and fans like you to create a better internet, send a DM – or email altscifi at tutanota dot com.

P.S.Keep fighting for net neutrality. If we stop fighting, copyright trolling will become multinational corporate law, and the open web will effectively cease to exist. In other words, welcome to a real cyberpunk dystopia. The only way to stop that from happening is to create a better future for ourselves, since no one else will do it for us.

Every conversation naturally reaches its end, when you realise that you’re repeating what you’ve already said.

Now is that moment for the Twitter-based slander campaign against AltSciFi.

Since the facts have been revealed to show that their claims are nonsense, the campaign’s perpetrators are using desperate last-ditch attempts to distort the meanings of facts themselves.

Thankfully, those distortions are easy to spot, and that’s what this blog entry is all about.

Beyond this blog entry, there’s nothing else to say about the slander campaign. That snake can only continue to eat its own tail from here on.

One good outcome of this situation is that AltSciFi is now also dedicated to helping artists protect themselves against being taken advantage of online – that includes dealing with copyright issues intelligently without harming other artists or fans, and protecting themselves against being slandered by malevolent groups of trolls. Both of those are major problems on the web and in social media especially. AltSciFi can now speak about both from the perspective of first-hand experience.

Distortion #0.

Distortion #0: “Your faux intellectualism is a continual self-perpetuating narrative stroking your overinflated ego.”

Aside from being a tortuous sentence of near-gibberish, its creator barged into a conversation that was about helping another artist in order to post this little gem of muddled prose. Talk about an overinflated ego.

Here’s the more insidious point, though. This frames any attempt at self-defense by AltSciFi as “a continual self-perpetuating narrative.” Notice how it not only ignores the fact that this “narrative” exists to fight back against people like him who slandered AltSciFi – it also pretends that any attempt by AltSciFi at defending itself is due to “overinflated ego”. This is a classic tactic used by emotional abusers, called “gaslighting”.The term gaslighting has also been distorted and misused in service of slander, as you’ll see below.

Distortion #1.

“Look,we all know you stole and tried to steal art….”

This is a rhetorical gang attack called an appeal to popularity. Whenever someone says “we all know that…” or “everybody knows…” without presenting any evidence, you know they’re probably lying (or being manipulated, as someeone has lied to them and they chose to believe it).

Distortion #2.

“The facts were presented prima facie...”

This is an amusing attempt at legalistic jargon that backfired completely. “Prima facie“ means “at first glance, without further investigation“. Facts presented ”prima facie“ are not evidence until you discover the story surrounding the little bits of data visible at first glance.

Distortion #3.

“…you don’t get to backpedal and cite them as rumor because it’s convenient in painting your side as just.”

The “facts” are detailed at length, here (click here). Read them yourself; that was the whole point of writing the blog entry.

Notice the tactic here: they can’t disprove the facts, so they try to distort what the facts mean. AltSciFi has never needed to “backpedal” nor cite facts as rumours. Read the blog entry for yourself. These are the facts.

Distortion #3.

“There was so much evidence presented by multiple parties involved…”

Wrong. There was only one incomplete AltSciFi website, on a site for web development, with four pages that a few people mistakenly believed were “selling art”. The rest of the slander story was based on a complete lack of “evidence” (because there was no “evidence” to be found, and never was any). This distortion unintentionally reveals the problem itself: no one knew what they were taking about before trying to slander a project that hadn’t even started yet. Even worse, no one bothered to ask before jumping on the slander bandwagon. That was the scary part. Everyone swallowed the rumours and no one asked for the context surrounding the “evidence”. The excuse given was “it’s not my job to find facts”. Wrong again. That’s always your job – also known as basic adult critical thinking. Facts are meaningless without context.

Distortion #4.

“…and your interactions with them that the public lambasting your project received was justified.”

Notice the grandiosity here. “The public lambasting” refers to a campaign that began with a few bored artists on Twitter, starting with one who manufactured a disingenuous “white knighting” campaign – a borderline conspiracy theory to save the “The (Twitter) Artist Community!”  – that turned out to be factually false and full of nothing but mean-spirited trash-talk.

Distortion #5.

“Be careful what you post AltSciFi, the art community doesn’t soon forget.”

Yes, darling, thank you for the reminder that these blog posts were written and posted publicly for a reason. Nice little stalkerish implied threat, there, too.

Notice how the person impersonates “the art community” when in fact, his “community” is a few artists on Twitter who took the opportunity to loudly bully a group they knew nothing about. That phrase should read “the art community (of bored idiots on Twitter with deficient reading comprehension skills and too much time on their hands that would be better spent creating art)”.

Distortion #6.

“The easy shortcut you could’ve done is to just say "hey, I was wrong, I’m sorry, I’ll fix it.” and then fix it. But that’s not who you are and not what you did. Quite the opposite in fact. “

As usual, completely wrong. From the very first conversation on Twitter, even before the slander attack began, AltSciFi apologised for mistakes made – but also held the artist accountable for her decision to send a mob of Twitter users instead of finding out the facts first.

The original tweet is timestamped 7:36am - 17 Jan 2018:

[Λ•]ltSciFi - @altscifi_  - Jan 16

Here’s the grown-up perspective: We both made mistakes here. You made a dramatic mess for no reason. And the bit about a strawman is nonsense because you’re just misusing the word, along with "gaslight” and “victim-blame” in a victimless situation.

Followed by:

[Λ•]ltSciFi - @altscifi_ -7:41am - Jan 17 2018

Your reaction was valid, yes. As a professional, it makes you look like a bitter spoiled child to act like a Twitter bully, misleading hundreds of people, instead of simply finding out what was actually happening. Are you adult/professional enough to accept your responsibility?

And:

[Λ•]ltSciFi - @altscifi_ -8:27am - Jan 17 2018

Don’t pick a fight, and you’ll get a very different response. When you talk about being a professional, does a professional send a Twitter mob against people? Or is that a juvenile thing to do? Ask yourself what response you intended to get.

Unsurprisingly, she gave no answer to these questions.

Since the perpetrator is a narcissist (and quite likely a sociopath, given recent events involving another artist),  the mere possibility of her not being seen as “saviour of The (Twitter) Art Community” only enraged her further. She couldn’t admit her own mistake, and instead dug herself in deeper.

—

So now you see the tactics behind this game of rumours, distortions and lies.

For the artist being taken advantage of by the perpetrators of this slanderous mess, AltSciFi only has one note of caution. It applies equally to all indie sci-fi artists and writers, perhaps including you:

Be careful who you call “friends” – especially if you paid them before they befriended you.

Beyond that, the slander campaign is now eating itself; AltSciFi will play no further role in it. There are more important things to do, and hopefully you’ll join us. In the meantime, enjoy creating art. We’ll have more exciting news to share soon. :)

I’ve been harassed and bullied severely through personal messages and reblogs in the last couple of days. Who did it were not some bad people. Instead, just the way it often happens, they were those who thought I was the abuser and they were not. Their picking on me was justified by what they thought of me.

They hoped I’d get abused. They told me there was no place for people like me on Tumblr. They thought I was diagnosed with sociopathic tendencies. They called me sick sociopath. And so on, because there are usually no limits to hate when it erupts. This time it was triggered by a post dated back to 2015.

This is the real face of abuse. It’s not about some malicious people deciding to abuse someone and calling it abuse. It’s about people who in their self-righteousness think they are too holy to commit abuse, so they indulge themselves in anything they want. Especially if there’s an enemy, someone bullying and harassment of whom they think will be perfectly deserved.

If it’s against someone they for whatever reason consider bad, then it’s justifiable, because that person deserves it. Like one of the bullies said, it’s OK to punch Nazis. They see no problem with both punching someone and punching someone based on some superficial arbitrary judgment. If they think you are a Nazi, then they will allow themselves to do anything. Nobody is immune to becoming a Nazi in their eyes. This is how hate works.

I never frequented this blog, but I plan to keep posting some screencaps now and then. I also plan to do so without fear of being harassed and bullied. This is the time and this is why I need support now. So you are welcome to send me a couple of kind words of encouragement.

On February 11th of this year, I was walking home from a job interview. I saw CancerChaser pass by a block, so I turned away and backtracked to walk away to make sure to let him pass first so I can get home safely. I turned around and I saw that he was gone. I took a look at a corner to see if he nearby and I saw him talking to someone. As soon as I saw him I started running home. I never followed him.

3 days later (February 14th), I was at a local park. There was a Palkia raid in Pokemon Go that took place at the park. The park in question is a few blocks away from both my location and CC’s, it is also on the opposite direction of CC. The raid in question started around 6:26 PM and I went in with my local raid group around that time. I have logs of the group chat to corroborate this, in fact. After we have finished the raid, I noticed CC on the street side of the park while I was sitting on the bench around 20 feet away from him. Right after that I put my head down and focused on catching Palkia. After catching Palkia, I noticed CC was gone and I left further in the park away from the street.

February 19th CC sent me this harassing email. Only noticed it now (March 5th) because I periodically check if CC sends me emails in case he happens to do so. I never respond only keep the emails to document.

CancerChaser’s latest email

“Stop subscribing to me on Youtube you nasty, FAT ASS WHALE “

I am not subscribed to him on YouTube. If I am, which account is it? Why would I subscribe to someone who exploits me, harasses me, and sends me bullying messages like this unprovoked? I have him blocked everywhere. Why would I subscribe to a local stalker like him? Especially if he tells me I was never good to him.

Calling me a nasty fat whale in Caps. What a strong moral character. No way toxic at all. Gotta love the fat ass shaming, despite 2 years ago wanting said butt.

“You are a deranged stalker, “

You cannot have a CancerChaser moment without projection. That is like a modern Nintendo platform without a Mario game. I never sent any messages to him since 2017. Yet calls me a stalker. Again, I have not sent messages to him calling him a “nasty, FAT ASS WHALE” or “ I was a good friend to you, but you were NOT to me!”  or calling his phone to tell him “ Go F*** Yourself.” . The only solid lead he has is that he has seen me on the streets, but that is highly probable because we live several blocks from each other. I make sure to avoid his street at all costs. If the bus I board passes by his home, I make sure I am 4-5 blocks away when I stop and go further away from his street on my way home. I know where he lives, so if I was really stalking him, he would likely catch me there. Never closer to where I live or anywhere else.

“I saved all of the threats that your “friends” sent me on Facebook and I will be contacting the police if it persists.”

Very interested in those “threats” received on Facebook. Interesting choice of words. Also gotta love the quotes around friends implying I have none despite meeting one of mine IRL.

“I know people in the [redacted] Police Department, so you had better watch yourself you pathetic ass wannabe b****!”

As you can probably tell, this is a poorly done intimidation tactic. Seriously, the email he sent me was pointless. If he was actually serious, he would send me nothing. He would go straight to the police. He knows my info so he can get the cops if he has strong proof to warrant my arrest. If he really knows people in the local police department and he brings up his side of the story of me “harassing” him, they would tell him that to not engage with me and to not divulge information about this, like what he is doing on the email. The insults at the end also do not help his cause, either. Making threats like that is shooting himself in the foot.

This creep will never stop. I doubt he knows about this blog yet. Nothing that points to it is referenced at all. Again, I never have interacted with him after the last email in 2017. Very odd that he said absolutely nothing after April 2018 but suddenly get an email in February 2019. I suspect that he was waiting long periods of time to get at me over and over and here it is. As stated in Chapter 9. I totally called it.

dear-mirah:

I hope the Tumblr staff​ can get their crap together and see what is happening under their noses this evening. 

How to defend yourself from harassment on Tumblr 

How to Track IP Addresses of Anonymous 

Tumblr suicide watch

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