CORRECTION: New evidence suggests that the screenshot discussed in this post and elsewhere was not a forgery but the result of a glitch. I offer a correction, and an apology, and a discussion of the implications, here.
So the other day I showed you all in detail how someone at men’s rights hate site A Voice for Men fabricated evidence — in the form of a faked screenshot — in order to cover up an embarrassing mistake on their part. The person responsible for the fabrication appeared to be AVFM’s so-called “managing editor” Dean Esmay.
Well, now it appears that they’re going to triple down on their dishonesty and concoct more screenshots. In a “news roundup” from Esmay today I found this remarkable passage:
And going back to the story with the error I found a new “editorial note” from Esmay:
I can’t wait to see what on earth they’ve come up with this time. I encourage readers to take screenshots of all this in case AVFM decides to do any retroactive ninja editing as part of its plan to pretend it was right all along.
Meanwhile,those of you who have been following this story may be wondering: who is this Joshua Thompson? Well, it appears that AVFM — or at least Dean Esmay — can’t even get the name of the post’s author right. That’s right, AVFM’s MANAGING EDITOR can’t get the name of one of AVFM’S OWN WRITERS RIGHT.
The author was first identified on AVFM as Jason Gregory — and if you look at the bio for Jason Gregory on any of the other articles he’s written for AVFM, like this one, it points to American Idiocracy, the blog where the problematic Facebook post originally ran. (It’s now been replaced, on his blog, anyway, by a completely rewritten version.)
At some point, apparently by accident, AVFM changed the byline of the author to Jason Thompson, who appears to be someone else who wrote something for AVFM a long time ago. And now Dean Esmay is calling him Joshua Thompson.
Or maybe Joshua Thompson is his real name, and Jason Gregory was his pen name, and Esmay has accidentally doxxed his own writer. Who knows?
I suspect we have not yet plumbed the depths of AVFM’s dishonesty –or incompetence.
Wait. Usually I can understand their logic (or what passes for it) even when it makes no sense, but in this case Esmay’s lost me.
Even under their scenario, how are you the liar?
Oh boy! I can’t wait!
I guess he’s just assuming that none of his readers will actually read what I wrote?
I don’t really understand compulsive liars, but apparently they happily pile lie upon lie without bothering to worry if they make any sense.
Anyway, even in a universe where searching for “violence against men” brought up nothing but search results for “violence against women” and there is screenshot evidence of this that hasn’t been photoshopped or otherwise manipulated, that still doesn’t make David a liar.
It is 100% true that they published an article making a claim that was then shown to be wrong, and then they published a faked screenshot trying to back up their claim, and then they said they really meant to make a different claim in the first place.
Reporting on this isn’t lying. If it turns out that they have evidence that their original claim was true but they haven’t bothered to present it yet, then that would make David simply wrong.
But I don’t think they have such evidence, so I doubt David is wrong, either.
It must be something to do with marmosets.
Or maybe marmots.
Can you guys take screenshots? My guess is that they’re going to try to pretend that the original article referred to “violence against” rather than “violence against men.” And that they’ll edit it accordingly.
And not even wrong about what happened, but wrong about the underlying claim, through no fault if his own, so yeah, whatever, MRAs are stupid.
That’s what Gregory’s new article claims – that he was really trying to demonstrate how neglected men’s issues are with a search for “violence against.” But even if you buy that, it still looks like at some point, someone used a falsified screenshot. Best case scenario is that they fucked up and tried to conceal it.
So how did you lie, exactly? Did I miss something between the lines?
I took some screenshots. The article still talks about searching for “violence against women” and they’ve still got the SS up where it’s obviously searching for “violence against” with the word “men” tacked on after the search had been performed. 😀
Well, David has suggested that there’s this thing called “sexism” that somehow works against women, and that men aren’t oppressed. Ergo, everything he says is a lie, right?
“When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout”, and if that doesn’t work rinse and repeat.
Maybe Jason/Joshua/Gregory/Thomson should be correct in the same way on both AVfM and on his blog, it might look more ‘correct’ and less like ‘bullshit.’
The funny thing is that when I googled “violence against men,” 1 result was about violence against women. It was an AVfM link, of course.
(Someone might want to teach them to sign out first too. Their rage googling about women would skew the results just like mine was skewed to look like AVfM was important)
I took a screenshot of that paragraph the other day not long after you posted about it. I’ve searched “violence against men” several times in the past and never had a problem finding resources. They are so full of crap. They’re constantly exaggerating and often outright lying to try to create hysteria. They have to, I suppose. They can’t find enough REAL stories to support their opinions.
@Maude – do you ever look at Feministe? One of the regulars there posted a pic of his kitty in her new collar. She looks a lot like Charlie and Mads. 🙂
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/06/14/weekly-open-thread-with-sand-shadow/#comment-651343
I should E-mail them and say that I have proof. See if they publish that a reader has proof. Then when I send them my proof, it’s a really crappily done MS Paint job that’s obviously fake.
I could fake a screenshot like that in a minute’s time in Paint that would be perfectly convincing. They shouldn’t have a problem creating a fake screenshot. But I’m going to laugh my ass off when I see them actually post it. What a bunch of scummy, sneaky liars. The whole bunch of them from the top on down!
My theory is that they’re so used to making up lies themselves, they have forgotten the difference between just being wrong (something that happens to everyone) and actively lying. I eagerly await their update, and wonder why they need to delay the publishing of this proof in the first place…
Wow! And I thought the Typhonblue thing was bad
The more and more I read about these people, and it’s been years now since I started, the more I’m convinced that it’s one massive case of projection.
They are such nasty, dishonest little assholes who dogmatically adhere to such a toxic, skewed worldview that they see the same patterns whenever they look at anyone else. They’re so stunted that they can’t even imagine another way of being. So when we say, no, that’s not the case with everyone, they assume we must be lying because hey: they would be.
Either that or they think everyone who isn’t them is just hopelessly stupid — which is clearly more projection, because we’re not exactly dealing with the major brain trust of our world with these folks.
Not sure what I expected from them, but I was hoping for something more substantial than calling David a liar and not providing evidence. Guess I gave them too much credit.
[Look for an updated article on this in the near future. Dave Futrelle’s been caught out as a liar. Again. What a shock! Stay tuned. –DE]
I am staying so very, very tuned. Don’t let me down, Mr. Editorial Update.
Poor little AVfMers, they get such rageboners over being called out and laughed at.
Also, I love that it says “we owe Josh an apology” RIGHT ABOVE where it says Written by Jason Thompson.
Are they really going to make us wait this long for the next episode? Who shot JR?
It would not surprise me if this is just never brought up again. They just say “David lies, we win!” and just act like this never happened.
Dammit, one of my best friends is named Jason Thompson. I demand reparations on behalf of the Jason Thompson community!