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.
The more they cover up the more I am convinced they knew they were wrong on the first place. As a reformed compulsive liar the worst thing ever is to get caught in a lie. Because when you lie you quite literally feel like you are changing the past and you’re making the world different. Someone catches you out and that rips up the illusion you created for yourself and it’s quite painful. So you keep lying because that’s easier than admitting the truth. Also you’re so full of yourself that you think all you need to do is tell one more lie and everyone will believe you again.
I may be taking another extended break from manboobz in the future.
I can’t really deal with the frustration and depression this stuff brings me right now.
And agreed. I don’t understand how Dave is a liar. I’ll wait for the evidence though. I want to see what they come up with. Because I know that google doesn’t hide the results for men support groups. Mostly because when manboobz covered the guy calling a help line claiming to be abused and pretended that they didn’t offer support I googled what kind of support was out there.
@Christo
Can’t someone who knows what to look for prove a screenshot is fake? I doubt that they are super talented in that area. And if they are then I wonder why they would need to be…..
@MaudeLL
Signing out won’t fix it all though. But it would be a good idea because your search results are effected by geography, past search history, google + (what your friends like and whatnot), and past queries.
Hey, WeeBoy, good to see you! As someone who worked closely with a compulsive liar, I recognize those patterns too.
melody, sorry it’s getting to you – take care of yourself.
Life is getting to me. I try very hard to be civil and polite online. No name calling or anything, but I’m getting a tad tired of defending myself, being told to mellow, told that I’m being too aggressive in my responses, being accused of being an old bitter spinster and the like.
I have enough going on in my personal life that I don’t really want to deal with stuff online right now.
And after a small crises the other day I’ve decided that I may not be up to fighting the good fight online anymore.
Melody, we’ll miss you but you should (obviously) do what you need to do for your health. Take care of yourself, and be well.
You’ve made a typo… you spelt Thompson wrong just before you said AVfM couldn’t get his name right. ironic 🙂
Hey Cloudiah! I’m finally a bit more settled into my new place and I have a much shinier phone, so I should be round to comment more.
Melody, do what you’ve gotta do to take care of yourself!
Kim, ooops. Fixed.
I took my case to the comments section of Girl Writes What’s blog and got one AVFM regular to actually read my post and sort of admit that I might have a point.
http://owningyourshit.blogspot.com/2013/06/okay-i-really-wasnt-interested-in-doing.html?showComment=1371537505984#c312804613945755242
I’m going to write a bit more about GWWs actual blog post tomorrow, and the continuing WoolyBumblebee battle.
Google search personalization can be turned off.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/54041?hl=en&ref_topic=14153
This is a Good Idea. (Or use a less big brothery search engine.)
Do you recommend any search engines, thekidwiththereplaceablehead? I really only know Google and Bing and Yahoo (if they still have a search engine – wouldn’t use ’em anyway). I’d be interested to try others.
… Never mind, I just saw what your link was about. 🙂
Shorter Esmay: “O hai guys, we’re going publish a bunch of fake screenshots soon but we haven’t quite finished checking them for giveaway errors yet, so bear with us.”
Kitteh: 🙂
That GWW post is is interesting. Even in text form, she just goes on and on.
Apparently they think that David writes all the comments here in order to look like he has more readers than he really does. He must get sore fingers.
If only they knew the terrible truth – that David is a bunch of cats in a man-suit!
Easy to type lots of comments when there are so many willing paws.
The fact that they are responding with BS to your posts is a clear sign they are both monitoring what you write and care enough about what you are saying to have to invent scenarios to hide their stuff ups.
What baffles me is anyone can do a quick google search on any keywords they like, anytime and see the results; why would anyone be so silly to try and invent search results? As always it’s the cover up not the crime that really damages.
Anyway its feet up and more popcorn to watch the unfolding comedy of MRA “rationalism”.
If David were able to sell us popcorn delivered via the intertubes, he’d be rolling in money. 😀
AVfM could fuck up a one car parade.
WAR IS PEACE
IGNORANCE IS SLAVERY
WOMEN ARE WHORES
woops fucked up my biotruths, /freedom / is slavery, ignorance is /strength/, and women are /sluts/
That’s right; I’m really David.
These guys don’t recognize that honesty and dishonesty even exist. To them, it’s a game – if you lie in such a way that no one can figure out how to catch you red-handed, that’s no different from telling the truth.
There’s a word for that. It’s called “evil.”
“I’m David!”
“No, I’m David!”
“I’m David, and so is my wife!”
That’s what I’ve suspected from the beginning. They just tagged the ‘men’ bit on because they can’t leave well enough alone. It’s like they’re purposely bringing themselves into disrepute.
Lies upon lies upon projection upon more lies. In a pie. Mmmmm.