
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.
I really appreciate your responses to the otter, David. I’ve tried directly responding to these thugs on their own ground but it gets very nasty very fast.
Oh lord, the two people arguing with him on a street corner are now a mob of 30 knife-wielding maniacs. It must be nice to be so comfortable and sheltered that you have to make up imaginary things to feel persecuted about.
When I saw the MRM in lowercase in one of the quotes, I had this image of a boy with a toy truck making ‘mrm mrm’ noises.
I feel this is an apt analogy. Because after all, his single, pregnant mom (feminism) won’t let him do anything fun or cool and won’t let him stay up all night. In protest, he says things like, “When I grow up, you’ll be sorry!” and “I don’t need a mom at all!”
My brain is weird sometimes. Sorry for the semi-derail.
Seriously. I believe that any time a woman doesn’t actually prostrate herself before him, Johnthe Otter feels threatened.
He’d probably think any woman who did literally prostrate herself was trying to grab his ankles, pull him down and chop him up with a
boxcutterknife.He’d probably think any woman who did literally prostrate herself was actually an angry mob trying to grab his ankles, pull him down and chop him up with a
knifethousand machetes.True!
I’m having a real Crocodile Dundee moment reading this. Not sure it it’s appropriate to post the “you call that a knife?” clip though.
I think the 30 knives are like that children’s poem, the one that goes ” every cat had seven sacks and in every sack there were seven rats “etc etc.
Just wait a few days and it will be 50 ninja maidens with 60 shuriken.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
They make it clear on AVFM that all claims by women of being harassed, raped, or threatened, are false claims, while all claims made by MRAs are proven.
I don’t really get why they (the MRM) are getting so worked up over this. People protested. They protested non-violently and then the cops showed up and ended it. End of story. No one was hurt or attacked. Jokes were made on twitter. The rest of the world would look at those words and realize “ha sarcasm!” Really Doodz, grow some thicker skin and stop making up issues to fake being a victim of. I’m wondering if they think that if they make up a bunch of fake issues to be fake victims of for long enough it will eventually fool the world into thinking they are poor widdle victims. As for the doxxing, part of me thinks what these doodz want to happen is an angry, unstable member of the MRM will do something terrible to one of these women. I honestly don’t think these women will ever end up as a social pariah because of their actions at the protest and I really don’t think that’s the intent of the MRM in this instance. Despite what they say my worry is they want real violence. I have little doubt about my guy feelings on this one.
I will go back to lurking now… But really though, anyone else get the feeling these guys want to see someone get physically hurt?
One day soon I hope doxxing will be illegal.
Is it doxing or doxxing? At any rate, I am going to suggest my state lege members file a bill.
If only JtO’s comments were expressed entirely in singing animals.
Yes. And then they will blame feminism.
Bad_dog – I feel exactly as you’ve described. I’m sure that’s just what they want.
I know, bad dog, what’s the issue. I went to many many demonstrations in my really 20s and saw and participated in much more naughty behavior ( yes south African embassy, it was me!) any way I can’t see that the horrible dozing in this case should hurt the girl employment wise. Hopefully all normal people would understand the the MRA are nut jobs who should be protested ,against.
That leaves violence against the person which I really believe he is hoping for.
“doxxing” has a lot of subcategories which are worse than others. Posting the real name of an individual not at enhanced risk of harm is the least objectionable to me, and can be justified in situations where people are abusing that anonymity through sock-puppeting (I.e. “Mary Rosh” or “Sprezzatura”) or harassment.
I’m rarely comfortable with connecting a pseudonymous individual to their place of work, largely in line with my discomfort in general of “economic vigilantism”. It could still be justified when the comments and their employment conflict, i.e. admitted pedophiles working in child-care environments, or people who have confessed to abuse within the workplace).
Linking private addresses (heck, I’m not comfortable to identifying anything more specific than a state), phone numbers or e-mail accounts is an open invitation for abuse and harassment, and something I cannot see any good reason for ever happening. That’s the point where I’d suggest doxxing should be actually illegal.
That should be doxxing and early, I hate auto correct.
Bad-Dog, I think it would be accurate to say that they want women punished. How the women are punished matters not one whit to them as long as it effectively serves as a lesson to other women.
“Rebecca Watson and Creepy Bittergirl claim they’re being harassed, but that’s obviously all lies and they’re just being faux damsels in distress to bring out the White Knights and get attention for themselves which I know because my rectum said so.” —Literally Paul Elam
Even if Elam & co. admitted that what happens to women is real, they’d probably shrug it off. They manage to combine pretending violence against women, from verbal abuse to murder, isn’t really a thing, with thinking being female means you deserve it all, and salivating at the thought of it. They are truly disgusting human beings.
They absolutely want someone to hurt these women. They’re practically drooling in anticipation. If, FSM forbid, something happens, they will give public disclaimers about how that wasn’t their intention while simultaneously reveling in it.
Meanwhile, they call anyone so much as speaking a contrary opinion in their presence “violence” against them. It really is the MRM logic taken to the extreme. Everything women do is evil, everything men do is sacrosanct. Everything bad that happens to women is justice, everything bad that happens to men is oppression.
I’m not even clicking the link because guess what? I don’t need to know JtOs real name. He’s an asshole, but unless he commits an actual crime I’m quite willing to allow him to continue being anonymous, and being an asshole isn’t illegal.
And guess what? Neither is picketing an event, or holding a protest.
David, can your contact get messages of support to the latest young woman to be doxxed?
Oh my god, that “article” on their newest victim (not going to post her name here) is even more mind-boggling than the last one.
Do they seriously not get that her tweet about wanting a “KILL ALL MEN” tattoo on her inner lip is her making fun of them for being stupid enough not get that it was a joke the first time around?
I also like how there’s no inkling that someone is riffing off the stereotypes you assigned them (and again, making fun of you for being an idiot) when they say “My sex ed is going to be about loving your body and KILLING ALL BOYS!”.
I mean, how the fuck can you even attempt to use those as reasons to doxx someone (not that their other stated reasons are much better), that defense is less than paper-thin. Just say that you’re doing it cause the committed the cardinal sin of existing in public while female and be done with it.