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a voice for men drama facebook censoring rape memes the world is ending oh no gross incompetence lying liars MRA

Keep digging: A Voice for Men ready to triple down on dishonesty in order to cover up mistake? [CORRECTED]

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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:

DEAn3

And going back to the story with the error I found a new “editorial note” from Esmay:

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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.

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a voice for men gross incompetence gullibility imaginary oppression lying liars MRA none dare call it conspiracy

Worse than Wrong: A Voice for Men resorts to phony screenshot and outright lying to avoid admitting embarrassing error [CORRECTED]

liar

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. I have left the text of this piece as is.

When reputable publications, online or off, make a mistake, the editors grit their teeth, swallow their embarrassment, and run a correction. [EDIT: I’ve even got a little one at the end of this post!]

Men’s Rights hate hub A Voice for Men has somewhat more lax standards than reputable publications, or even not-so-reputable publications, and generally prefers to deal with its errors by pretending they never happened. But sometimes the errors are so obvious, even to their own somewhat credulous readers, that they have to acknowledge them in some form.

In the case of one egregious recent error AVFM has tried something a bit more audacious: resorting to a phony screenshot and outright lies in an attempt to prove that they were right all along.

Sorry, dudes, but you’re not going to get away with it. You guys are so grossly incompetent you can’t even lie convincingly.

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a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism domestic violence drama kings gross incompetence imaginary oppression MRA paranoia

Wrong Again: Comically inept A Voice for Men makes bizarre, bogus claims about “violence against men” search engine results

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A Voice for Men has a little Google Challenge for its readers, and I’m going to invite you to take part in it as well. In the midst of yet another post trying to gin up outrage over Facebook’s banning of violent rape memes and other such repugnant shit, new AVFM contributor and “former feminist” Jason Gregory sets forth this challenge, which he originally posted on his blog several weeks ago:

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9 Amazing Songs That It Is Probably Impossible To Have Sex To

She drove him away with Throbbing Gristle.
She drove him away with Throbbing Gristle.

Roosh’s Return of Kings blog recently posted a list of “7 Brilliant Songs To Make Love To,” to help all the would-be Romeos (and possible rapists) who read his blog to more easily manipulate drunk women into bed.

I would like to provide a somewhat more whimsical service to readers here of all genders. So here are 9 Amazing Songs That It Is Probably Impossible To Have Sex To (Unless You Have Them Playing At Extremely Low Volume).

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"proxy violence" a voice for men actual activism advocacy of violence antifeminism conspiracy theory crackpottery drama kings facebook censoring rape memes the world is ending oh no false accusations figurative nazis grandiosity hate imaginary oppression incoherent rage johntheother misogyny MRA none dare call it conspiracy oppressed men paranoia playing the victim rape culture rape jokes slacktivism the sound of his own voice

John the Other: Feminists who oppose rape memes on Facebook are violence-promoting fascists, and you are too! Probably.

Typical feminazis! Oh, wait.
Typical feminazis! Oh, wait.

The MRA hissy fit over Facebook continues. Over on A Voice for (Human) Men, our old friend John “The Other” Hembling offers up his take on the whole controversy, which has roused the usually torpid MRAs to “activism,” and somehow manages to be even more overheated and incoherent than even Paul Elam before him — and at times nearly as ponderous as the legendarily ponderous Fidelbogen as well.

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a voice for men antifeminism douchebaggery drama entitled babies FemRAs hypocrisy men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misandry misogyny MRA paul elam straw feminists

Tempest in a Bee Cup: TheWoolyBumblebee expelled from A Voice for Men for making angry men even angrier

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More drama at A Voice for Men! Kristina Hansen — the excitable FeMRA videoblogger better known as TheWoolybumblebee — has been tossed off the good ship AVFM by Master and Commander Paul Elam for what he calls her “constant public conflicts with elements of our community.”

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a voice for men actual activism advocacy of violence antifeminism drama kings excusing abuse facebook censoring rape memes the world is ending oh no gross incompetence gullibility hate irony alert misogyny MRA paul elam rape culture rape jokes sexual abuse sexual assault slacktivism the eternal solipsism of the MRA mind

A Voice for Men activates its activists to make asses of themselves over this Facebook thing

For MRAs, driving in circles IS the plan.
For MRAs, driving in circles IS the plan.

So if you’ve ever wondered what sort of activism that Men’s Rights, er, Activists do when they do do activism, take a look at this little ACTION ALERT from A Voice for Men.

You may recall Paul Elam getting all worked up the other day because Facebook, responding to a campaign launched by a coalition of feminist activists and groups, announced it was going to try to do a better job removing “gender-based” hate speech from its site. You know, like this [TRIGGER WARNING] sort of thing.

Naturally, Elam and other MRAs interpreted Facebook’s announcement as the first step in the End of Male Speech on the Internet, or something.

Anyway, now the MRAs are ACTIVATING! AVFM has announced that it’s going after the groups that signed onto the feminist Facebook protest. Because, well, I’m not sure I get why exactly.

Here’s their explanation:

It’s time for action. The AVFM community has scrambled to look beyond the fine print of WAM!’s ultimatum to Facebook and into the signatories. We are finding that some of them are tax-exempt, and even government funded. We now know that government funded institutions have endorsed a harmful double standard that results in the censorship of men.

But, if we discover that even one cent of government money touched WAM!’s campaign, we will be exposing a whole new dimension of hypocrisy.

Uh, ok. I’m just really having a hard time finding the hypocrisy here. If you look at the names of the groups that signed onto the open letter, you’ll find a number of general feminist groups, groups concerned with the representation of women/gender in the media, and groups organized against sexual assault and other forms of violence.

They didn’t sign a petition demanding that all men posting on the internet be banned or, I dunno, kicked in the balls. They signed onto an open letter demanding that Facebook remove

groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about.

That doesn’t seem hypocritical to me. It seems rather in line with what these groups promote.

And the only men who will be censored will be men posting this sort of hateful shit. If women post this sort of shit, they’ll be banned too.

Apparently, AVFM and its “activist” fans are so divorced from reality that they think they’re going to be able to publicly embarrass rape survivor support groups … for standing up against crude, hateful rape jokes on Facebook featuring images of brutalized victims.

Still, at least this sort of surreal, self-defeating activism is better than firebombing courthouses and police stations, as that infamous manifesto posted in AVFM’s activism section so enthusiastically recommends.

EDIT: I forgot the link to the AVFM alert; added it inthe first graf.

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a voice for men advocacy of violence antifeminism conspiracy theory drama kings entitled babies facebook censoring rape memes the world is ending oh no grandiosity hate imaginary oppression inspiring men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats paul elam playing the victim rape culture rape jokes sexual harassment

The Facebook/Feminist Plot to Destroy Free Speech, Male Liberty, and 10-13% of A Voice for Men’s Traffic

Evil feminist banning male thought from the Internet
Evil feminist removing male ideas from the Internet

Men’s Rights, er, activists are waving their arms frantically in the air over what they see as a dire new threat to men and manhood: Facebook’s recent annoucement that it was going to try to do a better job of taking down violent images mocking victims of rape and domestic violence, and other kinds of misogynistic hate speech.

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a voice for men antifeminism drama drama kings evil women FemRAs imaginary backwards land infighting men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA rape rape culture sexual abuse straw feminists Tom Martin TROOOLLLL!! victim blaming

Tom “Female Penguins are Whores ” Martin, banned from A Voice for Men for excessive feminism?

Tom Martin would be right at home in Second Life, apparently.
Tom Martin would be right at home in Second Life, apparently.

I realize that I may be the only one who’s really all that interested in sectarian infighting amongst the MRAs, but an old friend of ours has weighed in on the recent battles over the A Voice for Men satellite group MRA London, and I’ve learned some interesting things as a result.

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A Voice for Men/MRA London infighting gets even sillier: Paul Elam makes his uninformed stand

boyfight

So, that tempest in a teacup involving MRA London,  A Voice for Men’s British satellite group, that I wrote about last night? Well, it’s gotten even sillier.

The tl;dr is that MRA London has split up, with accusations and counter-accusations flying. AVFM staffer Andy Thomas has appointed himself CEO of the group after apparently tossing out most of its members. (Or “accepting their resignations,” or something; who knows?) As far as I can tell, this means that the group may now be down to literally two people.

Now AVFM’s Maximum Leader Paul Elam has posted a very long statement on the subject, saying very little indeed. The gist of it? He really doesn’t know what happened in the “very British coup” or who was right, but he’s sticking with Thomas because he knows the dude better than the dudes who are no longer part of the group. No, really, that’s his explanation.

Not only that, but Elam admits flatly that doesn’t really even care who was right, at least not enough to bother to try to figure out the basic facts of the case:

I am not in the least interested in trying to ascertain who was more or less at fault in MRA London’s internal conflicts. It is not that I am indifferent to right and wrong in this case, but simply as a pragmatic matter I cannot and won’t try to wade through several weeks/months of infighting, insinuation and accusations between people in conflict 8,000 miles from here and even pretend that I can come up with an informed judgment.

Really? Because most political organizations, when faced with issues like this, like to at least pretend to gather the facts before making their decisions.

Elam also alludes vaguely to

other factors, having to do with the best interests of AVFM and the MHRM, that lend more support to our decision to maintain the historical relationship we have had with Andy Thomas of MRA London. I am not at liberty to discuss them, but they are compelling.

Oh, so there were some SUPER SEEEKRET reasons too! Having to do with the “best interests” of the world historical force that is the Men’s Human Rights Human Movement of Men (But Not Those Dudes We Just Threw Under The Bus for Super SEEEKRET Reasons).

Come to think of it, no one has actually explained straightforwardly the non-super seekret reasons either. Ah well.

Elam also makes clear that any dissent to this decision will be confined to the comments of this one thread.

ALL HAIL ELAM AND HIS INFALLIBLE WISDOM OF MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON NOT KNOWING SHIT ABOUT WHAT HE’S MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT.

PS In my haste to write this post I neglected to include my regular reminder that AVFM, while claiming to be a “human rights” group, continues to post a literal call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its activism section.