A post on KiwiFarms.net says it is being shut down (archive here)? I am going to respond to Josh’s public post and the private email he sent me. In summary, if it stays down I will keep my promise to remove material about Josh so he can move on with his life. It will not all happen today, because of course they could be trolling.

It will not happen at all if Kiwi Farms re-opens under (say) Dynastia with someone called McNotNullHonest as its technical advisor. As down-payment that I keep my promises, I have just unpublished two articles about Null’s mother. Josh can greatly enhance my trust in that process by providing a complete copy of the Kiwi Farms database including an unredacted copy of the user and private messages tables. Even if he does not, as long as the site stays down I will keep my promise and eventually remove everything.

Kiwi Farms is down. It might be tempting to seek revenge, but instead if it stays down my part in the scrutiny of its former owner will fall away too. Click for full size?

Earlier this year, I told Null that if he took Kiwi Farms down and ensured it stays down, I would remove my articles about him from the internet. I am not legally obliged to do so and they are true articles in the public interest, but the welfare of the vulnerable is more important than my ego. The public interest would diminish if Kiwi Farms stayed down.

Some sites of course are beyond my control, such as Encyclopaedia Dramatica. I cannot remove the foolish things Null said about his mother in his interview on Dick Masterson although there is no need to link to them.

That depends on Null not facilitating Kiwi Farms’ resurrection. There will always be nasty forums for nasty people to do nasty things. Cruelty is a part of the human condition. Kiwi Farms industrialised it and attempted to optimise it. Null claims that Kiwi Farms’ database was backed up and shared with anonymous third parties. If that is true, he did it and bears responsibility.

However the Kiwi Farms forum was not just a XenForum database. It was a small core group of people and an increasingly complex (and expensive) transnational infrastructure. Kiwi Farms was also policies that made trouble inevitable, like going after people’s families, collecting images of their children, search engine optimisation for obvious libel. There is a big difference between spin-off forums and a Kiwi Farms mark II with the same database.

With its increasing user base Kiwi Farms costs hundreds of dollars per month per web server and transatlantic mirroring. That is not trivial. Of course there are things Null himself can do to limit the chance of Kiwi Farms coming back. Release Dynastia’s real identity. Release any emails that link him to the KiwiDynastia account. Give me a copy of the database including the user table and PMs table. Since most if not all members can be identified from that, I imagine that would ensure the site stays down.

Dynastia and the rest are not Null’s friends. They used him as an expendable pawn to take the heat and preserve their anonymity, damaging his career, his reputation and his future in the process.

The ball is in Null’s court. However, it is important that I do keep my promises so that everyone knows they can deal with me. It is important that people who I disagree with know they have a way out. So, provided Kiwi Farms stays down then yes in due course my articles will be removed. Today, to demonstrate my honesty I have removed two articles about Null’s mother’s role in all this. In the fullness of time all the rest can follow.

To anyone thinking of resurrecting Kiwi Farms I say this –

• You are taking on a hosting bill of hundreds to thousands of dollars a year
• You will be traced, hacked or your identity disclosed by legal process
• You will be subject to legitimate media scrutiny
• Your life and that of everyone around you will be (as Null says) irreversibly changed. You will lose things that cannot be repaired or replaced