Yiannopoulous' article about Kane was a smear piece, featuring a tell-all interview by Kane's ex-boyfriend and internet bad boy 'weev', aka Andrew Auernheimer. In the article, a picture of shirtless Auernheimer creepily glares at you over Yiannopoulous's retelling of Kane's life, discrediting her and reducing her to a brief relationship with "gray hat hacker and white nationalist Internet troll" weev.
If you can imagine thezoepost, except written by Milo Yiannopoulous and featuing weev, you've pretty much got the gist of it.
Yiannopoulous even had an ethical spin on targeting Kane, over racist remarks she allegedly made in the presence of her then-boyfriend and proud white nationalist Auernheimer. Milo is not a much of an anti-racist either:he called the Scots "whining kilted leeches" in an August report on the Scottish independence referendum, and has his own history of anti-Semitic commentary (and bad poetry.) So Yiannopoulous's condemnation of someone else's racist remarks smacks of hypocrisy.
Kane saw this train-wreck of a journalist coming, for Yiannopoulous has a history of harassing women in tech.
When he contacted her for comment, Ms. Kane laughed in Yiannopoulous's face and posted his request on Twitter. Milo, unused to hearing the word "no" and apparently unaware that he had sent Shanley his telephone number in his last email, accused her of doxxing him by releasing the message containing his digits.
A psychologist might call what happened next "DARVA", which stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim & Aggressor. By mocking Yiannopoulous's request for comment, Milo and his droogs moved from stalking Kane and into full-on attack mode, digging up whatever they could find about Shanley Kane and posting it online to the assembled mob in the name of Milo Yiannopoulous's safety (now that his telephone number was compromised.)
The story of Kane's "doxing" was picked up by the wannabe gaming news site Reaxxion, whose proprietor Roosh V was profiled by the SPLC last year for his other misogynist hate site, Return of Kings. I also know him personally because he stalked me last December.
The story of Kane 'doxing' Yiannopoulous also made its way onto Twitter, 8chan, and predictably baphomet, the doxxing and raid board which almost exclusively targets women in tech and gamergate critics.
Kane's address, entire family tree, and the addresses of her family members were posted. According to Kane,SWAT attempts were made against these addresses; nominally for her "doxing Milo" by posting the phone number he gave her.
It's worth noting that Kane expressed her fear of Auernheimer as the attacks proceeded, and that this "article" by Yiannopoulous is really nothing more than an attempt on weev's part to regain control over Ms. Kane's life, to shame her into silence. It's not even the first time Auernheimer has done this; he also sent Kane's investors nude pictures of her back in 2012 as retribution for Kane dumping him.
Milo's hit piece and subsequent whining over being "doxed" worked so well that he even contacted Kane for a comment for a follow-up article, citing 'reader interest' as he chummed the waters. Yiannopoulous called this article a "shocking social media meltdown", as if his social media meltdowns are all 100% logical, proportionate responses and totally not the result of his own intimidating behavior.
Shanley Kane made her own statement about this whole business, and I think she said it best:
"The past few days have been terrifying, and my heart is broken.
This is abuse. This is domestic violence. This is harassment.
This is terrorism.
While many are eager to claim that I am actually being abused because I'm crazy, a liar, a fraud, a troll, a hypocrite, a neo-Nazi, a whore, because I've had kinky sex, because I dated an abuser, because I'm mean to men on Twitter, because I swear a lot, because I'm a "blogger" that contributes nothing to the field: I am being targeted because of my work speaking up against tech culture. My work is what has made me a target, but it is nonetheless ironically (or maybe predictably) being erased in a frothing media-frenzy to portray me as a useless, insane "PR girl", a hysterical slut with a social media account, and to generate page views from my pain. (I'm posting this on Pastebin because unlike most of the tech press, I refuse to use this abuse as a machine for eyeballs and ad dollars.)...
This has been my life for almost two years. I'm sad to say that part of you starts to get used to it. But I also want to tell you about what it does to me and other victims of these attacks.
Because of my work, I can no longer make public appearances, speak at events or have anyone know where I am or what I'm doing. I can't have friends over to my house because no one can know where I live. My social life consists only of a few close friends who I feel I can trust. Many of them also undergo the same shit I do - other people don’t understand and find it too stressful to be around. I am traumatized by what is now years of active stalking and abuse; abuse committed by tech workers and unaffiliated individuals, by anonymous harassers and influential figures in tech, and by media both in tech and mainstream. My sex life is fodder for 8chan and corrupt journalists trying to destroy my company because it is competition and it poses a threat to their press-release factories, funded by startups and venture capitalists and uncritically reproducing their propaganda. I receive anywhere between dozens and thousands of harassing messages each week.
Anything bad that happens to me is considered “normal” and “expected”, and any reason to expose me to abuse is sufficient. People say I am a "professional victim", suggesting I am somehow profiting off my work, but I am now unemployable in the field I once loved and make a fraction of what I used to make as a tech worker. I spend an enormous amount of money and time securing my safety. It is no longer safe for me to do media appearances as media abuses me, demeans me, violates my boundaries, steals my content and holds me up for abuse, offering no support or protection: every article has resulted in more stalkers and harassment. I am frequently cut off from support because people who support me are afraid to be targeted as well."
Does that sound histrionic, or crazy? All those things have really happened to women I write about. Some of it happened to me, as a direct result of writing about the harassment other women receive. As of last week, I couldn't co-file a blog post without getting
500 upvotes on Kotaku in Action and Michael Cernovich making noises about suing me in CA civil court. All of this is fairly normal, even mild on the spectrum of harassment that women face online.
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