This guy, who enjoys outing anonymous college students and making videos featuring his own endlessly talking head, wishes to remain anonymous.
Some months back, I made a post in which I referred to the mysterious JohnTheOther by his real name. I didn’t think this was a big deal, since John — whom regular readers know as the number two man at Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men – had previously used his real name, and linked it to his online pseudonym, in various writings of his and on YouTube. But he asked me to remove his name from Man Boobz because, he said, he was being harassed. So, out of courtesy to him, I did.
Now, frankly, JohnTheOther is making me feel like he played me for a sucker, and is making me wonder why I continue to pay him this courtesy.
It’s not just that JohnTheOther’s real name is widely known already, and easy enough to find out with a simple Google search. And it’s not just that, for all his alleged concern for his own safety, he hasn’t bothered to remove posts linking his real name and his online identity from his own JohnTheOther.com site, or from A Voice for Men (where he is also identified by name as the site’s “vice president”),or asked any number of other Men’s Rights sites to remove similar postings.
It’s that, by his own stated logic, I should be shouting his name to the heavens.
Why? Well, as anyone who’s been reading this blog lately is well aware, A Voice for Men is in the midst of what you might call a crusade against anonymity, directed at participants in a demonstration recently held at the University of Toronto protesting a talk by MRA icon (and “positive incest” expert) Warren Farrell. And JohnTheOther is in the thick of it.
On Monday, AVFM outed, or “doxxed,” one young woman by name. Her main crimes, aside from attending the protest and possibly tearing down a poster or two advertising the Farrell event, seem to be that she made a couple of jokey remarks on Twitter, including one in which she said “kill all men hail satan,” which the folks at A Voice for Men apparently see as a literal call for male genocide.
For these terrible crimes she has been placed on Register-Her.com, a phony “offenders registry” set up by A Voice for Men in which feminists are profiled as “bigots” alongside women who are literally murderers and child molesters. AVFM promises that it will be outing more demonstrators in the days to come.
Realizing that some, even in the Men’s Rights movement, consider these tactics deeply problematic, JohnTheOther posted the following comment on A Voice for Men defending the outing; he later reposted it on the Men’s Rights Subreddit. (I crossed out the student’s name.)
In further comments on Reddit, he explained what he sees as the purpose of AVFM’s strategy of outing opponents:
And responded with indignation to a critic:
This all seemed a tad hypocritical coming from a man who himself hides behind an online pseudonym in order to avoid “consequences attached to actions,” so I sent John a message on Reddit:
I’m rather astonished that you continue to argue that it’s ok for you to “out” people online, while insisting that it is wrong for people to refer to you by your real name. Especially considering that you put your real name out there in the first place, explicitly linking it to your youtube account on Men’s News Daily and AVFM and possibly elsewhere. (It’s actually still up on AVFM, FYI.)
When you asked me to stop using your name on Man Boobz some months back, I did, and I went back and scrubbed it from the site. And I’ve got it in the moderation filter as well to ensure that no commenter names you.
I will continue to keep your name off of Man Boobz, but since I have gone to the trouble to do this, I would appreciate a good clear answer to this question:
Why is it ok for you expose other people to possible harassment and worse by outing them online but not OK for me to use your real name on Man Boobz?
He responded with this bit of overheated nonsense:
I out the names of people advocating violence, such as Vliet Tiptree’s 4000 words talking up male extermination on radfemhub. To do otherwise would be complicit in their attempts to foster violence – and murder. I also publish the names of criminals already in public record, child rapists and so on. The U of T participants were not anonymous, they were broadcasting their hate under their own names. In Vancouver, I was the guy with posters which read “you dont hate women, do you” and “men’s rights are human rights”:, the local feminists had knives, and surrounded me with 30 people.
Nobody in the mrm is going to do harm to these women, but in spite of our opposition to violence, the killing of a MRA would, if it even made the news at all, be characterized as necessary killing of a terrorist. I wear a camera to prevent assault on my person.
You know perfectly well which side is likely to commit violence here, and it’s not us. Hell I say “likely” as if it /might/ happen. The violence is dialling up, and it’s all coming from the feminist side of this debate
This evasive and at times unhinged “answer” left me with even more questions, so I asked them in another Reddit message:
Give me a fucking break. Where did [the University of Toronto student] “advocate violence?” She made a joke on Twitter.
Do you really expect me to believe that you are incapable of recognizing a joke when you see it?
When someone tells you a “knock knock” joke do you get up to open the door?
I mean, you’re pretty obtuse, but I find it hard to believe that you’re THAT obtuse.
Or are you perhaps grasping at straws in an attempt to find more feminists to harass?
You already made yourselves look like idiots, even amongst your erstwhile allies in the MRM, by pretending that Katherine Heigl was advocating castration of men in her joke video.
Also, what about the “mommy bloggers” you guys have put on register-her: Where exactly did they suggest “violence — and murder” of men?
No, they said shit you didn’t like, so you set out to harass them and intimidate them into shutting up.
Hell, when did [feminist writer] Jessica Valenti ever threaten anyone? You twisted a quote from her to mean something it didn’t, and used that as an excuse to put her there.
The issue here isn’t just naming people; it’s that you put these people on a website designed to suggest that they are somehow the equivalent of the real criminals and child molesters you have on there.
Meanwhile, the idea that feminists are all a bunch of evil murderers while MRAs are a bunch of innocent little lambs is ludicrous. There were plenty of threats made against the protesters before you guys put up [the student’s] name. I get violent threats from MRAs all the time. AVFM is filled to overflowing with threatening language, designed to intimidate. Your fucking slogan is “Fuck Their Shit Up.”
You may stop short of directly and explicitly threatening violence against anyone but I don’t think anyone outside the ranks of the AVFM faithful will buy that kind of “plausible deniability.”
You plainly intend your campaign against [the student] to cause her trouble; indeed, you state this outright in your recent Reddit post. You also plainly admit that this method of causing her “consequences” isn’t safe, but you go ahead with it anyway.
So why should I take your concerns for safety any more seriously than any concerns that [the student] — or any of your targets — might have?
If [the student] and others should face real-world “consequences” for their words, why shouldn’t you?
And just where is this feminist “violence” you say is “dialing up?” On the footage of the protest, I saw violence — I think you would call it “proxy violence” — being directed at the protestors by the police. I saw no violence against MRAs; indeed, the police cleared away the blockade and let them through.
Some of the protesters yelled and were assholes, but guess what, being an asshole isn’t a crime. The police were there in force. If the girl who told the MRA he was “fucking scum” was violating the law, why didn’t the police arrest her?
As for this alleged confrontation with 30 knife-wielding feminists you keep talking about? Where’s the proof this ever happened? Indeed, the “evidence” I’ve seen so far seems to show pretty clearly that it didn’t happen. The video footage I’ve seen didn’t show 30 people confronting you. It showed you arguing with a small number of people, in broad daylight, on a busy street. At no point did I see anyone threaten you, much less threaten you with a knife.
Can you please point to evidence that you really were confronted by a mob? Point me to precisely where in the videos posted I can see this 30-person mob? Point me to precisely where in the video any of the people you were arguing with threatened you with a knife.
I can’t tell if you actually believe the bullshit you peddle on a regular basis, and in your comment to me. Is your head really that far up your ass?
(Note: I do not literally believe that your head is up your ass. That would be anatomically impossible. It’s a figure of speech.)
John has not yet given me answers to any of these questions, though he did find time to write yet another grandiose, indignant and altogether hypoctitical defense of doxxing for AVFM.
All this adds up to a pretty powerful argument for doxxing … JohnTheOther.
Happily, there’s no need to sully my hands with such a task, as he’s already done such a fine job of doxxing himself.
(Note: I’ve added some links to my quoted messages above to provide more context.)
EDITED TO ADD: And AVFM has doxxed another student who was at the protest. Her crimes, aside from going to the protest? She posted jokey “kill men” comments on Twitter and a picture suggesting it is a good idea for people to get consent before having sex with people.
To The kittens unpaid help, how bad is it up north? Put it this way, I ,was once on a govt panel looking at how we should manage HIV/AIDS, the representative from Cairns said we should “test and slaughter”. Admittedly, this was 1987 but still!!!!! The other option suggested from the northeners was to isolate in Tasmania.
One question? Would any respectable employer take registerher seriously? Because if they blacklist teh evvulz feminists for going to protests and having twitter accounts, how seriously can they *be* taken by anyone other than themselves (MRAs and so on)?
A question-mark where a comma should be. WTF brain.
Yoyo – I’ve never been up there, I’m glad to say, so I’d know less first-hand than you would. I’ve only seen what my sister and BiL are like, which is enough. Think of every horrible name for anyone not-white and I’ve probably heard them use it. (Except Maoris, for some reason: they like them but dislike white New Zealanders. Go figure.)
Thekitteys etc, the thing about kiwis is weird but I think it’s all about the football, eg all good rugby players are maori or islander whereas the white kiwis are just here to steal our jobs or sum such. Either way it’s scary.
“Here to steal our jobs” sounds EXACTLY like my family. Though at the same time it’s “Live on welfare.” ::rolls eyes::
Do these women have grounds to press charges? I would love to see Paul and his goons get taken to court for this.
@Crumbelieveable: THIS EXACTLY. Why has this *not* happened yet? (The mind, it boggles).
Unbelievable, it is hard to imagine a world view that is so overwhelmingly nasty but these boys live in it. The rest of us know that human beings come in all shapes and flavours but to the MRA if you have female genitalia, are a “manginas” or are gay you are so badddd, that all the inter webs can do to terrorise you is cool.
Wasn’t it Brisbane or Melbourne that was a hotbed of MRA’s? Why am I not surprised that the Aussie MRA website was centered in Logan? (It would be funnier if it were Ipswich.) Any-who, as “northerner” I haven’t seen/heard much overt insanity from crazy right-wingers, but I don’t generally leave my predominantly left-to-to-centre-left group of friends overmuch. :/ I am a disappoint in Queensland for being considered the equivalent of the American Southern States.
Ho cat beast, no offense, you are a strong beastie. My experience is just that those up north are more vocal about their f..kupness . My good dyke friends from the Alice have made a great community there. It’s harder I think when you’re naway from major population centers .
@ Yoyo- Ah, true. I’m in a semi-rural area, so that’s probably why I don’t see to much of the crazy. Also, good luck to your lovely lady friends! I hope they fair well out in the Alice. Aand— None taken! QLDers say the same thing about South Australia for some odd reason. That and the only other place I’ve been to in QLD is Nimbin, and Woodford when the folk and indigenous culture festivals are on, so I assumed QLD was left or left leaning.
In Vancouver, I was the guy with posters which read “you dont hate women, do you” and “men’s rights are human rights”:, the local feminists had knives, and surrounded me with 30 people.
This is absolute nonsense. I know the people involved, and it was two of them who talked with– barely even confronted– the MRAs putting up posters, and there was no group of 30 threatening feminists and absolutely no knives. This man is fucking delusional (no surprise, I suppose).
I worry that something will happen to those women.
CatBeast – I suspect all our states snark at the others. Like the jokes about two-headed Tasmanians and so on. My sister lived in the far north, past Mackay, so maybe it’s worse up there.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Deep North stuff is partly a legacy of Joh’s era. He was a whole bundle of wingnuttery all on his own. And then of course there was Pauline Hanson (best nickname I saw for her: the Oxleymoron). The Queensland LNP is a pretty scary mob from all I’ve heard.
Not that any of our states can be that proud, our records for misogyny, racism and homophobia all suck. Though kudos to Tassie’s current government for saying they’re going to legislate marriage equality whether Canberra likes it or not.
Does anyone else think this dude has a slight resemblance to Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs?
@Kitteh: Pauline is from Oxley?! EW. Nonononononononono. I wish she’d GTFO to Antarctica or something, where she can yell at immigrants to penguins. 😛 As for the marriage legislation in Tas? AWESOME. I hope they manage and become an example to our less enlightened states.
@Catbeast who knows how far an employer would actually look? Seeing the name appear on a site like that in general might be enough to make them move on to the next candidate. Hopefully they’d do a little more digging to figure out that it was ridiculous and overblown, but you can’t even get most employers to call you back in a timely fashion, so I don’t expect much from them.
The sport of ice hockey was actually developed to train Canadian men to evade and defend against feminists while in icy terrain.
That’s cool to hear! Though it’s beyond me how this is still a thing.
@Jessay: Yikes! Good point. After all, we do live in a world where MRAs can exist… So stupider things can happen.
@catbeast..nimbin is in nsw! It’s relatively local to me, and it’s plonk in the heart of the ‘rainbow’s country, it’s pretty left wing, alternative and sustainable.I thoroughly recommend the channon markets. As a scot now resident in Oz, I’m startled by the racism. I’m not saying the UK is perfect, far from it, but the level of accepted,casual offhand racism really shocked me.
It’s amazing how hard people like you will work in order to ensure that male victims of domestic violence, male victims of female perpetrated rape, and male victims of unjust divorce laws never receive any form of justice.
It’s also amazing how people in your movement are so terrified of research into programs that might actually help boys do better in school.
And it’s also very interesting that each and every one of the behaviours you complain about from MRAs is carried out by you or others in the feminist community on MRAs.
12345: Citation needed.
PPL LIEK U! YUPIPL!
Care to have any evidence with that fantastic username, chuckles?
So, let’s get this right: Feminists say “KILL MEN”. Futrelle say “Iz joke, iz joke, she kid, she kid!”
If any men say anything that could be inferred to be similar? Futrelle say: “Iz violent h8te speech”
I say: double standard.
Likewise: JohntheOther say: “Doxxing feminist activists / bigots = good.”
And yet JohntheOther say: “Doxxing me = bad.”
I say: also, hmmmm, bit of a double standard there.
Also, yeah, he has already put his own name on the web, doh.
Merry Double Standards Boobzers.
A toast: May the future involve less violence.
Alright, please allow me to explain the nature of this joke. This woman texted ‘Kill men, hail Satan’. She is not actually a Satan worshiper, and outside of metal loving teenagers in the eighties, no one says ‘Hail Satan’. So to say ‘Hail Satan’ is actually sort of absurd, in a funny way- the sort of absurd that used to get people up in arms about playing songs backwards and the hidden anti-christian messages in comic books. Coupled with ‘kill men’ it makes the statement she thinks the idea she’d actually kill men or worship Satan is ridiculous, and she is having a laugh at the overwrought paranoid people who think protesting a talk done by an antifemininist author is tantamount to calling for the death of all men. Sort of like all those ‘MRAs drink kitten blood’ jokes on the mr reddit- no one is getting after those guys for that jokes, because they recognize it as an attempt at irony. Am I being clear? I’m very hung over, so I may not be being clear.
John, I actually spend very little time talking about misogynist jokes; most of the stuff I quote here is meant seriously.
I mean, JTO on his youtube page jokes that his “donate” button “harasses women.” I don’t conclude from that that his donate button literally harasses women, the way that AVFM has decided that a “hail satan kill all men” tweet means that the woman who posted it really thinks all men should be killed and that therefore her life should be ruined forever because of it.
I dunno, if Joe can’t tell when someone is joking, I’m not sure we’ll be able to explain it.
What is it with MRAs always necro’ing threads here?
Don’t worry, TTF, you’re being clear. Hell, a cat walking on the keyboard would make more sense than anything Joe&Co write.
Ninjaed by timetravelingfool who made the point better than I did.
Oh and Joe – you want to complain about objectionable comments, try telling the MRAs who are defending the Newtown murderer where to get off.
Hail Satan!
Quick quiz – which is more likely, that I’m a metalhead or that I’m an actual Satanist?
(BTW, Joe, you really should stop drinking so much. I know it’s the holidays and all, but NYE is still weeks away, and it’s important to pace yourself.)
Trick question! You were really trying to suck up to Santa and spelled his name wrong.
Thanks, Kitteh! Time travelers make fantastic ninjas, David.
CassandraSays: Well, you’re a regular here, which means you’re a feminist, which means you’re like a woman, which means you’re feminine, and metal is for MEN. So I’m gonna have to go with satanist.
So do kittehs.
😀 😀 😀
Crouching Kitteh, Hidden Kitteh!
They necro because they hope it lets them get the last word in.