The Banned of Twitter have a habit of not taking the hint. Their accounts permanently suspended, they somehow reappear, as poltergeists at their own funeral, hanging around under the pretence that they are not really there. Then Twitter catches up with them, brandishes the garlic and crucifix, and they are gone for good, to the great relief of those who wished they had never returned in the first place.
Nick Monroe - trying not to let the door hit him on the way out
One such ban-evading spirit was Nick Monroe, who has finally become sufficiently honest to admit that his real name is Nicholas Tomasheski. From his perch somewhere in the USA (we won’t go any further, unlike some of those Munroe befriended) he would snuggle up to the Muslim-bashing far-right, wanting to expand his horizons after Gamergate, about which, like so much else, he is unable to be entirely honest.
Sadly - if only for him - Twitter has now caught up with him and banned him for good. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth, or at least a long, rambling, self-justifying and, one has to say, tedious post at Human Events. “I’m Nick Monroe. Banned on Twitter Because I Mourned A Death” is the title. And it’s a crock of crap. He was banned for ban evasion.
Here, he tells “I’ve never sparked a riot over a speech. I’ve never chained myself to Twitter’s corporate offices. I do not make a daily spectacle of myself. But for some reason, everyone is up in arms about my ban from Twitter … Unlike Milo, [Laura] Loomer, and Alex Jones, those who followed me on Twitter saw me as a stabilizing force in the chaos of social media. But now I am banned, I suppose I have a story that needs to be told”.
I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises … er, I’m sorry, where was I? But seriously, this is total crap. Nick Monroe may have been well-regarded out on the far-right, but he was a poisonous creep whose reckless behaviour could have seriously endangered others.
Take, for instance, his attack on TellMAMA, where he asserted that, because the group was advising Police on Islamophobic behaviour, “2 + 2 = TELLMAMAUK has access to police data. That's not really an ‘independent’ thing for a group to have at all”. He stood in solidarity with Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone after they were banned from entering the UK. And he unequivocally supported Stephen Yaxley Lennon.
That, though, was a mere hors d’oeuvre for a much more pungent entrée, as Monroe went after historian and campaigner Mike Stuchbery, suggesting that Lennon doxxing Stuchbery was merely payback for Stuchbery doing it to him. This was a flat-out lie. But Monroe had the effrontery to berate two journalists at the Guardian until he was rumbled for deliberately falsifying a screen shot. Potential endangerment right there.
Now, though, Nick Monroe is weeping his way through his valedictory post, sniffing “You’re reading this because I’m gone now” and “I ran a YouTube channel with over 25,000 subscribers”. No doubt he ranks as high as any in Rome. Or perhaps what he is trying to tell us is “I could have been a contender, I could have ben somebody”. Or perhaps he’s still big, and it’s Twitter that got small. Perhaps he could get himself a guest spot at InfoWars.
Another far-right creep gets his just desserts. Just rejoice at that news.
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“I ran a YouTube channel with over 25,000 subscribers”
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit like saying I got a C- in media studies.