Phil Mason, better known online as Thunderf00t, is a scientific researcher and YouTube bloviater who’s turned his hate-crush on video game critic Anita Sarkeesian into a surprisingly lucrative part-time job; his seemingly unending stream of YouTube videos attacking Sarkeesian, many of which have drawn hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, have without a doubt contributed mightily to the harassment directed against her by the online mob known as #Gamergate.
Now Mason is trying to defend himself against charges that he has become the de facto leader of a vast hate mob that harasses Sarkeesian and other women … by encouraging his followers to harass a woman who charged him with exactly this.
And a good number of Mason’s 400,000 YouTube followers have taken him up on this challenge, flooding the Yelp page of the business the woman runs with her husband with fraudulent one-star reviews and besieging her and her family business with angry and harassing phone calls (at least one of which the perpetrator has put online).
The story of this particular debacle began this past January when the YouTuber who calls herself Laughing Witch sent a letter to Mason’s employer, accusing the YouTuber of harassing Sarkeesian and other women and repeatedly suggesting that he and his followers were a bunch of Nazis. Her email was part of a letter-writing campaign by a number of feminist Youtubers who hoped their letters would get Mason fired from his research job.
Mason, who apparently faced no repercussions from the letter-writing campaign, decided last week to retaliate against Laughing Witch — real name Jennifer Keller. He posted a video about Keller’s letter, following up with a second video posting her name as well as screenshots from the web page of Porcelain Tub Restoration, the company she runs with her husband.
While Tunderf00t didn’t explicitly command his army to harass Keller and her husband, he suggested to his supporters that they post their thoughts about her on the business’s Yelp page — and they did, cratering the company’s rating with literally hundreds of fake one-star reviews.
Yelp has been removing the most obviously fake ones, as well as those referencing her letter about Thunderf00t, but many remain up as “not recommended” (in other words, questionable) reviews, including a number of clearly trollish ones accusing Keller of being a Nazi.
These negative reviews, as ludicrous as many of them are, have apparently hit the business hard. Keller and her husband have set up a FundAnything page in an attempt, they say, to make payroll in the wake of the attacks on their and their company’s reputation online. On the FundAnything page Keller’s husband, Paul Burns, writes:
We are getting slanderous lies about our services and people posting deplorable images on review sites, as well desecrating our star ratings and customers calling. No one clicks to a service company with 1 star rating.
According to Burns, the 26-year-old “family based service business with 14 employees” may be forced to close “because of a brutal mob attack on our social review sites.”
Mason’s response to this campaign being waged in his name? Another video, in which he declares that “Karma [is] ONLY A BITCH, if you are one!”
Except that this isn’t “karma,” a supernatural force that Mason, a self-avowed “skeptic,’ presumably doesn’t believe in anyway.
This is an organized harassment campaign, instigated and encouraged by Mason himself.
While I’ve enjoyed Laughing Witch’s videos in the past, I think the letter writing campaign was wrong. Writing employers is a low blow. And despite Mason’s many flaws as a thinker and a human being, he’s no Nazi.
But the wave of harassment he’s brought down on Keller — and which he has not made even the slightest attempt to rein in — is indefensible.
And it’s getting worse by the day: 8chan’s Baphomet forum, a haven for malicious doxers and harassers, has now jumped aboard this harassment train, targeting not only Keller but her supporters as well. They’ve doxed one other YouTuber already, and are working on doxing others.
In a Baphomet thread, one anon happily reports that the attacks on Keller are causing her great distress:
While Mason at first suggested that he would call off the attack if Keller apologized to him, he has since refused to accept her apology, and seems positively gleeful about the pain he’s caused her and her allies.
The internet has officially hit another new low.
I’ll post more on this as it develops.
NOTE: Thanks to Daily Kos blogger idlediletante (Margaret Pless), who provided me with a number of tips on this story. She’s written three posts on the subject so far:
Family Business Brigaded on Yelp by MRA YouTube Stars
Phil Mason is Working With Baphomet to Ruin DC Business
How it Feels to Be Targeted By An Internet Hate Mob: One Man’s Story
“Seems like his employer is okay with employing a vocal sexist.”
That’s why I went to Patreon. I already got a response and they told me to fill out a form for their Trust and Safety team to look at. Hopefully it works.
Setting out to destroy someone’s business by fraudulently disparaging their service or product is an actionable tort, and when combined with certain other offenses, can give rise to a civil RICO. I’d suggest she see an attorney who has dealt with this kind of thing.
He may not be a nazi himself, but I’m given to understand that his blatant islamophobia and accompanying racism have made him quite popular among the stormfront crowd. Were I his employer I’d probably have appreciated a heads up.
Which research company in the UK employs Mason? I’m not going to write them any letters, but everyone should be aware of the kind of lowlife they continue to employ. What he does reflects on their reputation.
How do i report him?
Do i have to sign up?
Long time reader, first time comment-er…
Unfortunately, I have to agree that Laughing Witch was in the wrong to participate in the letter writing campaign. While that doesn’t mean she deserves to have her business ruined (she clearly does not), Mason is entitled to his noxious views and continued employment. Had he crossed the line into actually physically assaulting someone, my position would be different, but the way to combat the lowlifes isn’t by sinking to their level. When you do, you give them exactly this kind of ammunition.
I do hope she and her husband are able to weather this storm until they get distracted by the next imagined slight.
It IS proof, yes. And at the risk of joining the unpopular crowd, I think she was onto something. If Michael Brutsch, a.k.a. Violentacrez, isn’t entitled to keep his job on account of being a semi-pro troll, then this guy, who IS a professional troll, isn’t entitled to keep his, either.
And last I looked, heading up lynch mobs is still illegal, too.
@Bina
I know that using this case would be an after the fact excuse but I sincerely doubt that this is the first time that he sent out a brigade to hurt someone.
At the very least he’s guilty of increasing Anita-hate.
“How do i report him?”
I went to Patreon
https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
And reported him for breaking community guideline, specifically doxing. They sent me a Google Doc to fill out. Hopefully there will be a result.
… I honestly thought he was a literal Nazi. Huh.
This story is super fucking depressing but I was sort of cheered up by seeing the Daily Kos commenters smack around the nitwit Tfoot fanboys who have swarmed in to defend their hero. Granted it’s not hard to smack down a group that seems to consist entirely of fuming Junior High debate club wash-outs, but it’s still fun to watch.
Yeah, maybe her husband’s company suddenly got a lot worse at porcelain tub restoration. I mean, can you scientifically prove the obvious harassment is harassment?
. “…and I will recount this in excruciating detail.”
Citation needed.
I’m joining the unpopular crowd too. I don’t think LaughingWitch was correct, based on what I know about the accusations, but professors are expected to adhere to stringent ethical standards. If you think they’re not doing it, but you’re afraid to contact the institution for fear that you’ll be called “not cool,” what’s the bloody point of ethics standards?
My favourite defense of various attack campaigns on Sarkeesian is how “she picked the fight”. How does criticizing pop cultural consumer products equate to “picking a fight”? That’s never been fully explained. I guess these people’s identities are so wrapped up in the crap they buy they can’t differentiate where the self begins and their consumption patterns end? And why do these people see “vengeance” against people they’ve never met and have never done them any harm as their personal responsibility? The internet is a strange universe.
Hi, Orion,
Sarkeesian has sat on her hands. Can you show some way in which she has directly confronted her harassers?
I lost all respect for Thunderf00t long ago. Lately he’s become especially insufferable, even launching an anti-feminist/anti-Sarkeesian tirade during his video on the Charlie Hebdo slaughter. He’ll use any tragedy to get in a jab against women he hates. This is just the icing on the cake for this mansplainy douchecanoe.
@Bazia
Appearing on international TV and the speaking to the UN doesn’t count?
… Wait. I hope you’re not blaming Anita for what Thunderdoofus is doing. ಠ_ಠ
The overwhelming majority of small businesses will never be targeted by internet hate mobs. A user might understand that there’s no protection against vandalism, but if 99% of pages are never vandalized, that 1% error rate doesn’t really make it a bad tool for the consumer.
@Bazia,
Let me flip that back at you, because when you use the word “mistaken,” you have the burden of proof. I don’t know the details of what she’s been up to lately and am not able to list off the stuff she’s done to “fight.”
I would you to tell me: what would be a helpful way for her to “fight” Phil Mason and how do you know she has the resources to do it?
They’re all over the company’s Google Reviews, too.
http://bit.ly/1GF9J7b
I’m going to be a nit-picky asshole here, for a minute: he isn’t “entitled” to his views, he’s allowed to have them – like everyone else. Including those who he is harassing into oblivion.
Saying he’s “entitled” to his views is exactly what leads to this kind of mentality, where he and his sycophants think this disproportionate response to a letter from months ago that didn’t even get him fired. Even if it did get laid off – he’s just one person and still can rely off money from his over-funded Patreon account. Going out to ruin the person, the person’s business, and her associates is completely out-of-proportion.
There’s no reason for Mason or any of his fans need to do this. They do so because, as they feel entitled to say whatever they want, they are entitled to do whatever they want. Regardless of how hypocritical or overblown it is. Even questioning that sense of entitlement, even with little to no ill effect on them, is such a great infraction that their suppose love of “free speech” disappears as they hound and ostracize people into silence.
Then again, this love of “free speech” from they and those akin claim is a complete crock of shit. If they did supposed worship that concept – they wouldn’t feel the need to dominate every conversation. They can’t even keep themselves from going to sites they quite obviously hate to play Devil’s Advocate for the most reprehensible beliefs and people than allow any discussion between those who, y’know, regularly read that site’s content and discuss it regularly. They’d respect the fact that not every venue is obligated to act as their audience and validate them. They pointlessly overwhelm and derail conversations en masse to simply frustrate and drive people away than further any actual discussion – yet are either delusional or disingenuous enough to believe themselves to be on the moral high ground.
That isn’t sensible…it’s obsessive.
He also has a habit of seeking out disempowered women to sic his hate mob on, as I unfortunately have personal experience with.
Please please report that patreon
You can report for Doxing and clearly the terms of service says if you maliciously dox, you’re out, if you encourage fraud, you’re out.
Come on. This is it, he has done the super villain thing, where he charges once more at a target and flies off the cliff.
Here is the form.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1AXep3wKV1Sf_lwYcAIhKZFGrGtHXGJDk6vTlIKuiM3M/viewform
It asks for a link to his patreon which can be found easily.
It gives spaces for three more links. I have linked the Daily Kos news article. PZ Meyers Blog and this article here, which is good because it shows the vile celebration of suicide as well.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/22/1437368/-Family-Business-Brigaded-on-Yelp-by-MRA-YouTube-Stars
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/10/26/thunderf00t-keeps-proving-me-wrong/
There is NO GRAY AREA HERE. Sorry for the caps, but really.
He makes 3,400 plus dollars per video. That means for attacking that family business, he made around 7,000 dollars.
No.