A Statement on Kiwi Farms for GamerGate and KiA

I saw a statement on KiA2 earlier, from Null, which was gaining sympathy from a very small number of misguided people, about the deplatforming of Kiwi Farms. It deserves a response. Kiwi Farms is paedophile, criminal, stalking, terrorist trash. It has nothing to do with free speech.

In 2015, whilst passing through law school, doing my GDL and later my LL.M LPC, I received a police warning for alleged, “harassment” of the Block Bot team (made up of transgender activists) in support of Gamergate. It was frightening to me, and if it had not been revoked, could have been damaging or stopped me finishing my studies. But it was revoked. Using my burgeoning litigation skills I extracted a formal rescindment and apology from Cambridge police. The police apology letter is still up in my article and I reproduce it below. In our society, boycott campaigns are legal. It is legal to write to someone’s employer to draw their attention to egregious wrongdoing even outside their job, or organise a boycott of said company. Free speech is a wide and important protection. If anything, KiA in recent years is too timid about boycott and advertisement cancelling campaigns. Free speech does not however, extend to Kiwi Farms and its satellites, which are forums for exchanging child pornography, defamation and cyberstalking individuals, including children, to death.

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The Police official rescinding the ‘harassment’ notice that had been given on the basis of allegations by Sarah Brown of the Block Bot team.

Ironically, Sarah Brown, like Keffals, is transgender. Like many, I have had to fight for my right to free speech against aggressive transgender activists. I understand how upsetting this ideology can be. Kiwi Farms and their supporters are desperate to convince the unwary that their being deplatformed is something to do with that, that it means no one can criticise transgender persons. That is a ridiculous lie. The new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, has expressed strong views and also on forcing social media companies not to deplatform Conservatives. Laws are being passed this year. Those are views she holds not just in public, but in private. As a Conservative member and blogger, I have met both candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party. Liz Truss spent a good chunk of a Christmas Party I went to last year telling us her very strongly held views on free speech and transgenderism, as well as the need to protect spaces for biological females, and the need to protect children.

That will not help Kiwi Farms. Kiwi Farms is a stalking and terrorism forum run by an avowed paedophile that does and permits things that are illegal even in 1st Amendment jurisdictions, let alone Europe or anywhere else. At no point in history has a proposition along the lines of, “Paedophiles unite for stalking! Yay!”, been legally or socially acceptable. Below, I post an exchange between Joshua Moon and Gandi.net, one of many hosting companies in many companies that deplatformed his site for hosting illegal child pornography, until he had to start his own hosting company, 1776 Hosting. Which has now had its IP addresses rescinded by the Australian government for illegal content.

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Joshua Moon claims that he did not know there was any child pornography and begs Gandi.net for just one more chance. And fails. Click for full size.

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I Voted for Rishi Sunak

Today, MHN editor Sam Smith, having met both candidates, voted for Rishi Sunak in the Conservative Party leadership election. It was a decision on a narrow balance, and should not be seen as disparagement of the other side, but here are the reasons why.

MHN Editor met Rishi Sunak at an event organised by Grant Shapps MP, in the beautiful grounds of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. Picture shows Rishi speaking to party members.

MHN Editor met Rishi Sunak at an event organised by Grant Shapps MP, in the beautiful grounds of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. Picture shows Rishi speaking to party members.

Firstly, kudos to Welwyn-Hatfield MP and Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps. Thanks to him, local Conservative party members have had the chance to meet both candidates for leader – Liz Truss at the Christmas Party and, at a lunchtime event on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak. Sunak spoke to members in a room in beautiful Brocket Hall and afterwards spoke to members in the grounds. Kudos also to both candidates for meeting members.

The beautiful grounds of Brocket Hall in summer. Auberge-du-Lac restaurant is on the other side of the lake. Picture by MHN.

The beautiful grounds of Brocket Hall in summer. Auberge-du-Lac restaurant is on the other side of the lake. Picture by MHN.

Nonetheless, how to vote was a difficult decision because neither candidate shares my view – at least openly – on the issue most important to me. That issue is the Ukraine war and the linked cost-of-living crisis. My view is that our policy is wrong. Whilst Putin may well be a deplorable dictator, the Ukraine war and the consequent global energy, economic and cost-of-living crisis is the West’s fault.

Firstly, let us be clear. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, who took power in 2019, is no heroic democrat. Forget Russian propaganda – readers need only look at what Amnesty International and the United Nations said about the Ukraine under his rule.

From the Amnesty International report on Ukraine 2021 (archive) –

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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?

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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FSU Associate Professor Heather Urbanski, WorldCon Head Listener – Has Been Accused of Inappropriate Conduct by Multiple Students – Failed to Respond on WorldCon Child Torture Materials Complaints

Associate Professor of English Heather Urbanski of Fitch State University (FSU) is also the Area Head of Listening at the World Science Fiction Convention 2021. This Orwellian title means she is in charge of the department that handle complaints about breaches of the code of conduct, including sexual harassment and suchlike. It is a title roughly equivalent to, “Head of Safeguarding”. Yet, MHN can exclusively reveal that in her work as a Professor at Fitchburg State University she has, according to RateMyProfessor.com, been accused of of improper behaviour by at least 20 of her students. If true, some of these allegations would appear to meet some definitions of abuse such as bullying or demeaning behaviour. 91% of her students on the site rate her as “Awful”. At the same time this week, she has been condemned by members of an abuse survivor group this week for failing to deal with complaints about distribution of child torture material by reviled z-list author Jason Sanford. Will FSU and WorldCon officials investigate?

Image showing on the left Heather Urbanski's current RateMyProfessor grade of 1.4, on the right her picture with the question, "Enabler?" over it.

Associate Professor Heather Urbanski of Fitchburg State University gets a grade of 1.4/5 (28%) on ratemyprofessors.com. On the site, students have accused her of improper conduct towards them that the university does not appear to have investigated. She has also attracted controversy in her role as, “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon2021. Members of a group for child abuse survivors have criticised her for failing to take robust action against Jason Sanford, “I don’t think she is a fit person to work in any kind of school […] metaphorically, it [is] like they are holding down a child to be raped and tortured.”, said one.

The current controversy over WorldCon has been brewing for years. There have always been disagreements and kerfuffles in fandom. It is an arena defined by poor social skills combined with extremely passionate interest. In recent years however, vicious political division has erupted throughout fandom such as with the 2014 #GamerGate controversy. Similar concerns have hit WorldCon, with right-wingers feeling they had to organise a slate of candidates for awards to overcome systemic discriminatory bias (archive). Concerns about inappropriate attitudes to paedophilia and child protection have also been an issue for decades and have been well-documented, for example in, “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon” by Moira Greyland and Vox Day.

The most recent scandal to hit WorldCon is its disgraceful conduct towards respected female publisher Toni Weisskopf. Weisskopf is the publisher of Baen Books, and last month was the subject of a deeply unethical and misleading hit-piece by Jason Sanford, a bad-to-awful amateur science fiction author. In response, WorldCon removed Weisskopf as a Guest of Honour, making a public statement condemning her (archive). The unjust response of WorldCon to the obviously inaccurate and misleading article led to public criticism of WorldCon and withdrawal of top science fiction authors including David Weber (archive). Weber’s withdrawal is a huge blow to Worldcon. He is vastly more famous than nearly everyone else involved. Not only is he one of the few people involved whose name I recognised, I actually own some of his books. Like, actual paper copies.

Investigation by MHN revealed that Sanford had been openly distributing and selling stories involving harm to minors and minor-bodied fictional creatures. One of these, “The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round” involved child torture and what could appear to be grooming. Some of Sanford’s supporters have been trying to minimise the stories, but complaints were made to WorldCon. Heather Urbanski is the “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon (staff list / archive), the department in charge of dealing with Code of Conduct complaints. As some feared retaliation, I posted my article and the complaint in their Facebook group on the basis that as I am not an attendee, I cannot be banned. I also emailed the official CoC contact email.

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We Need to Talk About Jason: Jason Sanford’s Writing, Underage Girls, Torturing Children and Child Abuse

On 15 February 2021, Z-List science fiction author Jason Sanford posted a so-called expose on “Baen’s Bar”, the web forum for Baen publishing, and attacking female Publisher Toni Weisskopf. It has been alleged that the article at first assumed Toni was, “Tony” and of the male gender, and the article was later changed. I cannot find an archive of the original article earlier than 16th. However, I was able to find comments in which Toni was referred to as male and “Tony” and where the commenter corrected. This tends to corroborate the allegation the article did misgender Toni. Regardless, it is only a minor issue compared to the horror of Jason’s writing. My analysis quickly found a smorgasboard of material that is, in my opinion, offensive, depraved and vile, including some involving the torture of minors by adults.

Screenshot of a commentor on Sanford's article misgendering Toni Weisskopf

It has been alleged that Jason Sanford misgendered Toni Weisskopf as Tony. The comment in the screenshot suggests this is true (click for full size).

Jason Sanford’s most recent short story is freely available online and it is entitled, “The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round” (archive). The (very) short piece follows the interactions of a little girl called ‘Jane’. Jane’s age is not given, but the information that is given makes it plain she is a child. A minor. The story opens with the sentence, “All the neighborhood kids except for Jane cheered when the torture bus stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house”. Jane is a “kid”. Readers will be aware of course that Sanford is not the most successful of authors, but this reads like sub-par fanfic with a disturbing focus.

The story follows Jane’s observations of visits by the eponymous “torture bus”, and being assaulted by a boy called ‘Binny’. The bus, apparently a known and accepted institution in the world of the short story, visits members of the public without explanation and literally tortures them with medieval equipment –

“They watched as the torture techs opened the back of their yellow bus and wheeled out an iron maiden stretcher and a satchel of scary tools. The techs wore black coveralls embroidered with a grinning cartoon devil holding a red whip.”

The image of a grinning cartoon devil puts me in mind of BDSM websites. Why is this story about a little girl observing this? Not that the story lasts long. It meanders on, with Jane befriending the “lead torture tech”, whose name is, ‘Leroy’. Leroy is a creepy guy who literally drives up again the next day in an unmarked white van. He is so impressed with Jane that he decides to offer her a “free torture” –

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Can Monica Nieporte and William (Bill) Lawhorn’s Careers and Reputations Survive Jason Sanford?

In my last article I exposed amateur journalist and z-list science fiction author Jason Sanford’s misleading recent article about Baen Publishing’s webforum, “Baen’s Bar”.  In this second (of at least three) articles, I deal with the aftermath. A third article will deal with some of Sanford’s writing that is, in my opinion, sexually problematic, racially insensitive and offensive to people with some disabilities. There may be a fourth article but I am still investigating. Anyone who has felt that Jason Sanford has dealt with them inappropriately in any way (but especially at conventions), is invited to get in touch in confidence via the email on the, ‘About’ page.

Jason Sanford, the man who temporarily close Baen's Bar

Jason Sanford’s Linkedin images are shown here for the purposes of criticism and review. Sanford, who works for the Ohio News Media Association, is clearly not the snappiest of text writers and either his head is weirdly elongated or the aspect ratio is slightly off. His job is to do … marketing content, including graphics. (Click for full size)

Since Jason Sanford’s article misinformed but zealous readers of his have inundated the organisers of WorldCon 2021, a science fiction convention, with complaints to the extent that Baen Publisher Toni Weisskopf has been uninvited from being a guest of honour. The problem is that the allegations are, largely, just not true. At the same time, darker and darker information is emerging about Sanford. I have received a statement from lawyers for Sanford’s employers, the Ohio News Media Association (ONMA) trying to distance themselves from the scandal. However, given they are a media organisation, given Sanford uses his employment with them to advertise himself and given his followers standard of tenuous-guilt-by-association, that position seems untenable. These events can only reflect badly on ONMA, Sanford’s boss Monica Nieporte (ONMA President) and Discon III Chair Bill Lawhorn.

So, when I put up my first article about Jason Sanford’s unethical behaviour, no response was received. I offered the subjects an extension of time and I know they saw it. I also spoke to Monica Nieporte on the telephone. The day after publication, I received the following statement from lawyers instructed by ONMA –

An official statement from ONMA's lawyers.

This is the official statement from ONMA’s lawyers. Click for full size.

Jason Sanford’s conduct is outside his employment at ONMA, they say, and nothing to do with them. Now, Baker Hostetler is a large law firm but that does not mean I intend to fall over. I set out why I respectfully disagree, below. Now firstly we should make clear why ONMA would want to disassociate themselves from Jason Sanford’s article. It is a shoddy piece of journalism that no reputable media organisation would want to be associated with. The article has been debunked by a stellar list of science-fiction luminaries –

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Baen’s Bane: Jason Sanford of Ohio News Media Association (ONMA) and his Unethical “Journalism”

Baen Books is a well known name, but not one generally associated with political controversy. The main reason I ever used Baen was to buy e-books by P. C. Hodgell, a feminist author who writes the Kencyrath series. Now, bizarrely, their forum has been accused of, “Being Used to Advocate for Political Violence”, by an obscure self-publishing Patreon writer called Jason Sanford. It is a serious allegation, and as far as I can tell, many of the posts he relies on as evidence do not advocate violence. Others are mere hyperbole. I analyse some of the evidence below, exposing Sanford’s unethical behaviour. His purported evidence mostly does not support the case and the article is so unethical as, in my opinion, to call into question Sanford’s suitability to be employed in journalism, such as in his day job at the Ohio News Media Association. Having analysed the evidence, I provide contact details for his employers for those who wish to politely complain.

Jason Sanford’s Linkedin images are shown here for the purposes of criticism and review. Sanford, who works for the Ohio News Media Association, is clearly not the snappiest of text writers and either his head is weirdly elongated or the aspect ratio is slightly off. His job is to do … marketing content, including graphics. (Click for full size)

Political violence is the fear du jour. Last year the United States was devastated by riots associated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. On January 6, 2021, there was a rowdy protest / occupation in Washington DC. The violence on that occasion was serious, but was nearer an Occupy style protest than a BLM riot. Mr Sanford, an obscure Patreon creator who appears to have a day job to make ends meet, has published an article alleging that the web forum, “Baen’s Bar”, associated with science fiction publisher Baen Publishing is being used to publish political violence. In the aftermath of the allegation, the forum has temporarily been taken down.

In his article, Mr Sanford claims that he presents “evidence”. Okay. I went to law school. I know of what I speak. I took a look at the so-called, “evidence”.

Much of Mr Sanford’s evidence, assuming he has accurately described the posts, cannot support his contentions. Consider this –

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Smith v Baker – Costs Order. Are Brand New Tube’s Muhammad Butt, Sonia Poulton and Spencer West’s Blake O’Donnell Next?

Defended banner for articles defended in court

[Update 22 May 2022 – My Media World Limited and Director Muhammad Butt sued over this article in the High Court in a counterclaim in case QB-2020-003936. They dropped the libel case by discontinuance, after MHN editor Samuel Collingwood Smith entered a robust defence. The effect of discontinuance is they are automatically liable for Smith’s whole costs.]

EstherBaker

Esther Baker has made numerous allegations of sexual abuse. Now it is revealed she is under investigation herself by two police forces, one for nearly a year.

As per my previous article, Master Sullivan in the High Court has found Ms Baker’s pleadings to be deficient (revised judgement here). I feel that Ms Baker has had enough chances given her behaviour in related cases, but the Master has given Ms Baker a second chance. She has refused me permission to appeal against that decision. However, Ms Baker has been Ordered to pay the whole of my costs in the application to strike out in the amount of £1,226.80, within 14 days on the basis that her pleadings were deficient, had to be re-written, my application was consequently reasonable and Ms Baker’s opposition to it was not reasonable. Ironically, the only element queried on my costs schedule by Ms Baker was the postage, which of course would have been unnecessary had she agreed to accept service by email instead of insisting on my serving an 800+ page bundle on paper. My arguments that we were all guilty of tree murder were accepted by the court and the parties have now been Ordered by the Master to serve by email. It is also worth Ms Baker remembering that long (and by long I mean nearly 200 pages) pleadings take time to read and those costs are recoverable.

So who is next? I am presently contemplating a claim in damages against fringe journalist Sonia Poulton (who is being sued by John Hemming for allegedly repeating Baker’s allegations of sex crimes against him – allegations a court has ruled, “untrue”), Muhammad Butt and Brand New Tube. By ‘contemplating’ I mean I have served a letter of claim and propose to file the claim on CE-File either Friday or early next week. The slight uncertainty is only that verbatim transcripts have been ordered and may not be ready until next week.

The basis for my claim is simple. On 17 October 2020, Mr Butt published a video in which he used the following words – “I condone any violence against you by any Muslim”. I have sent him a letter of claim. Around the same time, Ms Poulton tweeted accusing me of Blackmail because of an email I sent to Muhammad Butt. After I sent a letter of claim and other matters, the video was made private.

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Smith v Baker, Baker Defence and Counterclaim Partially Struck Out

Judgement has been handed down by Master Sullivan in my strike-out application against Esther Baker in Smith v Baker and Dillon. I have a copy, and it has been released to BAILII so will presumably be going up there shortly.

EstherBaker

Esther Baker has had parts of her Defence and Counterclaim struck out.

In short the judge has struck out parts of Baker’s Defence and Counterclaim and will make an Order that she files an amended one within 28 days. The precise form of the Order will be finalised at a hearing to be set for 30 minutes next week. It is not an unless Order, but it is intended to contain liberty for me to renew my strike-out application if the pleadings remain deficient. The judge also said, “I am not making an unless order for the reasons set out, but if there is any substantial breach in the amended pleadings, the relevant part is likely to be struck out”.

I am disappointed with some typos, including apparently mixing up the Claimant and Defendant in a couple of places and some similar errors, as well as one error of fact. These could have been avoided had a draft of the judgement been sent out in the usual way, which I did suggest. There are procedures for correcting these, called, the “slip rule” and “reconsideration rule” and I will comment further once I have invited the Master to address them.

[EDIT – 20/10/2020 18:20] The judge has now corrected all the typos and factual issues I raised and sent an amended judgement to BAILII.

Otherwise, the effect is positive. Ms Baker must correct her pleadings once the Order is finalised, or face final strike-out.

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Decent Shaun Attwood Corrects the Record, Vile Sonia Poulton Doubles Down

In response to John Hemming’s concerns, Shaun Attwood has done the decent thing and corrected a recent video about Hemming and Esther Baker. His statement is here. Meanwhile, vile Sonia Poulton seems to have split with him and has released a misleading statement to her followers.

Shaun Attwood does the decent thing

Shaun Attwood has released a video correcting the record about former MP John Hemming. His former collaborator Sonia Poulton has doubled down linking a misleading video.

In 2019 Shaun Attwood released a video on a number of topics and alleged child abusers. During one section, he interviewed freelance ‘journalist’ Sonia Poulton about the Esther Baker case. It was a train wreck. Attwood relied on Poulton’s expertise but from a journalistic perspective, her contribution was a disaster. Poulton told viewers that Esther Baker had made allegations of abuse against Hemming and that, “it is quite clear that Esther Baker, erm, feels that she has a case that needs to be examined, appropriately examined”. She neglected to mention however the simple fact that they had been investigated by Staffordshire Police and rejected. The CPS stated that there are, “no witnesses”, “no medical or forensic evidence” and “no one else has come forward with a similar complaint”.

In fact Baker’s allegations have now been found, “untrue” in the High Court and she has now been restrained for life from repeating them. Baker has also been found to have harassed a potential witness in the case, in racist fashion. The victim, who MHN has anonymised, is a real proven victim of child abuse.

None of this was told to viewers of the podcast, because Sonia did not bother to contact Hemming for a statement before giving the interview to Shaun. It was a basic journalistic error, shoddy and amateurish.

When all this was pointed out Shaun Attwood did the decent thing. He removed that section from the video, which he re-uploaded. He published a correction. That cannot have been nice but he did it. That is the kind of thing that separates the decent from the less decent.

Sonia Poulton has been far less pleasant. Continue reading

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