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7 Tactics of Highly Effective Harassers: How A Voice for Men’s Internet Hate Machine works
A Voice for Men mocks the fears of one of its targets of harassment
The self-described “Men’s Human Rights” site A Voice for Men is a hate site trying — admittedly not very hard, or convincingly — to pose as a human rights organization. In reality, as I and various other writers have documented in considerable detail, it’s an organizer and amplifier of hatred, directed at feminists and women more generally.
Much of this hatred is directed at specific targets, mostly though not always feminist women who have offended A Voice for Men’s founder Paul Elam. The aim is generally to terrorize feminists into silence.
I’ve written at length about AVFM’s campaigns of vilification and intimidation in the past; for a recent example as well as numerous links to discussions of past examples, see here.
Today I will look at some of the specific tactics that AVFM uses against its targets – providing, in each case, a recent example.
This, in other words, is how AVFM’s Hate Machine functions. [TRIGGER WARNING for abusive language, discussion of abusive tactics]
Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield tries to lie her way out of a Twitter suspension; here’s proof of her targeted abuse
Slightly censored screenshot of one of Janet Bloomfield’s suspended accounts
Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield may not have mastered the fine art of public relations in the real world, but amongst those who live in imaginary worlds of their own making she is something of a PR genius.
Bloomfield, A Voice for Men’s “Director of Social Media,” was recently booted from Twitter (again) for “targeted abuse” — evidently her harassment of feminist writer Jessica Valenti, which included making up inflammatory fake quotations and attributing them to her.
Antifeminist instigator and serial liar Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield attacks Jessica Valenti for having the abortion that may have saved her life
Janet Bloomfield, reporting from her bunker
Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield, lovely human being that she is, has resumed her harassment of feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Several months back, you may recall, the integrity-deficient Bloomfield tried to smear Valenti by Tweeting a series of made-up quotes she attributed to the writer.
The fact that the quotes were patently ridiculous, and utterly unlike anything Valenti has ever written, didn’t stop Bloomfield’s army of knucklehead followers from swallowing her lies whole – or, once informed that the quotes were fake, of declaring that they sounded like something someone like her would say.
On Monday, Bloomfield tweeted one of the more obviously fake Valenti quotes that’s been floating around online, and her followers once again responded with predictable outrage against Valenti. Their response included this lovely tweet below from a proud #GamerGater and rabid feminist-hater by the name of Sean Hudspeth:
A new low: One of Zoe Quinn’s harassers was selling rape fanfic about her on Amazon
The “book” as it appeared on Amazon
This is the final day of the We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!
Every time you think they can’t go any lower, they go lower. This morning game designer and #GamerGate target Zoe Quinn discovered that someone was selling, er, “erotic fiction” about her on Amazon. Which is to say: a Kindle eBook apparently filled with explicit descriptions of her being gang-raped by five “upset” gamers trying to “teach her a lesson.”
Here’s the author’s blurb for the book:
Misogynists can’t agree: Should you guard your sperm with your life — or spread your “super serum” as widely as you can?
SuperSperm, not to be confused with Sperm Clark Kent
It’s not exactly news that Men’s Rights Activists are obsessed — seriously obsessed — with sperm.
Several days ago, one Redditor took to the Men’s Rights subreddit to warn fellow sperm-generators to keep a close watch on that sperm of theirs, telling the tale of how he allegedly caught his alleged wife allegedly “scooping … up” the sperm he had thoughtfully deposited on her belly during sex and “PUTTING IT IN HER VAGINA!!!” He is now allegedly seeking a divorce.
But this is hardly the first time Men’s Rights Redditors have worked themselves into a lather over the dangers of spermjacking. Or even the hundredth. If you do a search for the word “sperm” on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, you’ll find literally hundreds of posts — many with hundreds of upvotes and/or comments — on the importance of safeguarding one’s own sperm.
GamerGate plays Good Cop, Viciously Transphobic Cop
GamerGaters: You’re not fooling anyone.
#GamerGaters have been spending a lot of time lately trying to convince the world that they’re really quite reasonable people, actually, and that the “movement’s” reputation as a hotbed of hateful bullying is undeserved.
Today on 8Chan’s /gg/ board, for example, one enterprising anon announced the start of “OP FIREHEART,” a combination of “Operation Firefly + Operation Lonely Hearts.”
Former-#GamerGate-r (and continuing douchebag) Internet Aristocrat fights WAM! with slurs, abuse, dumb photoshops
Internet Aristocrat: Fighting “corruption” with targeted abuse
YouTube garbage blabber Internet Aristocrat — you know, the guy that helped to kick off #GamerGate with the first video attacking Zoe Quinn but who’s since broken from the “movement” for reasons — has been working himself into a lather over Women, Action & the Media’s Twitter reporting initiative.
So he’s decided to take a principled stance against this terrible threat to free speech — or at least free speech that includes targeted abuse and bigoted slurs — by posting a series of detailed, logical essays elucidating the dange …
Super Fun Anita Sarkeesian Pop Quiz
Respects is Earn: A meme is born
Brianna Wu — game developer, #GamerGate target #3 — got a Tweet sent to her yesterday announcing that “respects is earn not shrilly demanded.”
Mangled grammar aside, this is an “argument” we hear a lot from misogynistic men as a way of explaining away their lack of respect for women as a gender. Wu thought this inadvertantly lollcatty version of this cliche was too good to let vanish in the internet ether, and suggested that the phrase “respects is earn” be immortalized in a meme.
And so it was. The cat above is @RobIsAWriter’s interpretation; here (after the bump) are a few more.
In which Paul Elam, alleged human rights champion, tells me to kill myself
So that was A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam’s response to a recent post of mine talking about Christopher Cantwell, an AVFM contributor who also likes to tell people to kill themselves.
In an AVFM post also titled David Futrelle: Please kill yourself, Elam waxed eloquent upon this theme:
David, please go kill yourself.
You should, however, before you slip away into the dark void that resembles your capacity for logic, consider that you may want to get out more. A lot more, actually.
“Please kill yourself,” in the context of Twitter and a lot of other internet exchanges is par for the course.
That is sadly true, Paul. I see that as a problem; you apparently see it as an excuse for the harassment and abuse you and your followers so enjoy heaping upon your opponents in the name of “Men’s Human Rights.”
Apparently, in Elam’s world, the best way to fight male suicide is by telling other men to kill themselves.
Oh, but one of Elam’s fans has an answer to that, too:
Human rights advocates at work!
