"Kiwi Farms is an internet message board known for being an epicenter of vicious, anti-trans harassment campaigns."
Hey guys, did you know saving copies of things people actually said is a harassment campaign?
"It has operated for nearly a decade with the backing of some tech companies that refuse to drop services for it."
The site has existed since, what, 2014? And the focus on Trans issues is relatively recent.
"
But now, as the site’s users launch a wave of anti-trans attacks"
In the form of MENTIONING THINGS A TRANS PERSON DID, and doing absolutely nothing else
"
a trans Twitch streamer targeted by Kiwi Farms is spearheading an unprecedented campaign to take down the fringe website."
Vordrak did it first.
"Clara Sorrenti and those supporting her are hoping to open up Kiwi Farms to debilitating virtual attacks by demanding Cloudflare, one of its internet security service vendors, drop the site."
This sentence is actually true, although it skirts the fact that they are doing those attacks, and that those attacks are illegal. Also he misspelled Lucas Roberts.
"(Citing an ‘imminent and emergency threat to human life’, Cloudflare said on Saturday that it would block Kiwi Farms, putting the future of the forum in doubt.) "
Not anymore!
"In a public statement posted Wednesday, under Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s byline, the company said that it will not drop security services for any of its customers. (The statement did not mention Kiwi Farms by name.) "
This is confusingly edited because he put the brackets in after the article was published. I think. Anyhow it doesn't really read as coherent unless you know the background.
"A Cloudflare representative referred NBC News to the blog post when reached for comment. "
We will learn later that one should take with a grain of salt whenever Collins mentions someone commenting or refusing to comment.
"If the ongoing efforts to close the forum fail, experts warn Kiwi Farms’ target list and techniques could expand as culture war issues gain more attention ahead of the 2024 election,"
Yes, you Boomer Republicans, you. You're all fired up by Tucker Carlson, aren't you.
"
potentially affecting more LGBTQ private citizens or creating a national security threat with the expansion of Kiwi Farms’ harassment tactics to new targets."
It is now a possible
national security threat to create an archive of
shit people put out there on the gd internet for the whole world and its grandma to see.
"Kiwi Farms has become synonymous with doxxing (the release of an individual’s identifying information with malicious intent), swatting (a term for when an anonymous person sends an urgent, false tip to the police about a violent crime in a victim’s home in the hopes that law enforcement will raid it and potentially harm the person inside), and archiving controversial materials such as manifestos by mass shooters and recordings of their livestreams."
He's not even using the title of the site right. It's The Kiwi Farms. Otherwise this is partially true, false, and true, in order.
"The forum is a massive archive of sensitive information on their targets, which has been used to repeatedly harass them. "
Sensitive, such as the material that people tweeted. About themselves. Harass, meaning someone might read some fucked up thing you and ask, hey, why are you paying for bathtub estrogen for minors, Roberts?
"Kiwi Farms’ most notorious section is titled “lolcows” and targets transgender people."
That's not at all a nice thing to say about Fatrick, Ben. He's just an unusually soft, womanly man, not trans. Also, on a more serious note, he has written an entire article and not even noticed that there's a separate breakout section for transgender people. And it's not "lolcows."
"
The archive often features social media pictures of their targets’ friends and family, along with contact information of their employers."
Fact check: True.
"The information is used in an effort to get their targets fired or socially isolated by spreading rumors that they are pedophiles or criminals."
This is coming from a dude whose business is tarring people as Nazis. The difference is that the Farms values accuracy, and NBC reporters do not.
"Experts fear Kiwi Farms is starting to target other communities — and that their tactics are being duplicated throughout the political world to intimidate political enemies."
"Experts"
What tactics are being duplicated? Does the Republican party have some website full of autists sharing old photos of Gavin Newsom? Is this a thing? Or did we invent looking at people's publicly available social media? Null, you genius you.
"“This kind of Kiwi Farms thing could easily become, say, an FBI agent database. It would not be hard,” warned Fredrick Brennan, who previously worked with the founder of Kiwi Farms at another extremist site, 8chan."
Fact check: True. Someone could put facebook photos FBI agents post of themselves online.
"Brennan believes that the harassment techniques being used to target trans people now could easily be channeled toward larger goals and government targets — including other recent political targets of the far-right, like the FBI."
Spelling in the original. It would be awfully scary if someone kept information on the FBI. That's what they're supposed to be doing with us! Also, heaven forbid if the Kiwi Farms had threads on non-trans people. The Internet would be at an end.
"Kiwi Farms is owned and operated by Josh Moon, a former administrator of 8chan, a forum that became known as a dumping ground for white nationalist screeds posted by mass shooters and the conspiracy theory movement QAnon. Brennan, the founder of 8chan who has spent the last several years trying to take down the site he created due to its adoption by extremists, said he worked with Moon for years in Manila, Philippines, as a fellow 8chan administrator."
Joshua Moon. This may sound petty, but for a reporter to regularly get names wrong is the type of thing they used to be fired for.
"Brennan said that, while websites like 4chan and 8chan can pose substantial national security risks, “what Moon is doing is worse, because he’s actually targeting specific people” on a more organized website."
I'm not a 4chan or 8chan person so someone else can fisk this for me.
"When reached for comment, Moon replied via email, “The press are scum.” He did not respond to specific questions."
Plausible.
"Unlike sites like 4chan, where administrators have little direction over the harassment campaigns of its userbase, Brennan said Moon’s power over Kiwi Farms is different. Moon is himself a frequent poster and moderator on Kiwi Farms, under the username Null. "
Null is dangerous because he
participates on his own site. That man is a monster.
"“Kiwi Farms is extremely centralized, with Josh Moon right at the top deciding who is the target and who’s not,” said Brennan. “He can delete any thread for any reason.”"
Fact check: False. I mean I guess he can delete any thread for any reason, because that's how ownership works, but I only wish he reviewed every thread. Notice me, senpai!
"Moon frequently participates in discussion threads about individuals who are being targeted on the site, posting personal email correspondences and encouraging the discussions. On Friday, Moon replied in a thread dedicated to posting personal information of “trans-identified activists” that he does “regularly curtail posts which detract from the overall quality of the site.”"
Null, the monster, posts on his own site. He also attempts to curtail posts "of exceedingly low quality or deliberate derailment." That dude acts like he owns this joint or something.
At least three people have died by suicide after becoming targets of Kiwi Farms harassment campaigns, according to Vice.
In the words of Dear Leader,
"If a journo scumfuck is willing to echo it, it's truth. It goes on WP as true. It's cited by other journo scumfucks as true. The press are scum."
In 2016, the family of a trans person who died by suicide, Lizzy Waite, was harassed by Kiwi Farms trolls for weeks after her death. She had posted a suicide note on Facebook.
Is this the one who died on hold to Trans Lifeline?
Sorrenti became a target of Kiwi Farms after she gained notoriety for speaking about the recent wave of anti-trans legislation in the U.S. and challenging conservative viewpoints and personalities online.
Was it for "challenging conservative viewpoints and personalities online"? Or was it for operating a Catboy Ranch, doing T-girl fart fetish findom porn, and personally sponsoring sending Chinese HRT to children without their parents' consent? Because if it were the latter, that would be way funnier.
After a streamer who criticized Sorrenti was banned from Twitch in March, Kiwi Farms users created a discussion thread about Sorrenti that included sexually explicit material of her, phone numbers and addresses belonging to Sorrenti and her family, and her dead name — the name she used before her gender transition.
A really easy way to avoid having embarrassing fart fetishist photos of yourself made public is to not make embarrassing fart fetishist photos of yourself public. If you put yourself on the cover of Playboy, I am not a hate criminal for showing people the picture.
Sorrenti, known to fans of her streaming channel as “Keffals,” says that when her front door opened on Aug. 5 the first thing she saw was a police officer’s gun pointed at her face. It was just the beginning of a weekslong campaign of stalking, threats and violence against Sorrenti that ended up making her flee the country.
He did say this, because he is a lying liar who lies.
Police say Sorrenti’s home in London, Ontario, had been swatted after someone impersonated her in an email and said she was planning to perpetrate a mass shooting outside of London’s City Hall. After Sorrenti was arrested, questioned and released, the London police chief vowed to investigate and find who made the threat.
They specifically said that they did not do a hot entry. They knocked on the door. Roberts answered the door.
Those police were eventually doxxed on Kiwi Farms and threatened. The people who threatened and harassed Sorrenti, her family and police officers investigating her case have not been identified.
I don't know whether anyone found the addresses of the police officers, but I know for sure no one made threats towards them on the Farms.
“It was particularly bad because I’m trans, but literally anyone could make a burner email in your name and attach a photo of a gun and say you’re going to go on a mass shooting,” Sorrenti said during a video call with NBC News, which she conducted from a hotel where she is hiding. “Depending on who the cops are and how you react, you might die as a result of it.”
I always do mass media interviews when I'm in hiding. But yes, anyone could call the police and say you're planning to shoot someone. This is a problem. What does the Farms have to do with it, other than that if you're here, you're mocked for suggesting such a thing?
After her swatting, Sorrenti fled to a nearby hotel. Within hours, stalkers determined which hotel in her city had matching bed sheets from a photo Sorrenti tweeted of her cat. Trolls then sent dozens of pizzas to Sorrenti’s hotel in an apparent effort to make her aware that her hotel had been identified.
The SMRT thing to do if you're in hiding is to tweet photos of your hiding place. Also, the scariest terrorists send pizza. If they did; We're just going by Roberts' word here.
Sorrenti said her Uber account was then hacked. Hundreds of dollars worth of groceries arrived at her hotel. Through Uber, Sorrenti said that hackers were able to obtain her phone number, home address and email address, as well as the addresses and numbers of her family members.
"Hackers."
Sorrenti shared an example of one of the calls she received harassing her. In the call, a computer-generated voice warns that “someone special has it out for you.”
Has Keffals considered that perhaps the life goal of antagonizing every single person he comes in contact with might not have been a good one?
The same tactic was used when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was swatted just days later, according to a police report from the incident obtained by NBC News. The caller identified themselves as a Kiwi Farms user and used a computer-generated voice, the report said. It’s not clear if the person who swatted Sorrenti also swatted Greene. Greene’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
This is how secret terrorists work. They use computer-generated voices and
identify themselves by their user names. What shocking journalisming is happening here.
Alejandra Carabello, an attorney at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, worries that Kiwi Farms’ typical “playbook” — in which trolls weaponize years of online data against various individuals because of their stances on a constellation of culture war issues — will be opened up to more and more private citizens as political rhetoric heats up before the 2024 election.
Lolcow crossover! Lolcow crossover! Typical error; Carabello is not an attorney at Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic but an instructor, and the name is spelled "Caraballo."
"“This is stochastic terror that’s being implemented as part of the culture war,” said Carabello, adding that Sorrenti has faced every tactic in Kiwi Farms’ information war playbook. “Kiwi Farms’ goal is a world where LGBTQ users are not going to be as out and open on social media — they’re going to live in fear of threats and harassment.”"
Everyone cross out "stochastic terror" on your Bingo cards.
"Sorrenti fears Kiwi Farms’ harassment techniques will soon be duplicated by far-right trolls to advance larger culture war goals."
Dude, anyone can read your Twitter. Even Ron Desantis. This is kind of LibsofTiktok's entire bit.
"On Wednesday, Alex Kaplan, the senior researcher at Media Matters, reported that trolls from Kiwi Farms and 4chan — with support from other far-right influencers — began a campaign to clog up suicide hotlines for The Trevor Project, which is meant to help LGBTQ+ youth who are considering self-harm."
Huh? What is this even about?
"For years, targets of Kiwi Farms have avoided drawing major attention to the harassment they face, many out of fear. Sorrenti is one of the first Kiwi Farms targets who has created a significant movement to shut down the website. "
Nah, just the first one Collins was paying.
"Eventually, they will have to capitulate. We can and will win this,” she wrote."
Fact check: false.
