Carolyn Farrow taken to police station

[ScreamingMeMe]

Long twitter thread here. She's had her electronic devices seized too, and has been accused of being certain posters on Kiwi Farms and Mumsnet

@BernardBlacksWineIceLolly and @BreakWindandFire sorry to tag you but she's been accused of being you!

We all know who this will be, but as Caroline says, please don't speculate/discuss them.

twitter.com/CF_Farrow/status/1577092705154666496?t=Cv7tRv3YdqIogpXT_MSwZQ&s=19

I have not read the full thread, but even if the police are allowed to prosecute someone for comments on talk forums, wouldn’t they check with ( in this case ) Mumsnet to know if Carolyn Farrow does indeed have the username of the alleged culprit?

How would the site owner know who owns a username?

Sign up for Internet forums is usually just email and password, maybe a date of birth (but not necessarily a real one) no reason for any member to share more than that (unless it’s a forum for minors in which case you would expect members to be verified and the site fully moderated 24 hours a day).

Considering a Mumsnet intern stole IP data, I would doubt any FWR poster uses a primary email for forums anywhere, unless they plan to post under their real name (as Caroline does on KF, due to unknown
persons impersonating her).

The KF owner doesn’t supply any info on users to law enforcement without a valid warrant, and Mumsnet has previously refused to hand over info for a civil case without a court order.

theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/19/mumsnet-reports-itself-data-regulator-transgender-rights-row-ip-addresses-posted-twitter

pressgazette.co.uk/high-court-orders-mumsnet-to-reveal-identities-of-users-who-criticised-top-cosmetic-surgeon-in-anonymous-posts/

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-ordered-to-reveal-name-of-user-in-row-with-trans-activist-stephanie-hayden-rzmvl2q8z

TheClogLady · Today 22:35

^ScrollingLeaves · Today 21:40
I have not read the full thread, but even if the police are allowed to prosecute someone for comments on talk forums, wouldn’t they check with ( in this case ) Mumsnet to know if Carolyn Farrow does indeed have the username of the alleged culprit?^

How would the site owner know who owns a username?

Sign up for Internet forums is usually just email and password, maybe a date of birth (but not necessarily a real one) no reason for any member to share more than that (unless it’s a forum for minors in which case you would expect members to be verified and the site fully moderated 24 hours a day)

Considering a Mumsnet intern stole IP data, I would doubt any FWR poster uses a primary email for forums anywhere, unless they plan to post under their real name (as Caroline does on KF, due to unknown
persons impersonating her).

The KF owner doesn’t supply any info on users to law enforcement without a valid warrant, and Mumsnet has previously refused to hand over info for a civil case without a court order.

theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/19/mumsnet-reports-itself-data-regulator-transgender-rights-row-ip-addresses-posted-twitter

pressgazette.co.uk/high-court-orders-mumsnet-to-reveal-identities-of-users-who-criticised-top-cosmetic-surgeon-in-anonymous-posts/

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-ordered-to-reveal-name-of-user-in-row-with-trans-activist-stephanie-hayden-rzmvl2q8z

Thank you for answering ClogLady. I had no idea. My Mumsnet account uses my ordinary email with my name in it, and I even inadvertently signed off some messages to MN HQ with my name. But it’s interesting to know they wouldn’t hand it over anyway without a court order.

It seems worrying and frustrating that one person can accuse another of a post they never wrote but for which they may be arrested.

Thank you for answering ClogLady. I had no idea. My Mumsnet account uses my ordinary email with my name in it,

I strongly recommend you dereg, set up a new email account with Gmail, live.com or proton mail which has no accurate real life information about you , for use only with MN and re-register.

Don't connect the new email address to any existing addresses.

TheLassWiADelicateAir · Today 23:22
Thank you very much for your advice.

How on earth can a forum tell authorities who a username definitively belongs to when most people sign up with a random email address that required no personal information to setup? Or I could setup a Gmail address with anyone's name in it and with their name and birthdate, if known eg [email protected], doesn't mean I am them if I then used that email address to setup MN account called imkatemiddletonreallyiam.

Can they get IP addresses and compel ISPs to say who's account was using that IP. Again though, DHCP and share households, how could you ever definitively prove who posted something?

So the police believe those mumsnet posts are criminal and they will be coming to arrest the women who posted them. Is that not a logical conclusion after what happened to you.

IP addresses relate to devices, not to email addresses. So someone using a fake email could still be traced (at least in broad terms) through their IP address.

twitter.com/CF_Farrow/status/1578501727426613250?s=20&t=bXvVfyyk8tA_AtH1WiVuPA

The police asked me if I had written to various clubs to have the complainant’s membership rescinded. I denied this and asked if they had any actual evidence of this.

“They haven’t provided us with it yet”.

It's just the blackest of comedies

That is hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

You do wonder how someone who uses Help for Fees for serial lawsuits can afford membership of a club.

(Actually, the club in question is £177 per year. It’s not as “exclusive” as some people would like to make out).

Not really sure what to say but @SnapeAlways

Surrey police received an arson threat on Twitter from someone defensive of CF.

Well good luck to them in finding an open police station in Surrey that hasn't been closed down to try and set fire to is all I can say!

huh?

Hmm, wasn’t there also an arson threat to the complainant, that the police learned about very quickly?

And now the police themselves have been targeted with an arson threat? Apparently from someone supportive of CF?

All I can say is that I really hope the police find out who did it. (Though on current evidence they couldn’t find their arse with both hands so there’s not much chance they’ll get to the bottom of these threats.)

Or someone claiming to be defensive of Caroline Farrow?

You seem very naive, Marge, don’t you know that anyone on the internet can claim stuff that isn’t true?

I thought you followed the Keffals Kerfuffle? Because the kid that took the picture outside of Keffal’s’ address turned out to be a teenager named Teddy who dislikes BOTH Keffals and KiwiFarms.

Surely you didn’t miss such an important part of that story? How Jessie Singal proved that journalists weren’t actually interested in covering the facts?

Do I need to get a flipchart and a pointy stick out to help you understand it?

Any links? I suppose you've had a look to see if it is actually someone 'defensive of CF' and not someone pretending to be?

I'd also like to know which club.

To paraphrase Groucho Marx "I wouldn't want to join any club that would have [insert mans name] as a member"

Well it’s hardly going to be The Athenaeum or the Garrick, is it? And I hope not tne University Women’s Club or I may have to resign my membership. I wouldn’t feel safe staying there.

Fake Hate Crime is a thing in the US now, UK police need to be aware of it
theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/10/jussie-smollett-sentenced-faking-hate-crime

it’s thought to be a bit like munchausen by proxy, ie it can start with a mistaken belief that something is wrong and if the experts (doctors, cops, the press) would just pay attention then everything would be ok. Then because the authorities aren’t finding any evidence, the mistaken belief escalates into staging ‘evidence’ for the doctors/police to discover.

it’s not necessarily lying because the intent isn’t to deceive, the intent is to get help for a problem (but the problem is largely inside the persons head)

Not saying that’s what’s happening here of course, we have no idea what’s happening here, but it is a modern phenomenon to be aware of.

It's just the blackest of comedies

Reminiscent of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Ansrchist.

Also based on a true story of manipulation of the police to serve anti-democratic interests.

And the relevance of that is?

Another example:

www.newsweek.com/michigan-transgender-activist-fire-home-1343800

www.hourdetroit.com/community/what-happens-when-a-local-hero-becomes-a-suspected-hoaxer/

www.mlive.com/news/jackson/2022/06/former-jackson-lgbtq-activist-to-spend-at-least-1-year-in-prison-pay-75k-for-arson.html

Really? How do you know it was made by someone “defensive of CF”?

Or are you just making stuff up?

#GreatBritishLunches might help.

Or can you zoom in on this photo?