Category Archives: Human Rights

Cloudflare and Kiwifarms: An Ominous Cloudflare Executive?

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KiwiFarmsTwitter

Kiwi Farms is run by paedophile sadist Joshua Conner Moon and exists to harass the disabled. Click for full size.

#DropKiwiFarms has been trending on Twitter for some time now. The movement seeks to shut down Kiwi Farms – an evil website that this site has been campaigning against since 2016. Members of the campaign have been pushing for support services and providers to terminate the site – in particular Cloudflare. Cloudflare has today released a response (archive) that many have interpreted as a veiled refusal – essentially saying that it is dangerous and not their job to ban websites. In this article I muse on and recap on some of the Kiwis worst hits and recount a disturbing rumour about Cloudflare that some readers might want to look into. It is alleged that a particular Cloudflare user is a Cloudflare executive.

Kiwifarms markets itself as for, “gossip and exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes”. Users of the site would defame and manipulate persons with serious disabilities living in the community – female members would even meet them and record ‘dates’ for cruel entertainment. The most well-known victim of the site was Christian Weston Chandler (CWC or Chris-chan), a vulnerable autistic man, now known as Christine whose life became a goldfish bowl – almost a real-life Truman-show. CWC is currently on trial for alleged incest with his mother. He is innocent until proven guilty, but there is substantial evidence that Kiwi Farms users sought to persuade him to commit the act. If he is guilty, it is beyond doubt that the Kiwis bear moral responsibility and likely legal responsibility.

The campaign by Keffals has been supported by some and criticised by others. It is a source of interest to me because I have seen both sides of this argument. Suing and campaigning to silence false and defamatory speech, whilst also wanting to protect controversial speech including, for example, Milo Yiannopoulos. I do not agree with a lot of what Milo says but he did not deserve to be banned from Twitter. I have been reflecting on the moral line. What is the difference? It is this –

What would happen to me if I started a website called SamsDrugsRUs.com and sold cocaine online? I would be arrested. Any service provider that found out would ban me. I would have my door kicked in by police and spend decades in prison. There is a reason drugs markets are on the darknet. There is no country in the world where that is legal. There is no country that will enforce a contract that one party is using for illegal purposes. You can evict a tenant who is running an illegal brothel or a crack-den. You can drop a website that is engaging in copyright violations.

The line with Kiwi Farms is the blatant illegality on the site itself and the spin-offs. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not the first politician targeted in connection with the site. Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Conner Moon set up a site called 9chan where users made a forum called /leftnudes/ for stalking left-wing politicians and boasted about trying to break in to British Member of Parliament Jess Phillips’ house.

Members of sinister Kiwi Farms sister-site 9chan (also owned by Joshua Conner Moon) claim that they tried to break in to Jess Phillips' house.

Members of sinister Kiwi Farms sister-site 9chan (also owned by Joshua Conner Moon) claim that they tried to break in to Jess Phillips’ house.

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Could the UK High Court Case of Smith v Baker Determine the Delaware Case of Twitter v Musk et al and the Fate of Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde?

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Vijaya Gadde at a Fortune Event

Vijaya Gadde at a Fortune Brainstorm Tech event. Would she be such a popular speaker if she was properly no-platformed due to her allowing vile stalking and racism against a child rape victim as well as anti-Semitism? Picture by Photograph by Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm TECH. (NC License here).

On 4 April 2020, I published the article, “Twitter’s Del Harvey / Alison Shea and Vijaya Gadde Openly Back Child Rape Stalker and Anti-Semite Racist”. Multiple parties, including Twitter, threatened lawsuits. Twitter did not make good on their threats. Esther Baker attempted to do so. The lawsuit over the article, brought by Esther Baker in the High Court in London, was commenced in 2020 (before the Twitter purchase was proposed) and determined in my favour last week. The lawsuit has the potential to harm Twitter’s reputation. So, did Twitter know about it, and did they disclose it to Elon Musk when they formed the purchase agreement between Twitter and Musk currently being litigated in Delaware in the United States? Did Twitter notify Musk of the legal risks arising from the matters in this article – “Labour’s Secret Deal with Twitter and Facebook to Surveil its own members”? The article ended with an express threat to draw it to the attention of the relevant regulatory law enforcement body.

It is worth recapping for new readers. In 2020 I was covering a significant amount of what, in my opinion, was wrongdoing by Twitter. The Labour Party head office team had been using an in-house application that used their database of member emails, cross-referenced with privileged access to the Twitter API, to scan their members’ tweets for statements warranting disciplinary action. It is unclear if members’ consent was ever clearly sought for this by either the Labour Party or Twitter, or whether they were told about it. It is likely that would have been a legal requirement for processing to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The second issue was Twitter’s inconsistent handling of complaints of breaches of its rules. Esther Baker, had, at the time, been made subject to two restraining orders by UK courts. One was for libel and the other was for, in the words of His Honour Judge Gargan, “particularly malevolent” and “racist” stalking. One of her supporters, Alan Goodwin, had made plainly anti-Semitic posts including gratuitous, utterly baseless, speculation that a senior British government minister had conspired with Mossad to cover up child abuse. The actions of Esther Baker (@Esther9982) and her supporter Alan Goodwin (@Ciabaudo), followed by Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde’s failure to deal with them even after being thoroughly put on notice, were the subjects of my 4 April article.

Around 8pm on 1 May 2020, I received a letter from UK lawyers Bristows telling me that my article was libellous and there was, “no conceivable chance of defending” it as truth or honest opinion and saying it should be, “removed immediately”. I refused, and published the relevant section of the letter and mocked them in this article. I then requested further information under UK pre-action rules. Much as Elon Musk complains, Twitter were curiously reluctant to answer my questions and backed off as I detailed in my later article, “Twitter and Bristows in Humiliating Libel Climb Down”.

Extract from Bristows' Email of 6 May 2020

Bristows now claim they were never threatening to sue me on behalf of Twitter. That letter they sent me late on a Friday night was just abstract information shootin’ the breeze.

Bristows are a proper libel law firm and therefore know better than to test me in court. I stand by the article. Vijaya and her colleagues have in effect supported the actions of Esther Baker and Alan Goodwin by not banning / permanently suspending them from Twitter, when others have been banned without recourse for far lesser wrongdoing. In fact Twitter did not even remove the tweets that were the actus re of the stalking, just made them inaccessible in the UK.

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Sonia Poulton, Fake News, and Holding Herself Out as a Journalist

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On Wednesday 13 July 2022, there was a hearing in Hemming v Poulton. I was excused attendance, because although I am a party to the case the technical application between John and Poulton is nothing to do with me and also I had a medical appointment. So, I was astonished to read a highly misleading tweet (archive) by Poulton claiming the court had ‘accepted’ her objections to being described as, “someone who holds herself out as a journalist”. This is fake news.

A tweet by Sonia Poulton

Sonia Poulton’s tweet is misleading. The court has in no way accepted her objections to the phrase referred to, now made any decision on it.

What happened at the hearing is that it was originally listed before a Master but when further issues were raised late by the parties, the Master decided it needed to be dealt with by a judge and adjourned the hearing. Nothing was decided, least of all was there any decision that the phrase could not be used or was wrong, or that Sonia is a reputable journalist. Nor is it likely to be determined when the hearing was resumed as it is not in issue on the applications.

What was before the court was that John Hemming has applied to expand his claim against Sonia Poulton. Poulton objects. That is the application listed to be decided. The night before the hearing, Poulton via her barrister Richard Munden raised an issue of limitation that some of the proposed amendments relate to claims that are out of time. John via his barrister says they are not out of time but on the safe side applied for an extension of time on the morning of the hearing. With the new and technically complex material, the Master decided a judge should hear the applications.

Sonia did (by her barrister Richard Munden), object to the phrase but the court in no way, for example, told Hemming or his barrister Matthew Hodson not to use it nor struck the form of words out of Hemming’s documents. Hodson has not descended into the arena on this issue, but Hemming commented saying that the Master did not address the point at all. It is bizarre because Hemming is not even disputing Poulton is a, ‘journalist’ because it is not a regulated profession or reserved title. Anyone can stumble in off the street and say they are a ‘journalist’ in the UK. John’s pleadings at paragraph 2 say that the, “Defendant is a freelance journalist”. However, I am entitled to the opinion that Poulton is not a good or ethical journalist. There are a number of reasons and my opinion is based upon all of the facts set out in these linked articles of mine – [1] [2][3][4][5] and the matters raised in this one.

Poulton has been raising money on the cases she is involved in and statements like this to her supporters are highly misleading. It is not the first time. At a hearing last year, Poulton claimed that she had received 85% of her costs, “of the hearing” (archive). This was false. Poulton had received 85% of her costs of only one of several applications. The others had been decided differently – one she had no costs of. One she has to pay Hemming, but delayed until the end of the case. She also agreed to pay my costs and Darren Laverty’s. So her overall recovery was lower and she had to pay me. The overall effect of this order is that everyone except me lost money. Extracts from the order are below –

Extracts from the order sealed 14 July illustrate the misleading nature of Poulton's statements.

Extracts from the order sealed 14 July illustrate the misleading nature of Poulton’s statements. She got 85% of her costs on one application, lost all her costs of another, has to pay John later and paid Darren and I.

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YouTuber Ann Drogyne to be Sued?

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A Scary Legal Hammer

Allegations of serious crimes, like child rape, may not end well for the publisher when made in a non-privileged context.

The Witchfinder has been asked to assist in a possible court case, pro-bono, against YouTuber Ann Drogyne.

Recently, I have become aware of an argument between YouTuber “Ann Drogyne” and another minor YouTuber. A bit of a flame feud. I did not want to get involved because although my sympathies lie with their opponent, I cannot fight all the battles of everyone else on the internet. I was also of the view that there was an element of the old adage, “six of one, half-a-dozen of the other”.

Then Drogyne started posting calling her opponent a, “self-confessed child rapist”, on multiple websites. I have to say, that is going a bit far. From the records I have seen, the alleged rape was supposed to have occurred in 1992, 30 years ago. The alleged perpetrator was investigated at the time. They denied it at the time. Said it never happened. Police were given the names of the other parties. One can believe the alleged perpetrator’s account that police asked the alleged victim about it and the person denied it happened. No further action was taken. A journalist who repeated the allegation was later criticised by a judge for other questionable actions at the time.

The allegation seems to me to blatantly exceed the threshold in s1 Defamation Act 2013. It seems to me it will be hard to prove Truth given the contemporary denials, and the fact the only person who could possibly support the allegation, the journalist, says they cannot remember and also was criticised by a judge for other similar articles at the time. In fact, they were also interviewed by police and blamed a number of errors on sub-editors. Similarly, to use the defence of Public Interest, Drogyne would have (to simplify) show the criteria were met. The defence is not a cover-all, it is intended to cover balanced responsible reporting. I find it difficult to see how it could cover what was published.

I am also not sure about the compliance with the GDPR. Clearly an allegation of sex crime falls under Article 9 GDPR, assuming there is no exemption (e.g. domestic use, journalism).

I think there are grounds to investigate whether Drogyne has committed some civil wrongs. Subject of course to Drogyne’s right to explain or provide some defence.

After a recent video, Drogyne has today received a letter of claim from her opponent. I am providing pro-bono support. Oops. Still, perhaps they have a reasonable defence or explanation. We shall see in due course.

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Smith v Baker: Judgement Update

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BakerRestrained

Esther Baker was been handed a life-long restraining Order by Mrs Justice Steyn over her allegations against John Hemming. She agreed to lifelong restraint for her allegations against me.

The latest judgement in the turgid saga of Smith v Baker is out on BAILII. As readers will remember, I sued Esther Baker and most of her defence, as well as much of the counterclaim, has been struck out. She settled in a lifetime restraining agreement – a Tomlin Order, and I am still receiving my costs back in monthly instalments via High Court Enforcement Officers (High Court bailiffs basically). Some of the counterclaim limps on. There has been a favourable judgement on meaning. Judgement here.

By way of explanation, there is often a dispute in libel claims about meaning. The Claimant wants the court to find there were really damaging claims. The Defendant, that the claims held weaker meanings, or to find meanings that are easier to defend as Truth, Honest Opinion and so forth. So in this case the judge had a pre-trial held by written submissions, to decide meaning, what were allegations of meaning and fact, and what was defamatory at common law (i.e. what might be harmful).

Baker wanted some strong meanings. She did not get the. For example, about publication 1 (still up here) – one meaning she wanted was to say she was violent,

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Just v Moody: Doctor Louise Moody Settles, but She is Right About Harrop

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Last week I was interested to read an article by Doctor Louise Moody, which linked to uploads of legal letters she had sent claiming I had broken the law by serving ‘court documents’ on her. Not least, because forwarding an email with unsigned draft documents is not service (Bar Standards Board v O’Connor (a Barrister) [2012] 17th August, Visitors to the Inns of Court at 33) and if it is, recent case law states that McKenzie Friends are permitted to effect service for their clients, because solicitors use unqualified process servers all the time (Ndole Assets Ltd v Designer M&E Services UK Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2865, 67). She has now removed these allegations and settled with Simon.

The allegations were very serious, and amounted to an allegation I have committed a criminal offence, which Mr Just abetted and procured. After these cases were pointed out to her, she has now settled and removed the allegations, including agreeing with Mr Just never to repeat them, nor to mention him at all save to rebut allegations by third parties.

I add that I hope this matter is at an end because leaving aside this strange incident, I agree in large part with Moody on the issues of transgender identity. I feel that Doctor Harrop, the GP whose conduct was at issue in the online debate that apparently prompted all this, should have been struck off not just suspended. His conduct was far worse than Barbara Hewson’s. I take the view that drunkenly publicly swearing at your regulator as Hewson did is a slapped wrist / warning / week suspension offence.

However, in the Harrop case the GMC found,

“The tribunal considered that Dr Harrop’s actions in posting inappropriate tweets over a sustained period of time, in contradiction to the advice he was given, breached fundamental tenets of the profession.

His actions brought the profession into disrepute, undermining public confidence in the profession and the standards of conduct expected from members of the profession.”

It is amazing how many SJW ‘transgender allies’ and ‘male feminists’ turn out to engage in inappropriate or creepy behaviours. They seem to feel their beliefs justify anything up to and including stalking (that is not to say Harrop’s behaviour amounted to stalking, albeit it was found to be improper).

I would like to add again that I do not condone the @ReporterLAL account. I do agree with some of the observations and some of the, ‘victims’ clearly provoked matters but even so some of the @ReporterLAL account’s tweets I do not agree with and I distance myself from it, as does Mr Just. I expressly do not condone the comments about Dr Moody’s deceased partner.

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Dr Louise June Moody Abandons Deranged Kiwifarms Faildox of @ReporterLAL as Simon Just

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In my previous article, I wrote that I had assisted Simon Just by helping to draft proceedings against Dr Louise Moody for her allegations he was secretly running an alleged troll Twitter account called @ReporterLAL. Within days she has humiliatingly deleted the tweets complained of and is now posting extracts from a public High Court judgement (see 88 ii) on Twitter (archive) in which a High Court judge said that there are, “unanswered questions” about the “closeness” of that account to Stephanie Hayden. In which case why accuse Just in the first place? The Just / @ReporterLAL allegation strikes me as the stupidest faildox ever. Just has never written about transgender self-identification or Dr Moody and to the extent I have, I was firmly on Moody’s side of the debate!

Moody Tweets about @ReporterLAL links to Stephanie Hayden

Moody Tweets about @ReporterLAL links to Stephanie Hayden, apparently abandoning Simon Just Faildox

The @ReporterLAL account is a long-running and controversial account. It has been repeatedly fail-doxed. One incident was when Dr Jacqui Dillon accused me. Dr Dillon is the literal Chair of the Hearing Voices Network (archive). Dillon also claimed that a famous rock star, Amy Lee of Evanescence, had personally told Dillon I was a stalker, and that Lee had a restraining order against me. Lee denied this and after I brought a High Court libel and harassment claim against Dillon, acting in person, Dillon quickly and humiliatingly settled and agreed never to repeat the allegation. My article is here and the permanent restraining / settlement order against Dr Dillon is here.

To be clear, I dis-associate myself from @ReporterLAL and so does Simon Just. I agree with some of their comments about false child abuse allegations but I do not approve of all their posts and I do not know who they are. I mostly fall on Moody’s side of the transgender debate. I have had limited recent correspondence with them, via their burner email, to discuss Moody’s allegations.

The Simon Just speculation however is one of the stupidest fail-dox I have ever seen. Just has never written about transgender issues. A search of his website yields no instances of the discussions of Stephanie Hayden, Louise Moody or most of the people ReporterLAL is involved with. For that matter, this site has never written about Hayden. The only ‘evidence’ I have seen is posts on Kiwi Farms along the lines of, “hurr durr they deny it so it must be true”. Kiwi Farms is a website run by a maniacal paedophile who supported the mass shooter of 51 innocent people at prayer and gloated about it (archive).

According to Kiwi Farms, Just, that guy who never wrote about the Hayden controversy (let me Google that for you), denies involvement so it must be true. I have seen the legal correspondence between Just and Moody. In my opinion there is likely a good claim for Just against Moody. On the other hand, the posts are deleted and Moody is now posting about the account’s links to someone else, which is not far off a retraction, albeit without an apology. Hopefully, it is the last we will see of allegations it is Simon Just.

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Getting Stuffed for Christmas: Dr Louise June Moody to be Sued Over Child Abuse Allegations?

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Recently Dr Louise June Moody publicly accused Simon Just of child abuse and linked with endorsement to another account which has been accusing him of operating the Twitter account @ReporterLAL. The linked allegations further state that Just tried to frame me, Samuel Collingwood Smith as the operator of the account. Needless to say, I was interested in this and wrote to Moody inviting her to provide evidence. If she could persuade me that was true, I would be totally on her side. She has not provided a shred, so I have agreed to help Simon Just sue her, pro-bono, I have helped Just draft court forms, Particulars and a letter of claim.

As most people know, I fall firmly on Dr Moody’s side of the transgender debate. Readers may remember this article, “Why Straight Men Should Support Lesbians and Feminists Over ‘Drop the T’”. I have every reason, had she a shred of evidence, to back her against Just. She has made some pretty serious allegations. She refuses to provide so much as a morsel of evidence. Calling people a child abuser and abuser of the dead is a serious, potentially very expensive, allegation –

Dr Louise Moody Accuses Just of Child Abuse

Dr Louise Moody accuses Simon Just of child abuse and abusing a dead person, refuses to provide any evidence then emails to accuse me of aggressive and hyperbolic emails!

So, obviously the situation is urgent. I helped Simon draft a form N1, Particulars of Claim and pre-action letter. He sent these to Dr Moody and I forwarded them to her. I explained I was a law graduate, who sometimes helps as a McKenzie Friend. As I am not a solicitor, I explained she needed to deal with Simon directly (or instruct a representative to do so). Moody’s response was bizarre. She firstly said I was not a legal representative. Admitted. I am a law graduate with an LL.M LPC (Commendation). I never said otherwise.

Lay advisors are allowed to give legal advice, charge for doing so and assist with documents per the current guidelines here (paragraph 27). It makes the form N1 no less correct. It will be not one whit less valid when filed on the court computer system on Friday. In reply, she accused me of being hyperbolic. She is accusing Simon Just of abusing children and dead people and produced no evidence. Then she is saying I am hyperbolic!

Bottom line, Moody has made apparently, so far, baseless allegations of child abuse. She has failed to produce evidence to back it up (Kiwi Farms does not count as evidence). These are serious allegations capable of inciting serious harm against Just. Simon Just has reported her to police. She can apologise or Just intends to issue his claim.

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Paizo: Abuse of Female Whistleblower by Wizards of the Coast Author Jessica Price

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JessicaPrice_2021-09-26

Jessica Rice publicly attacks Tonya Woldridge, an employee of a commercial rival, in profane terms. She later reveals it is because Woldridge blew the whistle on disputed allegations Price made in a private workplace forum. Are Chris Cox, CEO of Wizards of the Coast, and Brian Goldner, Hasbro CEO comfortable with this behaviour? Click for full size. Original tweet (archive)

Paizo is a small company that makes Pathfinder, a niche competitor to Dungeons and Dragons aimed at people who prefer old fashioned, complicated rules to newer more streamlined ones. It is best known for the IP behind the Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, PC games. After the dismissal of the Paizo Customer Service and Community Manager, Sara Marie Teter, an online mob of angry extremists have been demanding change, resignations and and an independent investigation into the supposed, “wrongful termination”, despite the fact that the dismissed staffer does not appear to have alleged wrongful termination. The mob, whose anger has been fuelled by fired, former Paizo staffer Jessica Price, has focused its ire on another female member of staff. Worse, one of her explicitly stated motives was that the victim disclosed content from a “private” workplace forum run by Price. Price is now an author on multiple Wizards of the Coasts (WotC) products. MHN contacted WotC and parent company Hasbro to ask for an explanation.

Jessica Price is a contentious figure in the niche world of science fiction, science fiction and gaming. She is known for regularly criticising former employers including Microsoft (archive), Paizo (archive) and ArenaNet (archive).

Most recently, she has attacked a former Paizo employee, Tonya Woldridge, Paizo’s Director of Community – and it is not okay. The vicious attack is problematic not because of its profane nature, nor because it looks remarkably like cyber-bullying, but because her express motivation (archive) is that Tonya Woldridge made what would, here in the UK, be a legally protected disclosure about potentially illegal and immoral conduct by Price. Similar whistleblowing protections also apply in some states of the United States. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not alleging that Price has violated any US law. I am merely alleging that she is morally guilty of bad behaviour against a former colleague because of that colleague’s behaviour.

JessicaPrice_2021-09-26_B

Jessica Rice makes clear her motives for her vicious attacks on Tonya Woldridge. It is because Woldridge blew the whistle on disputed allegations Price made in a secret workplace forum. Original tweet (archive).

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Hemming v Poulton: Partial Strike Out and Poulton Faces New £500,000 Claim

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Judgement was handed down in Hemming v Poulton today. Ms Poulton is presenting it as an unqualified success on her fundraising page. In fact Hemming succeeded in having parts of Ms Poulton’s amended Defence struck out. Deputy Master Bard struck out all of Ms Poulton’s Defence of Honest Opinion and parts of her Truth defence, with further amendments likely on both sides and no end in sight. Her harassment counter-claim survives although that is not a high bar in a fact sensitive statutory tort. The hearing also dealt with a counter-counter-claim (in effect) by the 4th Party Darren Laverty. Despite the best efforts of Ms Poulton’s barrister Richard Munden of 5RB, who filed an 18 page Skeleton Argument, unrepresented Laverty got permission to bring a £500,000 (half-million) libel claim against Poulton. Finally, it was also confirmed that Ms Poulton is under police investigation for revealing the names of two underage child abuse victims in a video interview. 

Sonia Poulton Video Statement

Sonia Poulton has issued an inflammatory and misleading ‘official statement’ on the dispute. Extracted still used for the purpose of criticism and review.

Your author did not participate in the hearing today as he was working, but had it on in the background at times (like the radio!), except when having connection problems. The judgement was only an initial procedural one, but one thing that amused me was that despite Poulton engaging an expensive lawyer to rewrite her pleadings the judge still struck out parts of it. She is also not trying to prove the Truth of Esther Baker’s allegations. Anyone on hashtag #Truth is going to be disappointed.

The judge criticised Sonia’s pleas on meaning.

Judge strikes out the plea of honest opinion in the absence of specification of what that opinion was.

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