BertieWWooster
This account was set up on 2 September 2011. The man purports to be an "upper class twit" and is seemingly jovial and friendly, if a little odd. I was sent a couple of warnings about him from friends by direct message and thought I would follow to see what he was saying. My interest was instantly perked when I found out he'd preemptively blocked me: we'd had zero contact and that is obviously quite an odd thing to do. I therefore followed him (when his account was unlocked) directly on the net.
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Bertie is an abusive misogynist. He tries to befriend women (he follows several hundred) and then responds to things they say pleasantly - but is also sometimes quite pushy about asking them to follow him back. He follows networks of young mums for example: sees who they follow and talk to and then follows himself. He asks about husbands and boyfriends and other personal information. His own follower account has never gone above 115, but follows over 900 himself.
At certain points he seems to "lose it". If someone does not respond or thank him for things he flies into a long tirade and calls people (particularly women) "OIKS", "cunts" and says they are working class, or on the dole. He also wishes women dead. Later he deletes all the tweets - seemingly without realising that people can, and do, take screenshots.
He also likes women to follow him back so that he can DM them. He does this sufficient quantities that he complains about being in "Twitter Jail" (the daily limit is 250 direct messages). Some of the messages are fine: some are lewd and include pornographic links, requests for phone sex, or what a woman's favourite sexual positions are. This does not come out of the blue: it is after a period of "grooming" where he builds up a relationship of trust and friendship.
I know of two occasions now where Bertie has telephoned women in real life and abused them down the telephone. One was because of a link to a business included on a Twitter profile; the other was because of much more in depth stalking that led him to find out a whole set of personal information on a woman, which he then also published repeatedly online (address, telephone number, place of work, full name, photos of home from Google Streetview etc).
I have screenshots of all of the above, but obviously don't wish to publicise the names of the victims involved. I have however provided screenshots below of abuse directed at me (below) that I think demonstrates it clearly enough.
Other Accounts: @PFBraneStawm, @BrainyProfessor @CharlesManduca, @IagoTheParrot
I set up @SexPestWarning specifically to warn women about Bertie. I also wanted him to know that we (a female friend on Twitter has been watching him closely as well) were on to him. I could not tell him directly from my account - as he had blocked me - that I knew what he was up to, so I had to use this new vehicle. It was also a handy place to set out the whole story to anyone who looked like they were falling prey to him. Bertie locked his account at various points, then realised his numerous messages to women could not be read by them - so a bit like a vampire requiring fresh meat he had to unlock to try to attract more people in. He is currently locked but will have to unlock if he wishes to keep up his "game".
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He then yesterday set up a new account - @PFBraneStawm (since changed to @BrainyProfessor) and used exactly the same M.O. Today something made him "flip" and he used two other accounts @charlesmanduca* (new today) and @iagotheparrot (an older account) to hurl abuse at about 10 people. He called me and them, for example, "vile, lifeless, psychotic, jealous, jobless living on Benefits Dykes". He said we were under 24 hour surveillance by the FBI, said we were"lesbians with friends who are homosexuals and pedophiles who have been convicted and been in prison for more to seven to nineteen years" and added that we would be extradited to Guantanamo Bay. He is apparently a billionaire with in excess of 1,750,000 followers on his other accounts... so can arrange all this. Because of his friends at Microsoft all my personal details are currently being sent to every Hotmail user in the world.
* Important Note: there is a real life Charles Manduca who is a respected litigator. The man operating the @CharlesManduca account is clearly not the real lawyer, as a) he spoke utter nonsense about defamation (amongst many other things); and b) he claimed to be at the City firm Hogan Lovells (whose logo he also misused). Mr Manduca is no longer a partner at that firm. I do not wish to imply that the real Mr Manduca is in *any* way connected to this Twitter abuse, other than being a victim of having his name and photograph stolen for the account.
Here is a selection - these were sent out to at least 6 people, including a top legal blogger, and were subsequently all deleted. He has since changed the photograph on the @CharlesManduca account to mine, which he stole from my account.
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He told us he knew where we lived. To this was then added, just to me personally, the following:
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What of it all?
Well it's easy to see this man as having serious emotional or possibly mental health issues - and in that respect to have sympathy for him. The FBI claims etc are clearly absurd and laughable. However, stalking women, abusing them on line, phoning them up at home and at work, and making death threats are less funny.
Twitter is pretty much a "free speech zone". If you don't like what someone is saying, you are instructed by Twitter to block them. This is to some extent true: yes, if you find a person creepy you can unfollow and/or block them instantly. However if someone is "grooming" you like Bertie, you may well be have been drawn in and given him the benefit of the doubt. By the time he goes in and is really abusive, the damage is done. Your trust is shattered, and particularly if you are in a vulnerable position it will be extremely upsetting. Yes, you can block - but if he's become sufficiently obsessed about you that he's found out where you work or live it hardly helps you.
Twitter will broadly only intervene when a) there is a specific direct threat of violence; or b) private details are published. It's important to note that that "Block and Report" button is ONLY for spam: Twitter is bothered about people sending out marketing links but not about people being abusive it seems. You can report the two specific forms of misuse I mentioned by filing a ticket (go to Twitter Support) - but not on behalf of someone else. We have been warning Twitter for almost a week of the breaching of private details - they have utterly failed to do anything about it. I instantly reported the death threats - his account is still operative. Twitter is clearly, in this case, completely failing to ensure a safe environment for its users by its insistence on the broadest interpretation of the American First Amendment. Personally I find that completely shoddy.
The Police will however get involved if you are lucky enough to speak to an officer who has a sufficient understanding of how Twitter operates and the fact that a harassment offence online is every bit as real as someone "in real life". This *is* real life, for heaven's sake and regardless of Twitter's lackadaisical approach, national law applies. As for a death threat, again, this is a real thing and can carry a heavy custodial sentence. I am fortunate enough to have spoken to a very bright, clued up and understanding Detective Sergeant in CID locally, whom I know through Twitter, about the whole matter. UPDATE: see this story from the BBC (31 October 2011) if you had any doubt that online harassment can be dealt with in exactly the same way as "real life" harassment. This story about racist abuse (3 November 2011) also shows that Twitter is not the "free speech" zone people seem to think it is. The law applies just as much here as elsewhere. Berties and others beware.
Advice for Twitter Users
It cannot be stressed enough how careful you should be with your personal details. Stalkers like Bertie look through your photo streams, those of your friends or partners, read your blog, and will look for clues about who you are and where you live. We ALL know this - let we still do it. It's a bit like those "Smoking Kills" labels - we're sure it won't happen to us.
One lovely woman who had been abused by Bertie by phone happily gave me her mobile number to talk about it. I gently pointed out that perhaps she should have asked for mine and withheld her number? As it turns out, like 9,999 other men on Twitter, I am not going to phone her back or bombard her with abusive texts - but she didn't know me from Adam at the point.
It also really does make me think about the benefits of complete anonymity. A friend on Twitter (@grumpyhatlady) is anonymous. I once asked her, perfectly innocently, by DM what her name was. She said she wouldn't tell me - she had been stalked in real life as a result of the Internet [click for her blog post on this: it's excellent and so worth reading]. She has an icon of an old woman with a hat and all I know about her is that she is clever, entertaining, lives somewhere in Scotland, and has a legal background. She's not grumpy and I don't *think* she wears a hat. Isn't that enough? We talk, share views, even experiences - but I don't actually need to know anything more. She doesn't Facebook, she doesn't use FourSquare. I'm beginning to think she's an incredibly astute individual, as much as I would actually like to see what she looks like just from normal human curiosity.
Twitter is SUCH a supportive, friendly, wonderful space. It sickens me that there are people like Bertie around who will direct abuse, threats and make people less trusting - to the extent that they will be completely anonymous. He is an absolute minority - and I'm hoping one who will soon end up realising that he can't get away with this. Before his death threat and publishing private details, all we could do was spread the word by warning people off him, hoping that if they knew us, they'd believe us. Given Twitter's lackadaisical approach and if there hasn't been a Communications Act 2003 offence, "self policing" is in effect all we are left with for other instances.
Keep safe and take care.
UPDATE: He this morning (20 October) bombarded me with a whole series of abusive messages - he knows where I live, I'm a "Pedophile" etc. It is rather sweet he thinks anyone would think these are different people when he uses exactly the same language, spellings, idioms and threats in all of his accounts. Here is just one page - it went on for about 20 tweets.
In addition, anyone he saw me speaking to with homophobic abuse/ swearing from the @BrainyProfessor account. The language was in some ways comical, in other ways revolting. I advised everyone to block/report for spam and it produced a surprising result - his account was suspended (by Twitter) almost immediately and then deleted. There seems to be a mechanism whereby X reports of spam in Y time leads to an automatic response. This is far better than relying upon Support who work at a snail's pace going through individual complaints.
My advice is therefore block/report for Spam and encourage your friends to do so if you see him behaving in this way again. It is quite likely he will return with new profiles. Over 13,000 people have now seen this blog and are aware of the way he works now.
He did continue the harassment of one woman from his @iagotheparrot account throughout today - he repeatedly published her home address and says the time has come "to pay her a visit". Again screen shots have been taken, the Police are fully aware, and she has a crime reference to quote to make any 999 call a priority matter.
He is now claiming in these tweets that his wife and children were murdered; previously he said his 4 children died in a road crash in France. Clearly he is a very disturbed man and were it not for his causing upset to ordinary users of Twitter, foremost women he has taken a fancy to (but then later calls "ugly dork pedophiles") I would feel a great deal of sympathy towards him.
As of the evening of October 20 there is good news: all 4 of his accounts have now been suspended or deleted.
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