The Cyber-Stalker Cyber-Bully

He has been all over the internet on Susan Boyle related sites.  Why Susan Boyle? I don’t know.  He can sing her praises if he thinks it will be useful to him. But then, on another site, he will savage her.  He seems to resent her success.  And the members of the fan sites were easy pickings.  Many had little internet experience.  They were too trusting.

This cyber-bully has been around since the beginning.  After a while, it became possible to recognize his style.  You may remember some of his names.  Belfast James at Irish Central.  MyFlyinghigh1 on YouTube.  He has been banned over and over from fan sites, but he keeps coming back.  He has had more than two dozen names and is still creating more. 

This bully’s method of operation is to pretend to agree with people.  He says whatever he thinks they want to hear.  He gains their confidence.  In that way, he is able to glean information.  He uses that information against them in other places.  He has been involved in stirring up much of the animosity in the Susan Boyle fan community.  If you have heard something bad about another fan, he may be behind it.

He has had quite a few victims over the last year and a half.  Remember the stalker stories?  He was behind that. Remember the stories about Americans wanting to do tours of Blackburn?  He was behind that, too.  He has accused other fans of being stalkers.  He has disparaged Susan’s management and family and tried to stir up trouble between them.  He has created stories about Susan herself.  He has tried to sell stories to the tabloids. 

I have fallen for some of these stories myself.  There is often a tiny bit of truth in them.  That is what makes them seem plausible.  But the truth is smothered in a heap of lies.  There is just enough truth to make you think it might be true or just slightly exaggerated.

 It has taken some time to track down his activities.  He communicates by private message and email, so his manipulations are not always obvious, but the damage he inflicts is.  His reach into the fan community is almost unbelievable.  The harm he has caused is appalling.  He is still in contact with fans who do not understand the nature of the beast with whom they are communicating. 

If you are contacted by someone who seems to have “insider” knowledge of the music business, be wary.  That is something he often does.  Most of it is BS, but there is usually a tidbit of truth to help him gain “credibility”.  If you are contacted by someone who tells you gossip about other fans or about Susan, be wary.  That is also his style.  Do not fall for it. 

He has been instrumental in the creation of factions and hostility in the Susan Boyle fan community.  He has stirred and nurtured those hostilities.  He is still active on forums and news sites.  So are the rumors and lies he created.  It is time for us to free ourselves from this poison.  In order to do that, we must have a fresh start and put aside all of the rumors, lies and defensive attitudes which are the result of this bully.  

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.  Share your knowledge of this cyber-stalker bully by sending it to an email account set up for the purpose:  sbfandomcrimetips@gmail.com

Serial Cyber-Stalker Cyber-Bully Alert

The Optimist and the Pessimist

Pessimist:  I don’t have much hope for that Board statement.

Optimist:  Give them a chance to do the right thing.  I still hold the faith.  Just hang on in there a while longer….

Pessimist:  I don’t think they would know the right thing if it bit them on the butt.

Optimist:  Look, it can’t be easy for them.  They don’t know who to believe – that’s the problem!   Their minds have been poisoned against us.

Pessimist: I expect a Nixonian “modified limited hangout”.  They will put out a little bit of information in hopes of avoiding the rest. 

Optimist:  My one fear is that they will announce what they have not found, rather than what they have.  The majority of members wouldn’t necessarily understand the implication of that. 

Pessimist: I also expect them to use the old rape defense strategy:  blame the victim.

Optimist:  Surely not! 

Pessimist: I think they will try.  They will try to make it the fault of the accused that the accusers believed the lies of the cyber-stalker bully.

Optimist:  They wouldn’t say that if they had seen him as we had.  He sure had me fooled.  Mistakes were made on all sides, but shouldn’t stop them from correcting the record.  We’re all victims! 

Pessimist:  Just wait.  They will look for any little thing that Dyebat, lchris or Citroenlady, or anyone they ever associated with, has ever done.    

Optimist: Guilt by association?  This isn’t the 1950s.  Is anyone pure as the driven snow?  I doubt it.  I think they are man enough to fess up that they were taken in by him in the same way that we were.

Pessimist: They probably won’t mention that they had already banned this guy many times and he should have had no credibility.   

Optimist:  But we all know they have.

Pessimist:  Why do you think they believed him without checking him out then?  They must have seen an IP match or something.

Optimist:  Perhaps he was so convincing that they were completely won over.  You remember how he always said what we wanted to hear?

Pessimist:  But they allowed members to print lies that broke their own rules on his word!

Optimist:  Yes, that is one thing that is unforgivable and very damaging.

Pessimist:  I don’t think they have it in them to apologize!

Optimist:  Oh – I’m sure they do!  Any honorable person would, if the evidence was staring them in the face…

Pessimist:  Don’t underestimate one main factor in this; pride.  Leaders who are not confident in their leadership might see an apology as a sign of weakness.

Optimist:  But to me it would be a reason to respect them.

High crimes and Misdemeanors

Time to lighten up a little.  I hope you read this in the spirit in which it was intended, both serious and amusing.  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. 

Confession: I was once banned from susan-boyle.com for a week.  It happened at my third Warning.  In the interest of honesty and full disclosure I will confess my abysmal crimes. 

The first Warning was for violating an unwritten forum policy.  You might ask how I know about this policy, if it was unwritten.  I know because Doc Robbie told me about it when he gave me the first Warning.  He said it was against forum policy to “discuss banned members”.

This happened on Christmas Eve, right after DJG-Scotland was permanently banned.  He was a friend of mine and I was sorry it happened.  So I put a yellow ribbon in my signature and the words “A yellow ribbon to DJG-Scotland”.  I had no idea it was such a heinous offense.  Maybe it would have been okay if I used a red ribbon.

I wondered where that policy was posted and asked Doc Robbie to point it out for me.  Turns out it wasn’t posted anywhere.  I do not know under which section of unwritten policies this particular one belongs.  It is hard to tell when they are unwritten. 

 It could be under the group of policies which are unwritten because they are only enforced when convenient to the mods.  But I suspect it was one of the policies which are unwritten because they are only enforced against some members, because I have seen other occasions when banned members were discussed.  But it didn’t matter that the admin could not show me where the “policy” was posted.  The Warning stood.

Well, now I was feeling really down.  DJG, who often cheered me up with his humor, was gone and I had gotten an Official Warning.  Bummer.  The reason Doc Robbie gave me for the unwritten policy prohibiting discussion of banned members was that it would lead to ”a protest of that action by staff”.  Hmmm….. what if I put something in  my signature that only I would see.  I could type it in white text and then no one but me would know it was there.  That way, there wouldn’t be any protesters storming the staff room, demanding the return of DJG.

So I wrote “Miss ya, DJG” in white text in my signature.  The only way to see it was to select it, as if you were going to copy it.  And who would do that in someone’s blank signature? 

I had not told a single person what I had put in my signature.  But the subject had come up at the humor forum when someone mentioned invisible ink.  I joked that typing in white did the same thing.  There have always been members at DJG’s that go there, not to participate, but to lurk.  Kalua was one such member and must have seen the bit about white-on-white text.  I wonder who had the job of checking my posts and signature every day for secret messages.

Someone selected the blank space in my signature and saw my “private” message.  I got another PM from Doc Robbie saying I was trying to “circumvent the rule” I had violated earlier.  I don’t know when it happened, but the unwritten “policy” had become an unwritten “rule”.  I didn’t understand what the big deal was, because I thought no one would see it.  If no one sees it, it can hardly lead to protests of any kind, can it?  I was obeying the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law.  I removed the non-visible writing, but I now had two Warnings, both for violating that same unwritten rule.  After I got the warning, they wrote a rule about white-on-white text.

My third Warning came for doing something that has been done by others both before and after I did it.  I linked to a spoof.  It was one that the staff found unacceptable and I was banned.  After I was banned, they wrote a rule about linking to spoofs.  At least that rule was posted, I thought, so others will know that they could get a Warning for linking to a spoof.  But, like the unposted rules, that was not always enforced either.

So now you know.  I was given Warnings for things which were not officially prohibited at the time I did them.  As a result of those three Warnings, I was banned for a week.  I apologize for not anticipating what the unposted rules would be.  It is especially hard to figure them out when other members do the same things, without any consequences. 

Sometimes the staff at the fansite complain that they are disrespected.  I cannot imagine why that might happen.  Wouldn’t this sort of off-the-cuff, make up rules as we go along and enforce them retroactively style of moderation greatly increased anyone’s respect for staff? 

Postscipt:  If anyone believes those warnings were absurd and couldn’t have happened that way, I will be glad to send you copies of the messages.

WHAT IF IT WAS AN INSIDE JOB?

What if it was all based on lies?  What if the events of last July never had to happen?

What if there was someone posting poison about Susan Boyle fans and forums?

What if he got to some of the mods?

What if he got to the admins and they believed him?

What if staff sent out messages begging some members to help protect the forum from an “attack” that was never planned?

What if staff accused the two people who were trying to acquire the forum for members of being liars?

What if staff accused other forums of being involved in a plot to “take over”, but that plot never existed?

What if staff let in banned members to make it appear that the “others” were doing so?

What if it was staff who caused the chaos on the forum by changing names, deleting threads, etc?

What if staff allowed a member to post a whole thread of lies about other members, in gross violation of the rules?

What if they had an "investigation" and didn't request all the data for review?

What if the “investigation” only looked for unauthorized access by an outsider/hacker?

What if the disruption was caused by well-meaning, but misguided staff members who genuinely felt at risk of the site being taken from them?

If any of that happened, would they ever tell us?

The reason to look at the history of the fansite forum is to understand why things happened the way they did.  But it is not necessary to do an in-depth analysis to know what is needed going forward.  There are some things that can be done immediately.

The first thing to do is to clear up any misunderstandings about what happened last July.  Some of the staff believed the lies of a very successful and persistent cyber-bully.  They repeated those lies, claiming Dyebat, lchris, Citroenlady and members of other forums were involved in a plot to take over the fansite.   It was not true.

Second, explain that it was staff who caused the problems on the forum, including letting in banned members and creating other mayhem.  Perhaps they can explain how this was supposed to help, because I cannot. 

Third, get rid of the cyber-bully immediately every time he comes back.  Report him to the police.  Quit listening to him themselves and advise members to do the same.  Explain to members that someone who claims to have inside information about music matters is not necessarily to be trusted.

And finally, take a look at the rules.  If there are going to be rules, they should be enforced in the same manner for all members.  The rules should apply to everyone or no one.  There is a pervasive feeling among members that the rules are not applied equally to all.  I don’t believe this is limited to so-called contentious members. 

There will be some who clamor that the forum is fine the way it is.  I have noticed that it is always the same few people.  They could be the ones who get the favored treatment, even when they are contentious. 

I also think that the staff would find that if they let up a bit on the heavy hand of moderation, things would be easier, without being out of control.  If you treat people like children, they tend to live down to your expectations.  Try treating them like adults and see if they don’t live up to your expectations.

It is not necessary to wait to do the things required to move forward.  Explain about the hoax attack and the cyber-bully unambiguously.  Clear the names of those who did not do the things of which they were accused.  Moderate the forum in a fair and equal way. 

I realize that by now there are people who think my only purpose in writing this blog is to tear the forum down.  They are wrong.  I still believe the forum has the potential to be a great place, even better than it is now.  But before that can happen, we need to think about where we have been, what has happened and where we go from here. 

So, yes, I am going to revisit “the past”, even beyond last July.  I think it is important to look at the events leading up to the current situation. It can help explain why people have behaved the way they did.

But I won’t just talk about what I think went wrong. I will also discuss what I think was done right.  And then I want to talk about the way forward. The forum has been experiencing discord and contention for months.  Much of it was deliberately incited by a cyber-bully.  That resulted in otherwise good people, on both “sides”, doing and saying things which were misguided and hurtful.   The cyber-bully has done his mischief well and the hurt and mistrust goes deep. 

But we can overcome this.  We need the truth to come out so that these wounds can be cleansed and allowed to heal.  We need to understand that we have more in common than we have separating us.  There are going to be some people who don’t want to do this. We should not let them stop the rest of us.  I believe we can rise above it and become a united community once more.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING..........?

We all make mistakes, but do we have to dwell on them?  If we can forget that things were said about people which weren’t true, why can’t they? Just because we never apologized or retracted the accusations doesn’t mean they shouldn’t forgive us and move on, does it?  Does it?

Isn’t it better to stifle discussion of past unresolved issues; those issues that might cause embarrassment to certain staff members because they highlight how innocent people were smeared? 

Isn’t it better to sweep them under the rug and insist we “move on”?  What shall we do about insistent  members who seem dedicated to clearing the names of the innocent accused?  Can’t they just forget about it and watch a happy video?  Why do they insist on resurrecting “the past”?  Can’t we all pretend it never happened?

Let’s see …… we could stifle discussion by labeling any questions and concerns about the issues as “contentious”.   We can’t have any contention on the forum!  In fact, let’s claim that they “post only on contentious matters”.   Does it matter that the reason they keep bringing it up is because we refuse to deal with it? 

Labeling posts, or even members themselves, as “contentious” solves a lot of our problems.  If “contentious” posts are outlawed, we can delete any post that questions the staff or Board.  Then members can get warnings and even be banned for bringing up past unresolved issues.    

This is such a great idea! It will work for current issues, too.  Any issue that is uncomfortable for us can simply be called contentious.  Problem solved!  No need to issue retractions, answer questions, explain decisions or justify questionable rulings. 

Never again will the staff or Board have to deal with those pesky issues of partiality, fairness and truth.  If those subjects are raised, send ’em a PM:  “You have violated Point #6”.  Problem solved.