Brian Goudie - The Psychology of Internet Trolls

Brian Goudie

My name is Brian Goudie, I work in Thailand, and I have decided to break my silence and start a 'name and shame' campaign - and I hope the people that I name will try to sue me, as I have a carefully documented dossier of evidence that has been painstakingly assembled to record every, post, comment and email - the file is massive!

You may ask, all of this data has been recorded for what purpose?  The answer is simple - criminal actions under Thailand's tough Computer Crimes Act, and potentially future proceedings in the UK under the Prevention of Harassment Act.

The main site at the centre of the campaign has a whois address in the UK, and UK law requires us to show there was a 'course of conduct' involving more than two instances of harassment - in my case therenare hundreds.

Internet harassment has been around for many years, but as use of the internet has grown, the number of people affected has grown considerably.

In 2007, The International Journal on Cyber Crimes published a report on  internet harassment.

Theories of why internet harassment range from trolls suffering from mental illnesses, to outright malice - every case is different.

I am not alone in being harassed, the same trolls are subjecting my good friend David Hanks to the same treatment.

David  and I have had articles posted on the internet by a journalist, Andrew Drummond,  then swathes of disgraceful comments are made by anonymous posters.

These anonymous posters hide behind internet profiles with made up names such as Tommy Truthsearcher, Jules, Sam Kane, Ally, Sam Thai, The Weapon, Knutsa01 - all spend all their time making comments and threats from the comfort of their anonymous internet connections.

Fake Facebook profiles, fake Wordpress blogs, fake Blogger sites, fake Google Plus profiles - we have seen it all.

It comes under the umbrella name of 'internet harrassment' or 'cyber harrassment'.
It is a criminal offence in most countries, but difficult to identify offenders.

Now ask the question - why do they use fake untraceable accounts with fake photoshopped profile photos?

There are two reasons, firstly they in my view pathetic are low life cowardly scum bags who would never challenge face to face, and secondly they know if they can be identified we will prosecute them under Thailand's Computer Crimes Act.

Mow taking on an internet giant like Google will never be easy, but we have instructed our lawyers to do just that - the first hearing in the case will be in July 2014.

There are a number of people who now bave  cases against Google, and there is a great wealth of tips out there on strategies for suing Google.

People like Michael Roberts of Rexxfield and Dr. Janice Duffy have already filed cases against Google and Yahoo.

Dr. Duffy's case and Michael Robert's case was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. Roberts court filings claimthat venomous accusations that appeared on the website, which he claims were made by his ex-wife, destroyed his business and have caused years of emotional distress. The claims — ranging from domestic abuse and tax evasion to extortion, blackmail and fraud — are still littered across the net for anyone to see.

David and I are suing for Google search results, and also a number of posts on Blogger.

Blogger

I dont know why, but claims of fraud, extortion, blackmail, tax evasion, raceketeering, money laundering, mafia connections, domestic abuse, paedophilia, sexual deviance, rape, drug abuse, and the use of words such as rapist, thief, liar, deviant, parasite, pimp, enforcer, mafia, mobster, snitch, rat, etc all seem to feature large in the vocabulary of your average internet troll.

But David and I have decided to fight back - we have instructed our lawyers to file dozens of criminal charges against Google Inc and Google Thailand, as the owners of Blogger. The case will be filed in Bangkok Central Criminal Court.

Google are to be prosecuted as a 'service provider' for a wide range of criminal offences, including providing internet services to third parties posting defamation, harassment, threats and use of fake photoshopped images.

Under Thai law, a 'service provider' can be held criminally liable for allowing third parties to post unlawful material, and failing to remove it when notified - this is a criminal offence in Thailand under T section 15 of Thailand's tough Computer Crimes Act - in fact it is a criminal offence in most countries.

Larry Page of Google

We have also instructed our lawyers to file charges against Google founders and directors Larry Page and Sergey Binn personally.

Sergey Binn of Google

One of the main issues in the case is the ease with which Google allows fake profiles to be used to set up hate blogs.

Google and Blogger are protected to some degree in the US from defamation suits, but there is no protection from internet harassment, 47 U.S. Code § 223, makes it justiciable if a service provider allows internet harassment to continue.

Google have already lose defamation cases in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France and Germany - and just last week in the European Court of Justice in the 'right to be forgotten case'.

David and I are realistic, and we know that we are taking on Google, an internet behemoth, but we have no choice - we must fight back.

We are extremely fortunate to have been offered assistance by a well know 'internet consultant' who has had running battles with Google for some time, and his involvement will be announced later in the month as the proceedings start to move.

The proceedings in Thailand are just the start, tandem proceedings are expected in the US, UK and Australia - we are going to be busy.

Incidentally, the journalist has made a comment that I am using the images of Sergey Binn and Larry Page in breach of copyright laws - pot calling the kettle black as he copies images from Facebook, Google Plus and Flickr and uses them without permission.

David and I of course would love Larry Page and Sergey Binn to file a DMCA copyright complaint to remove their images from this blog - but they may well then have a hard time explaining why they did not remove our images when asked.