Brave Rape Victims Come Forward to Condemn Sarah Jeong of the New York Times

Sarah Jeong

Sarah Jeong, newly hired at the New York Times, is a racist who stripped a rape victim of her anonymity.

In my previous article I exposed how newly appointed New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong had doxed a rape victim, knowing that the act would trigger harassment of her. I further revealed that when the allegations were put to the New York Times they did not deny it, and I quoted their response in full. Now brave victims of rape and childhood abuse have come forward to condemn the New York Times, its leadership and Jeong.

Matthew Hopkins News uses tracking software to track media inquiries. This enables me to see how many times an inquiry is displayed. My initial media inquiry to the New York Times was viewed nearly 800 times after being sent to a single press officer – over 600 in the first 90 minutes after being sent. It is clear that the NYT realises how comprehensively the story destroys their narrative of Jeong being a victim of racism and online trolls.

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The New York Times fears this story. My email about this to a single press officer was read nearly 900 times, the first 600 of those in 90 minutes. Readers are asked to please share my last article and this one with every Conservative publication you can.

I was incredibly grateful to users of /r/the_donald (T_D) and /r/KotakuInAction (KIA) for sharing my last article. The story needs to be the “next thing” about Jeong in the national and international media after the racism allegations. Readers are encouraged to share it with their favourite national publications because this is what the NYT fears. T_D and KIA were not the only subreddits to see my article however. Reddit is home to communities made up exclusively of victims of rape and abuse.

One brave victim chose to express her feelings in /r/adultsurvivors/. It is harrowing reading –

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Reminder: Racist NYT Board Member Sarah Jeong Doxed a Rape Victim, Opposed Revenge Porn Criminalisation

Sarah Jeong

Sarah Jeong, newly hired at the New York Times, is a racist who stripped a rape victim of her anonymity. Picture CC-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Recently, newly hired New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong has come under hire for racist tweets. The racism however is by no means her only Twitter faux pas. In January 2016 Jeong doxed a rape victim by identifying her. In the United Kingdom, naming a victim of sexual assault is illegal unless they waive their right to anonymity. In the United States it is not usually a crime to name a rape victim, but it is one of journalism’s stronger moral taboos and most ethical journalists will not. Of particular note, Jeong republished the identity of the victim in a blog post knowing she and her husband objected and knowing that Newsweek had taken it down. The Times did not deny the allegations, but did appear to distance Executive Editor from the hire, claiming he had nothing to do with it.

In the United Kingdom and many other states rape victims are entitled to anonymity. In the UK, naming a victim of rape is a crime under s1 and s5 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 unless they waive the anonymity. In the United States it is merely unethical but although the Supreme Court has upheld a First Amendment right to deviate from the norm, it is generally considered serious ethical wrongdoing.

Sarah Jeong had been involved in an argument over the content of an online article, which had contained a link that Jeong felt trivialised a rape threat. The dispute was covered in Newsweek’s “Today in Tabs” section. A woman (I have deliberately anonymised) wrote a letter to Tabs complaining about the article and revealing her status as a rape victim. The author of the piece, Rusty Foster, published the letter claiming it was “in the interests of fairness”. After complaints the letter was taken down on ethical grounds just leaving the woman’s legal concerns.

The rape victim’s anonymity was restored. Until in January 2016 the woman’s identity was republished on Jeong’s blog. At the time, I contacted the victim via her husband and respectfully requested permission to write about it, which was granted. In my article I also wrote about Jeong’s friendly online interactions (archive) with Sarah Nyberg, who claimed to be a white nationalist paedophile (archive). I linked to her Jeong’s express opposition to revenge pornography laws (archive).

As my earlier article noted, quoting her, Jeong realised her blog post would lead to the victim being harassed all over again and in that knowledge posted her name. She also despicably accused the husband of using the woman’s victim status as a “weapon”.

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PC Gamer’s Lawyers Clarify Andy Chalk Article on Jessica Price, Do Not Allege Harassment

After the dismissal of writer Jessica Price from MMO developer ArenaNet on 05 July 2018, the media had a feeding frenzy. One particular article by Andy Chalk in PC Gamer quoted Price in its headline as calling her firing an ‘active solicitation of harassment’. After representations from Matthew Hopkins News, PC Gamer parent company Future PLC have conducted an investigation and now their lawyer has clarified that, “[…] For the avoidance of doubt, Future does not allege that [Arena Net CEO] Mr O’Brien is guilty of the criminal offence of harassment […]”.

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Jessica Price, fired ArenaNet Developer, has a history of inappropriate media posts such as this one about the death of popular Youtuber “Total Biscuit”.

In fact the sacking of Jessica Price was unsurprising. Price had not only been rude to a popular fan of the firm with no provocation, but had a history of inappropriate social media conduct including celebrating a cancer victim’s death. What is disturbing is the behaviour of a small number of gaming journalists who have enabled her to vilify the company by giving her complaints a platform, including Andy Chalk at PC Gamer and Ben Kuchera at Polygon. This can only reflect adversely on Vox CEO Jim Bankoff and Future PLC CEO Zillah Byng-Maddick.

On 23 April 1991 jewellery chain CEO Gerald Ratner gave a speech about his products in the Royal Albert Hall. It destroyed his business. Joking, Ratner described his jewellery as “total crap” before going on to say that an earring sold by his firm was, “cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn’t last as long”. The speech wiped £500 million off the value of the company leading to Ratner’s departure as CEO. In the modern world of social media and instant communications, companies are even more vulnerable to the instant destruction of their brand by inappropriate communications by employees.

On 3 July 2018 Jessica Price, an writer at Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet opened a thread about writing for characters in online games. A well known streamer @DeroirGaming, made an innocuous comment –

“Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story’s narrative design;”

He went on to suggest branching dialogue as an option. In response, Price posted the following, embedding his tweet –

“Today in being a female game dev: “Allow me–a person who does not work with you–explain to you how you do your job.””

Price was accusing Deroir of sexism for a polite suggestion on a public platform. The essence of this argument was that he was demeaning her experience as she was an experienced writer and he a mere plebeian unqualified to comment. By this argument, no ordinary fan could ever comment on a game to a developer without demeaning them. Unsurprisingly this gratuitously rude absurdity, which demeans real victims of sexism and abuse, was not accepted by the game’s fans.

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Persecuted Bakers Vindicated in United States Supreme Court

I am entitled to equal rights under the Equality Act 2010. Does that mean I should be able to go into a local halal or kosher butcher and demand a pork chop? Should I be able to demand the local LGBT t-shirt and craft shops print me a t-shirt with Leviticus 18:22 spelt out in rainbow colours? A similar question was asked of Christian bakers who disagree with gay marriage for religious reasons and were asked to spell out a message contrary to their fundamental beliefs. Now the cake shop owner who stood up for their religious beliefs has been vindicated in a historic 7-2 victory in the United States Supreme Court. The ruling bucks a sinister left-wing trend to compel conduct, with extreme social justice warriors recently arguing for compelled sex under discrimination laws.

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This Wedding Cake bears a message – which may amount to protected speech for the purpose of the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission is a pivotal case in United States jurisprudence. In 2012 the eponymous cake shop was visited by two homosexuals who wished to get married and asked for a custom cake. The owner refused to create a custom cake as they felt it would violate their Christian faith, although they were welcome to buy any other standard goods in the shop.

The couple sued successfully in the Colorado Courts but yesterday the Supreme Court overruled. The arguments used and the reasons given were extremely technical and worth examining in detail.

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100K in a Day – Dankula Appeal Fully Funded!

Markus Meechan

Markus Meechan, AKA Count Dankula. Image CC-BY-SA 30 extracted from video by Bunty King.

Yesterday morning, I reported on and supported the appeal fundraiser set up by Markus Meechan, AKA Count Dankula. He was asking for £100,000. Seeing the importance of the issues at hand, supporters fully funded that goal in a day. At the time of writing he is currently over £140,000. This is gonna be a gold-plated, diamond-encrusted appeal.

Dankula has been convicted and fined for the absurd crime of making a comedy video in which he sets out to annoy his girlfriend by training her dog to make Nazi salutes in relation to Nazi phrases. The scene is reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch and to be brutally honest I never found Monty Python that funny. Even the dead parrot sketch.

However, I would never expect the police to rock up to someone’s home for a poor taste joke. There have been hundreds of comedians making Nazi jokes over the years. Remember, “‘Allo ‘Allo!”? The involvement of the criminal law in a bad taste joke is deeply sinister, and has been condemned by many including Ricky Gervais, the Independent and the Spectator. I set out some of the legal issues in my previous article.

All that said – a hearing in Sheriff’s court in Scotland is roughly the same as a hearing before a district judge in a magistrate’s court in England. An appeal would usually cost a few thousand pounds. With this budget he had better have the best Queen’s Counsel in Scotland and buy them a golden wig.

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Back Dankula’s Appeal (and a British Bill of Rights)

Markus Meechan

Markus Meechan, AKA Count Dankula. Image CC-BY-SA 3.0 extracted from video by Bunty King.

On 23rd April 2018 Markus Meechan, better known as Count Dankula, was sentenced to a fine of £800 for the publication of a YouTube video. In the video he had trained his girlfriend’s dog to raise its paw in what was meant to be a Nazi salute.

The case raises serious issues of free speech. I have to say when I go looking for comedy, I do not go looking for people training dogs to salute Hitler. I had never heard of Dankula until this controversy. Having said that, I do sometimes go looking for Monty Python. Remember the corpse eating sketch? The Life of Brian? Or what about this sketch by Stewart Lee and Richard Herring?

Should we really be criminalising bad taste jokes? Even the left-leaning Independent and other major publications like the Spectator say no.

The question that prompted this article though, from several people, is – can Dankula appeal? He has a GoFundme seeking appeal funds here and has raised £70,000 at the time of writing. I suspect that he will exceed his target by the end of the day. Readers may wish to contribute. Will he succeed? Is it worth it?

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Nasty Labour MP Ellie Reeves Singles Out Female Civil Servant for Public Criticism

Continuing her recent charm offensive, Ellie Reeves MP has taken the unpleasant step of criticising the female Chief Inspector of Prisons, Glenys Stacey at a parliamentary select committee and then singling her out by sharing the video on her timeline on Twitter, without including the woman’s reply. Reeves has frequently complained of the treatment of women on social media.

Ellie Reeves MP

Ellie Reeves MP supports women in public life by publicly criticising a very successful female civil servant but not including their reply. Click for full size.

Reeves’ Tweet is here and its archive is here. She is apparently concerned that Dame Stacey said she might have fewer time commitments than a younger woman. Reeves thought this might undermine women in the workplace. Of concern to me however is that the video clip she shared does not include Dame Stacey’s reply. Under the circumstances I thought it was only fair for me to share the full section and in particular the response.

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After Speaker’s Corner, Tommy Robinson Should Man Up and Sue

TommyRobinson

Tommy Robinson – I do not agree with him, but he should not be silenced in this way.

I do not agree with the EDL. I am a Conservative and I do not agree with everything Tommy Robinson says. However, the destructive attempts to undermine his rights to free speech by preventing him speaking at Speaker’s Corner threaten our democracy. Even Marx and Lenin were allowed to speak at Speaker’s Corner. Yet, Robinson was stopped by police and non-UK activists Lauren Southern, Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner were denied entry to the United Kingdom.

The law is set up so police can get away with low grade intervention – that is, talking to people and asking them to do things not technically within their powers. However, now the authorities are clearly overreaching and Robinson, Southern et al should sue.

UK police often seek to use persuasion to resolve problems. Some are reasonable but others go too far – often under pressure themselves from politicians or others. Police will invent imaginary powers or exercise real ones with willful perversity. Such actions tend to evaporate in the face of a complaint and letter of claim, particularly if you are reasonable and keep your temper. I usually do not name police officers because when they overreach it is often in the face of a powerful complainant. For example last month barrister and MP Ellie Reeves complained about a media inquiry I sent her. After discussion, police took no further action and silence descended from Reeves.

There are those who will be instinctively hostile to Tommy Robinson. They need to realise how dangerously far the envelope of free speech in Britain has been restricted. Robinson’s views on transgender persons are more liberal than the hundreds of Labour Party feminists who are threatening to resign if the Labour NEC allows male-bodied-persons on all-women shortlists. He is more liberal on Islam than the Women’s March 2018 who walked through London to protest the encroachment on their rights, “Feminists March against Sharia Law, Gender, and Patriarchy”. He is more moderate on Islam than the LGBT group, “Gays Against Sharia”. Continue reading

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Lauren Southern, Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner Denied Entry to UK – Can they Bring a Judicial Review? (Yes)

LaurenSouthern

Conservative Commentator Lauren Southern – Image via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY Unported License.

In a further recent example of the increasingly sinister interference with free speech demonstrated by the United Kingdom authorities, Conservative activists Lauren Southern, Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner have been denied entry to the United Kingdom. Whilst I disagree with some of their policies, some points they raise are valid and critically they are peaceful political critics who do not advocate violence. Persons denied entry to the UK are frequently told that they have no right of appeal. However, it is possible to bring a judicial review or claim under the European Convention on Human Rights, which may be appropriate in this case.

In the UK, sinister attempts to use criminal law against political opponents are on the rise. In 2015 I received a written apology from the police. They had given me a police information notice for harassment, but it was revoked when I served a letter of claim and a police complaint. The apology and formal rescinding of the PIN is at the bottom of my article here.

Last month I wrote an article about Labour’s Ellie Reeves MP entitled, “Ellie Reeves MP and the Corpses of Children”. Ellie Reeves contacted police and accused me of harassment. I received a call from a Police Constable but as the article relates, no action was taken and after a brief discussion with the Detective Inspector, it was confirmed in writing that no action would be taken and no harassment warning was given.

Last week Brittany Pettibone, Lauren Southern and Martin Sellner were banned from the United Kingdom using poorly written official notices. Of particular concern, Southern was detained under under section 7 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000. Ms Southern intended only to interview a controversial political figure, Tommy Robinson.

As a Conservative I do not necessarily agree with their views but it has to be said of each of them that they have specifically repudiated violence and promote their concerns via lawful democratic means. The intended interviewee, Tommy Robinson was a founder member of the English Defence League (EDL) but he left it because of extremism.

The criticisms they raise of militant Islam are similar to those raised by UK newspapers, the National Secular Society and indeed numerous feminist women’s rights groups who fear that women will be treated poorly under Sharia law as per this YouTube video, “Feminists March against Sharia Law, Gender, and Patriarchy”, from the Women’s March 2018.

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Ellie Reeves MP and the Corpses of Children

Last year Ellie Reeves MP was one of a number of current and former politicians of all parties asked to help with a bipartisan campaign against a hate group targeting children. Ellie Reeves, who is associated with right-wing faction Labour First, alone ignored the requests. Subsequently two children were brutally murdered. I sent Reeves a draft article about it and she complained to police claiming my media inquiries were harassment. Initially I was spoken to by a PC but when I politely explained she had never replied to object to contact, other than automated emails, a DI wrote back confirming no formal action would be taken (including no harassment warning). The police do not consider this article a criminal matter. I will not name the officer or force and note that I am active around the country in different places. Statements to police are privileged but if she repeats any such allegations in public, I am likely to bring defamation proceedings.

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Ellie Reeves MP. Official Parliamentary photo released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

I remember Ellie Reeves from 20 years ago, when we were both Labour Students. So, last year when I discovered she and other mutual acquaintances had been targeted by trolls I got in touch and offered my assistance. Sadly, my attempt at bipartisan cross-party kindness was not returned.

Ellie Reeves was asked to assist in a cross-party campaign against a hate group that targets children. Grant Shapps MP (Conservative) agreed to assist, John Hemming (Liberal former MP) agreed to assist and even Brendan Cox (Labour) had agreed. Ellie had not replied – except automated emails. Grant even wrote to me saying he had tried to find her in the Commons but not been able to get hold of her.

I emailed Ellie Reeves on 9 November 2017. I sent her a couple of reminders warning her children were being targeted. Margaret Pless, a left wing American writer wrote to her on 11 November 2017 and on 7 December 2017, two children were murdered by a member of the hate group, William Atchison, who walked into a school and started shooting. Ellie had been under no obligation to assist, but she was the only person who totally blanked us. As I said I remember her from University but there was no ill will between us as far as I know (except I had joined the Conservatives).

The campaign Reeves had opted out of was to eliminate a trolling forum called Kiwi Farms. Kiwi Farms, which is owned and operated by former Florida resident Joshua Conner Moon states that its goal is “gossip” and “exploitation” of the mentally handicapped.

The forum essentially targets vulnerable people, celebrities and its opponents for cyber-stalking. This includes collecting images of victims’ children. On a satellite board also owned by Moon, members also distributed paedophile-murder-rape stories about pre-teens of the same age. Moon has a detailed knowledge of the law relating to sex crimes and realized that stories about child rape, unlike photographs, are not illegal to possess. Therefore Moon allowed a board called, ‘/phile/’ on his website 16chan for the distribution of child rape stories.

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