The Censor in RTW Speaks Again

[JGD]

The artists who created the street art on the hoardings around the hotel site that used to be the Co-op on Waldram Park Road have updated the work with the words "Black Lives Matter" writ large. It is worth remembering this art-work has been refreshed on these temporary hoardings on a regular cycle.

The self-appointed censor of all matters political for Forest Hill and who no longer resides there, has aired his immediate disapproval.

It would seem that the movement associated with the words is not viewed by him as being inclusive in our society.

What a shame to see all that wonderful art destroyed and replaced with the polarising slogan of a political movement .

What is shameful is his expression of such divisive rot. He feels he can do this as he owns the board and runs it as his personal fiefdom.

If a straw poll was to be conducted of ALL the residents in the locale, it might almost certainly express majority support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Interestingly none of the acolytes have "liked" his post which they immediately and habitually do normally .

[JGD]

He obviously has been spoken to or has spotted that he had been spotted previously making with the shamefully divisive comments.

A third edit has been made.

The political comment has been expunged. Even for him it must have seemed too prejudicial.

What a shame to see all that wonderful art destroyed.

Oh, never be surprised by the wiles and twists of corrupt thought emanating from an insular mind.

Which gained one "like" but not from any of the acolytes.

[JGD]

The bun fight over the Black Lives Matter artwork continues.

I did not point out or suggest any “flaws” in those people.

But you should know that their motivation was more than just anti-racism. And “anti-racist” / “anti-fascist” organisations are sometimes used as a Trojan horse for other agendas.

Which statements did I refer to? Which activities did I refer to?.

His only omission was a jabbing finger accompanied by a threatening, "what part offended you most?"

He refers to this Comment piece in The DT, his touchstone of all matters right-wing politics :

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -movement/

Written by Alexandra Phillips, it attempts to reposition BLM.

Make no mistake – BLM is a radical neo-Marxist political movement.

and

With enormous sums of money flooding in - BLM had already received over $100 million from the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy among others - and many written aims straight from the Communist copybook, there is surely reason for concern. Black Lives Matter is a somewhat amorphous and decentralised movement, allowing international chapters to set up under their banner. Not having a structure, a figurehead or centralised financial control means there is absolutely no accountability. Nobody to call for an end to violence, while providing a moral shield behind which perpetrators of crime can feel emboldened.

In an effort to "prove" a skewed case, a straw poll has been setup by the owner.

It has backfired on him, only 30% of a small number of participants have said they prefer the old artwork.

Interestingly at least some new members of the board appear to be up to offering a challenge to his censorship.

Go look soon - he is losing the debate to more balanced and reasoned views.

He will relocate it in Politics to hide it away.

ETA: Good old marymck has lead with a suggestion to do just that and a another poll has been setup to seek views.

[JGD]

I don’t like this massive piece of graffiti, featuring a lot of angry and threatening looking men, protesting an injustice that happened decades ago, thousands of miles away

I think the art only inflames racial tension, and takes race relations backwards rather than forwards.

The U.K. police are very restrained in their use of force, compared to other police around the world, yet recent activism has caused the police to be violently attacked by large mobs of people. Look at what happened in Brixton yesterday.

Expressing his dislike in his typically censorious style, he falsely links the artwork (which is internationally recognisable) with violence that broke out in Brixton.

Narrow, tenuous and simply untrue. The artwork and the violence are not linked.

His statement in the post that recent activism is the root cause of the problems in Brixton is fundamentally inaccurate. In some circumstance this form of untrue utterance might be considered provocative with racist undertones in itself and worthy of scrutiny and the intervention of our boys in blue.

I have screen captures of the post and the several edits behind it which are indicative of the extremities of his views and are a pointer to the mindset that exists.

It would seem that the forum's moderators cannot bring the expressions of increasingly illogical and potentially outright racism under control in his posts.

ETA: At least one of his 20+ public profiles has been updated and now says, "on Parler (like Twitter, but with freedom of expression)"

It would also seem he has joined a mass exodus of like-minded British Twitter malcontents flocking to a fringe social media company that is becoming a haven for ousted right-wingers, Parler.com.

[JGD]

Go look soon - he is losing the debate to more balanced and reasoned views.

He will relocate it in Politics to hide it away.

So Saturday morning's activities include a censorious flourish of deletions and splitting and moving of posts to hide the transgressions of the forums owner.

He has successfully expounded his political dogmas in a structured and negative style and vilified a whole new tranche of the posters he has been so desperate to attract and retain in his diminishing world. Note that these are not the original early engagers on the forum - they are all long gone.

This morning's, now hidden, activities include revelations to posters that his software permits him to view the IP addresses from where posts are being made. Without compunction, he articulates that the can identify that a second poster has joined the thread from the same IP address as another contributor and implies that he views this with some suspicion, perhaps as it could be held that the posters are acting in concert.

How unreasoned can he be ?

He has no honest reply to make when he is challenged about his revelation that two posters are sharing an IP address and by implication dwell in the same property.

Classic misuse of private information and doxing of the worst kind on his part.

Does it expose the forum to actions by the Information Commissioner regarding this mis-use of private information and data? Moderators should be aware that an assessment of this position must be made by their data controller and if a breach has happened or may have happened that has caused the revelation, intentional or accidental, of private data, they are obliged to self-report. Failure to take either or both of these steps is actionable in itself.

One of his moderators had closed the thread for two hours and has re-opened it with an appeal to posters to acknowledge there has been some excellent points made in the discussion and includes a short synopsis of some of the examples. None of the good examples are from his forum owner.

But then the moderator probably realises that as the forum owner has once more opened his Pandora's Box and set out his right-wing dogma coupled to his antagonistic and overly aggressive behaviour toward a range of new posters. The moderator probably realises he may as well not waste his efforts to reel in the forum owner. It is the owners normal practice to engage in this style with any poster that he has the slightest of disagreements with and habitually goes further and fabricate falsehoods to justify his actions. He has self-confessed about doing this in the past.

The moderator was right - there have been some excellent well balanced points made in contribution to a matter vitally important to the wider community by more than handful of people.

Offset by the censorship and ravings of the fiefdom's master.

[JGD]

It is always meaningful to be in a position to offer balance and transparency.

Two forums, two recent posts

I think we can all agree there is some pretty reprehensible, inaccurate and personally-targeted posting on STF (especially in the appropriately-named “Asylum” category).

But luckily we have another forum here with a different ethos, which provides a venue for everyone who wants to discuss Sydenham in a friendly and constructive environment.

I’m glad you’re both here, @jayB and @Pally, and I hope we can now put any minor disagreements behind us and move on?

And at the same time tries to make this case, closing it with a passive threat.

Racism was very prevalant in the US in 1968 (the year of the protest depicted in Bowen’s piece). In fact some members of the US police force had KKK connections at the time. It was an appalling period of US history.

By suggesting the current environment in the UK is similar to 1968 Memphis (and I don’t think it is), you lend legitimacy to anti-police sentiment amongst minority communities, and you should be mindful of the negative consequences of that, both for citizens and the police, the vast majority of which are completely innocent and well-meaning people.

Does he believe our community will be content to know, or accept, that to lend legitimacy to anti-police sentiment is the fault of protesters?

Does he hold a view that we do not, or cannot be allowed to, see how valued members of our BAME community are treated badly in the contemporary times in which we live in in the UK.

I think the community has a majority view that things are not right and changes need to be made - unlike him.

It is his customary practice to make specious appeals to people he has previously fallen out with to make up and move on - especially when he has exposed some rabid view or other and needs people to rally to him.

Do not worry he can only revert to type - he can do nothing else - bans will be forthcoming.

[Nic]

Astonishing threads. Absolutely nothing - Nothing - has changed in 4 years. What a thoroughly decent job they're all doing of embarrassing and incriminating themselves. I could do a line by line, but I really can't be bothered. And I think that most people who've read any of the threads will see it for what it is. I know there've been discussions in private FB groups and, believe me, people see.

I do want to say though, JGD, that I disagree with you on one point.

The moderator was right - there have been some excellent well balanced points made in contribution to a matter vitally important to the wider community by more than handful of people.

I fail to see why Oakr's uninformed post - tantamount to "All Lives Matter" and contributing absolutely diddly squat to the conversation - was included in Forest Hull's list of "fantastic posts".

I'm almost embarrassed on their behalf. It's 100% cringe to see them all digging themselves further and further.

[JGD]

Good post Nic.

In my defence, your honour, I did say only "some" were excellent.

Also, in my defence, I was a little lazy and did not follow the link to what OakR actually said.

Having now read it it is a meander through the land of what-iffery that is both an appallingly bad and inconsequential critique of an internationally recognisable image.

And in its recognition lies its endurable message. And the fact that the problems remain with us through an egregiously extended passage of time.

Despite our self-appointed censor's efforts to deploy his play-the-man techniques in the same style of the worst of racists, our community speaks loud and the message is being heard.

[JGD]

Astonishingly, despite having confessed to fabricating the entire back-drop to this story and creating a sock-puppet in a mea-culpa post in his beloved forum, the RTW guy posts this today.

It is beyond his grasp it would seem, that people saw his confession and remember him revealing he had lied about the tale of the revealing of his address. Only one post appears with the street name of his address and that was in a post published by him and no-one else.

And there is a vanishingly small number of his acolytes who believe any retelling of his tale by him - in whatever false form he tries to recast it or reshape it.

Even today, STF still hosts the long-time abusive stalker who emailed names and photos of my extended family (photos of them with my three month old baby), a photo of my flat, and who wrote that she wanted to “pay my wife a visit” while she recovered from a difficult birth.

And this woman is still obsessively writing about me online.

I have never once met this woman, except online, via the various abusive sockpuppets she ran on SE23.life.

I really don’t want to have to go back to the police about her behaviour, but I will if necessary, and this time I will elect to press charges rather than have the police issue a warning as they did last time.

Virtually no-one believes any retelling of the tale of his encounter with what he describes as an abusive stalker.

The police elected not to take any action about the report he made using the fabricated evidence he presented. Because it did not stand up to scrutiny.

It escapes logic that the not inconsequential matter of falsification of reports and evidence by him did not result in action against him by police.

The evidence of his confession and the details of his falsehoods and mendacities are in the public domain still.

None of this seems to have any effect in that he feels he can utter passive threats about returning to the police.

It does not diminish his propensity to express hatred and how desperately he feels about having the right to lash out.

He has not grasped by how much the number of people who were prepared to believe him has shrunk to so few

[Nic]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention JGD. I do a post on this thread expressing my astonishment at the way various SE23.Life contributors are embarrassing and incriminating themselves, and he launches into this attack!

I really don’t want to have to go back to the police about her behaviour, but I will if necessary, and this time I will elect to press charges rather than have the police issue a warning as they did last time.

I'm not sure what "behaviour" exactly he's threatening to press charges for? Expressing my astonishment at the way various SE23.Life contributors are embarrassing and incriminating themselves?

Also of note is the fact that he picks on me, rather than you JGD - I'm sure you'll agree that you have said far more damning things about him on this thread. Why on earth could it be that he singles me out...? (Rhetorical question)

I'm sick and tired of having to rebut this. I Did Not Receive A Police Warning. To Say So Is Defamatory. He's made this claim once too often now, so if he won't stop of his own volition then legal action beckons. If he pays as much tax as he's been prone to boast about, then it won't be a fruitless exercise. I'm not sure off the top of my head how long it is since his last defamatory statement, and the limitation period for defamation is 12 months, but clearly the fact that he'a made the false claim yet again today, he's just kicked started a fresh 12 month period.

[Tim Lund]

Does anyone know if Chris is just a one off? Does anyone know of other areas where someone like him is active? As far as I can see, in most places people with explicitly local interests go along with Facebook. Avoiding being judgemental about what "someone like him" means, the questions amounts to whether there are other places which have these local Forum wars. Anyone know?

[JGD]

Not that I know of.

With further responses you may not expect and that only some people may be aware of.

It is not a forum war.

This thread is generated by the overly intrusive actions of an individual with an aggressive and predatory behaviour pattern who normally selects his targets by his assessment of to what degree he will succeed in bullying them. His behaviours and imposition of his, and only his, dogma is compounded by expressions of hatred magnified by his sense of entitlement to exact revenge if he feels his target actually "betters" him in public debate.

I choose the word hatred carefully. No normal person would create a lie about another person behind the facade of a sock-puppet for the purpose of making an accusation solely intended to have the police falsely prosecute that other person as he did.

His current argument on his own forums, tainted by racist right-wing over-tones is being conducted with a wholly different set of members of his forum who are now very shocked to witness this behaviour and them being targeted first hand. They may be as horrified as the first round of early engagers who ultimately walked away from his forums in frustration at the accusatorial and mendacious behaviours.

Once more he and his acolytes have edited his more extreme comments to hide them from the plain sight of observers of our local debate.

So the "other forums" part of the question can best be answered this way.

Not only are two out of three forums created in our locale by the RTW guy now being used as a vehicle for his venom and abusive views in a repeat of a very short cycle.

His engagement in every local forum that was co-located with his own and which he elected to engage resulted in his rejection and ejection by and from these other forums. His expressions of mendacity and hatred conducted thereon were sometime uttered behind the mask of a sock-puppet so that he could attempt to maintain a false commitment he had publicly made, never to engage in that form of activity.

I cannot be fussed to search for whatever his impact is on the local forums in RTW.

Silence has served us well until now - but his censorious and dogma driven views emerging in the BLM issue cannot go unchallenged and most importantly there must never be another victim bullied and stalked by him.

[Tim Lund]

Not that I know of.

With further responses you may not expect and that only some people may be aware of.

It is not a forum war.

This thread is generated by the overly intrusive actions of an individual with an aggressive and predatory behaviour pattern who normally selects his targets by his assessment of to what degree he will succeed in bullying them. His behaviours and imposition of his, and only his, dogma is compounded by expressions of hatred magnified by his sense of entitlement to exact revenge if he feels his target actually "betters" him in public debate.

...

I cannot be fussed to search for whatever his impact is on the local forums in RTW.

...

I'm not disputing what sort of person Chris is, and like you I'm not sufficiently interested to go looking for anything he might be doing down in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

The more general facts, broadly, are:

• There are quite a lot of people with his social & political views
• There are also quite a lot - not so many - with his level of geekery
• Forum software, such as phpBB, but also the Discourse software he uses, exist, and and be deployed fairly cheaply
• There are also serious players in the market to monetise local data - Facebook, obviously, which mean that there is no financial incentive to be made from what might be called freelance Forums

These facts just make me wonder how unique Chris is. Has anyone who in in touch with what happens in other areas aware of anyone else like him, doing what he does? I'm very aware of what happens in Oxford, and there is nothing comparable there

[JGD]

These facts just make me wonder how unique Chris is. Has anyone who in in touch with what happens in other areas aware of anyone else like him, doing what he does? I'm very aware of what happens in Oxford, and there is nothing comparable there

Tim - some very astute observations.

This I suspect is unique in extremis.

Why invest in setting up a forum only to then incessantly attack the members on whose survival the forum depends ?

Any situation that is so distorted from a "norm" and accepts any such venal presence is abhorrent.

[stuart]

Oh Dear - looks like another Groundhog Day.

Chris (in the heat of the moment?) makes an unfortunate post. Discussion is supressed by SE23 mods - probably rightly 'cos they don't want a culture war destroying a community forum. Then outrage here. Chris probably feels attacked/victimised again for which he seeks revenge. This may lead to another unfortunate post. And so the circle of rage is complete. No one is done any good.

Dunno whether SWOT analysis is fashionable nowadays but who do the SE23.life mods regard as the greatest threat to the forum? The exiles here or the forum admin himself? I assume the latter 'as the Flavabaker fraud will go down in history for what Chris Beach can do to deceive the community he seeks to serve. Every new excess is a reminder.

But what can the mods do? They can suppress but they can't stop it. Only one person can stop it. He doesn't have to do anything. All he has to do is stop.

Chris I know you have friends you trust who can help you through that. You had a stellar reputation in the early days of se23.life. Do you really grasp that using your priveleged position to defame people will only get more push back and further damage your own reputation? You could do so much more to help our community with your IT skills and gain the rewards. I'm afraid atm some of your judgmental skills are working the other way.

Best,
Stuart

[JGD]

Unfortunate is one word that CB does not understand and its not present in his lexicon of vitriolic expressions of hatred used in an outright and uncontrollable persecution of selected victims.

Only one person doxed him - Chris Beach himself. It was he, if anyone was accountable, who may or may not have put his family at risk in his overblown allusion to any such threat by publishing the data. The screen grabs of posts he created are still present.

There is only one person who needs to make a public apology - Chris Beach. For creating his sock puppet Flava Baker and for using that sock-puppet to fabricate a tissue of lies about an innocent women. And used that total untruth to make a report to the police in an effort to have them prosecute her. As the victim herself has stated unambiguously, she did not do what Chris Beach said she did and she has received no formal warning from the police.

Chris Beach is unable to get small facts right. It is not in his nature to be precise or accurate. Accuracy in these matters do not assist Chris Beach in creating his own fog in which his untruths lurk.

For the "most recent meetings" held over some twenty months ago that Chris Beach alludes to, four people attended. The purpose of the meetings were to pool ideas about how STF might be updated in terms of looks and functions. Mr Beach alludes to "not embarrassing" other attendees - and then shows the name of one attendee in the screen capture shown in his post.

I was another attendee. It was clear at the time that Stuart was offering technical support to ideas emerging and, certainly to me, was not there as Admin. That leaves the fourth attendee as being the source of Chris Beach's wildest of pronouncements "..contradicts what I’ve heard from a long standing member of STF who attended your most recent in-person meet-up where “admin” was present".

It cannot be exaggerated to what degree Chris Beach's failure to identify and reach out and directly and personally attack STF's admin has driven him to the verge of apoplexy. The very fact that Admin is anonymous unsettles Chris Beach. His need to inflict his version of the truth on people, drives him to this wildest of behaviours. When he cannot "touch" Admin, it inflicts a greater frustration that is unbearable to him. These types of behaviour have resulted in him having been ejected, bum's rush style, from every forum in this and adjacent areas that is not owned by him.

Hi Stuart. That contradicts what I’ve heard from a long standing member of STF who attended your most recent in-person meet-up where “admin” was present.

Since you still own and host the site (the domain, forum, database etc), could you explain why you’re using it to host hundreds of posts defaming me by a number of anonymous accounts? You’re also hosting posts by the lady who received a warning from the police for sending malicious online communications that listed my family members with photos, a photo of my flat, and a threat to pay my wife and three month old baby a visit.

If you recall, it was you yourself who originally posted my home address publicly on your forum, only to later take it down when I made a formal complaint. You also banned me shortly after doxxing me, which meant I was unable to defend my name on your site from the various false statements made by members of your site - and by you yourself.

How do you think this kind of content reflects on the Sydenham community? Do you think STF is a force for good?

Will you continue to deny any responsibility for the content you’re hosting, and ask us to believe that some anonymous “admin” is responsible for it all?

Four people attended your meet-up in 2018. I will spare your blushes, and I will not name them.

And how we laughed at length about the hollowness of the Nominet threat. Mr Beach, then, could not grasp that Nominet would adjudicate on domain and web issues only - not content disputes.

Groundhog Day is certainly upon us on that point - it seems he still cannot.

Why does such panic-driven imperative exist to have these posts removed?

Could it possibly be that any checks being made by any future employer on individuals referred to in the posts would appear to project very negative characteristics of a prospective employee or consultant?

[stuart]

JGD,

I think you are a perfect example of how Chris can inflame people. It's difficult to not be inflamed when you are being defamed.
Chris demonstrates this perfectly. His error is when the defamation isn't. Charitably Chris made a simple mistake (like assuming I'm still Admin). Having done that I assume he turns documentary proof and multiple independent testimonies into some grand conspiracy. From there it's all downhill.

Accepting error is how we learn and move on. Denying it puts you in a strange place.

i only wish he could stand back and apply Occam's Razor to the issue. Why on earth would I fake a handover all those years ago and build such a conspiracy? What is to be gained? I will PM the fourth member of that meeting to see what she actually told Chris - 'cos it's just creating a crazy unresolvable situation.

The Doxxing issue is a funny convoluted story. I might spin it out for general entertainment one day. But back to serious work. I had a database crash on another server which destroyed my morning so I'll have a think about how I can respond helpfully another day.

Stuart

[RubyE]

This week I spoke to a Forest Hill business owner about the lockdown easing. They wondered how they would spread the word that they were reopening and their new opening hours, etc. I mentioned the community forum. Their response? They would rather not post to that particular forum because of a certain individual's actions and would rather prefer that he not speak on their behalf but won't engage with him in the fear of the repercussions. His recent opinions on the BLM movement has further cemented their opinion.

My opinion on the matter is, he is best stepping completely away and the moderators should disassociate themselves from him. He no longer lives in Forest Hill therefore is not actively engage nor has experience of the current climate in Forest Hill. If one business owner feels this way, imagine how many others do too.

I've had dealings with this individual both online and in person. He has his good moments but I'd rather not associate myself with him therefore ended our acquaintance some time ago.

[JGD]

It's difficult to not be inflamed when you are being defamed.

Scots law and English law have different definitions with very different mixes of common law and statutory provisions. So when dealing with defamation, libel and slander it requires careful and distinctive consideration.

Defamation occurs when something is said or written about someone which is untrue and damages their reputation.

So in simple terms a question may arise, "Am I being defamed?" and if being defamed means "Am I the subject of lies being told by someone?", my answer would be "I am".

So the written defamation part would appear to be established and Mr Beach compounded that fact by imposing a one thousand year ban on my membership of three of his .life forums. And for good measure, Mr Beach restated the lie by altering his reasons over time with repeated and equally untrue commentary.

But am I being defamed - the answer is no!

My reputation, such as it may or may not be, cannot be damaged by someone with the impaired reputation of Mr Beach, including his emphatically deceptive and mendacious characteristics.

There is a vanishingly small cohort of acolytes who continue to unquestioningly believe any of the tales he spins.

So, Stuart, not sure I am inflamed even. I am most certainly not waiting for a cold dish to be served.

Francis Bacon amongst several utterances, had this to say about 'revenge', "A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.".

Apt and most applicable to Mr Beach methinks.

And @RubyE's post reveals yet another addition to the long list of reports of how much Mr Beach's behaviours have poisoned the local well for our communities and our businesses.

[stuart]

But am I being defamed - the answer is no!
My reputation, such as it may or may not be, cannot be damaged by someone with the impaired reputation of Mr Beach

You know Chris - I know Chris. I, like many, was charmed by him when we met. He appears to speak authoritively and appears to be a good friend. For some this may be explanation of why they continue stick by him.

So to me then and to them now - yes he will damage your reputation. Your protestations will be turned against you as sour grapes and worse. It worked, I had a negative view of you and his other critics.

He forced me (needlessly) to see another side. It was a real shock to discover what he had been doing. The problem is then becoming a critic I too join the damned. The more I protest the more the other group see me as a troublemaker which Chris can feed on for his own benefit.

That's the division he has riven in our community. It is a love him or hate him divide. Some will bite their lips because they need to use his social media outlets. The tragedy - as RubyE makes clear - is he is not working in his own interest in building a true community forum. So the solution can only be when Chris puts aside the stuff that stops that. In his heart I think he knows what that is.

Trouble is shouting at him just reinforces his natural instinct to shout back and seek revenge. But to stay silent condones his actions. This puts many of us in a quandary in what appears to be an unresolvable situation.

Stuart