Thankfully, even though it took me awhile to find a job in my field, I have been employed throughout this period and so was able to afford this trip. As of September 2012, I am employed in my field at my degree level as a lead Program Evaluator/Researcher to evaluate a home visiting infant mental health program, a Connecticut-based intervention model, that serves teen parents who have been involved with the juvenile justice system and their 0-5 year old children/infants.  Interventions such as the one I am evaluating which help to develop healthy, secure maternal child attachment supply positive alternatives to the harmful and/or ineffective approaches I have expressed my concerns about.

Finally, an employer is smart enough not to believe everything that comes up on a Google search and who sees the mentality of the cyber smear campaigners for what it is and realizes what an injustice it would be to penalize me for that and instead, evaluates me on my actual job performance, not out of context distortions of my distant past or outright lies that my background screen soundly refutes. Of course, I will continue to write and publish on exposing untested, ineffective and/or harmful therapy practices while actively working to develop positive, evidence tested alternatives. There are indeed positive, helpful ways to promote and develop genuine attachment and attunement between mother and child.

I have already received a hateful response from my pseud-anonymous cyber stalker about this, who has tried to post seven times to this and my other blogs. Although it is my policy to post comments from those who have disagreements with me and I welcome debate, I draw the line at hate, threats and libelous statements that this communication contained, repeating the usual lies. The person is obviously very upset that I am happy and doing well in my life and that any sane person who reads the content of the smear campaign can see what a disturbed individual this is. As more people are getting targeted for various reasons by internet smear campaigns, more understanding is developing of the mentality of cyber bullies and cyber stalkers and people are realizing they, rather than the targets, are the ones with the problem.

Although this adversity is not something I would have chosen for myself, much good has come out of it for me spiritually, as it has brought me closer to God and helped me to develop a faith I would not have likely otherwise known. This is something no one can take away and puts all else in its proper perspective. I can honestly say that although I had a rough few years, I am happier than I have been in a very long time.

That being said, internet smear campaigns appear to be an occupational hazard for mental health consumer advocates who choose to challenge certain mental health practices that are untested and yet have proponents who promote them and make unsupported claims.  If anyone has any questions about anything they read on the internet about me, please do not hesitate to contact me and ask and above all, please do not make any assumptions about what you read, since Google or other internet search engines cannot tell the difference between fact and fabrication.

If you Google Monica Pignotti (pronounced “Peen-yocht-tee”), you will notice many odd and false postings come up on Google searches of my name which are made by people who are upset about my expression of concerns about the practices of some mental health professionals.  In addition to the many false statements that have been posted about me (such as the lie repeatedly posted that I have been arrested/convicted of crimes and fired when I have never been arrested, much less convicted for anything in my life, nor have I ever been fired from any professional job I have ever held in my entire life), postings have been made in my name that I did not write and quotes have been placed around words I neither wrote nor uttered and bizarre pictures are posted of women with my name on them, who are not me. To put it briefly, don’t believe everything you read on Google searches or images. Please click here to read a statement of support signed by 48 of my colleagues who share my concerns.  People who are unfamiliar with this form of abuse may wonder why I even bother to respond to this, but you would be surprised how many otherwise intelligent people believe whatever they read online.

This statement shows that professionals in the relevant scientific community support my work and contrary to what anonymous smear campaigners and practitioners of questionable practices would want to lead the readers to believe, my work is accepted and supported by the scientific community and not controversial. The only controversy about my writings is within the fringe cliques of those whose work I have criticized who try to turn the tables and call me fringe and controversial when the support I have received as well as my track record of peer reviewed publications in reputable journals, shows otherwise. One of my main detractors is the author of a self-published book who practices a form of therapy which, by his own admission is controversial. This individual also attempted to sue me and several others and a year ago, the case was dismissed by a Federal judge who opined that my writings did not constitute defamation, but rather, were opinion and all charges against us were dismissed, affirming our right to free speech as well as academic freedom.

Posting under multiple anonymous identities make it appear that there are more such detractors than there actually are. In internet jargon, this practice of one person using multiple pseudonyms to make it appear there is a mob at work when it is really only a few people with an ax to grind, is known as sock puppetry.

I have references from professionals who know me and have worked with me on a day-to-day basis, which I will provide to anyone with a legitimate inquiry about my standing with FSU, who will refute the lie I was “fired” and give you a more realistic assessment of what it is like to work with me. Click here for further details about the lies that have been posted about me and FSU. A background check will prove I do not have a criminal record of any kind, not even minor traffic violations, nor have I ever been arrested or charged with anything, nor do I or have I ever worked in an adult bookstore, nor have I had sexual relationships with my co-authors or any other inappropriate relationships with anyone else. These are just a few of the many lies that have been posted about me mostly by posters using pseudonyms or anonymous posters.

Bottom line: For the past three years someone appears to be investing a great deal of time and effort running a smear campaign against me that amounts to classic propaganda tactics. My friends tell me that this means I must be doing something right and be effective in my exposure of dangerous therapeutic practices. Otherwise why spend so much time and effort to attempt to discredit me? The smear campaigners have fabricated and posted the worst, most obscene possible things that can be attributed to a human being that they can and invent and then lie that I did them.  Some of the postings are postings with my name on them that I did not post (forgeries) and in others, quotations are put around sometimes obscene words I never wrote and there are completely fabricated stories about me. In addition to the fabrications, events from my very distant past that occurred before I ever obtained any advanced degrees and I have long since repudiated, are being taken out of context and misportrayed by the anonymous posters. A key difference here is that I have learned from my past mistakes whereas the proponents of the therapies I have expressed concerns about apparently have not, hence their need to attack anyone who challenges them.

It is a common misconception to blame the victim of cyber smear campaigns of the sort I have been enduring. This is not unlike the attitude towards rape victims that existed before society’s consciousness was raised — the victim must have done something  to “ask’ for it, must be somehow deeply flawed, so the mythology goes.

The simple fact of the matter is that I challenge people who most people are too afraid to challenge for fear of being maligned in the way I have been. There is something in me that cannot in all good conscience remain silent when I see abuse occurring that many others seem to have no problem turning a blind eye to, although many privately agree with me.  For this, I have suffered consequences, but nevertheless, I continue because if I can make a difference in the lives of individuals, it is worth it to me.  The posters seem to feel that they are retaliating against my critical blogs, which they have characterized as “hate” websites. It appears that somewhere in their education, they missed learning to distinguish between expressing concerns about mental health practices that lack evidence to support claims being made on on hand and personal attacks and malicious lies, on the other hand.

Recently, the Russian Commissioner of Children’s Rights is raising similar issues my much-maligned colleagues and I have been raising, with regard to the unsupported beliefs of certain mental health professionals about internationally adopted children, especially children adopted from Russia who have been victims of serious abuse and in some cases, have died at the hands of their abusive parents while these adoption “experts” have testified in a way that blames the victims and gets the abusive parents off the hook or at least lessens their conviction. 

It should go without saying that decent, ethical professionals who are offering valid therapies are able to provide sound support for what they are doing and hence, have no need to attack their critics in this manner.

Here is a quote that seems appropriate to this situation: 

To date, 48 of my professional colleagues, whose names appear below the statement,  have signed the following statement of support. I thank and extend my deepest appreciation to each of them for their support and having the courage to take a stand with me on the important issues involving our professions that are at stake. If any prospective employers are reading this, I am more than willing to answer any questions you might have and address any and all concerns and provide you with the names and contact information for references who I have actually worked with who will put the lies about me to rest, once and for all. Here is the statement of support my colleagues have signed.

Statement of Support for Dr. Monica Pignotti [May 2011]

For the past two years, Dr. Monica Pignotti has been subjected to an ongoing and concerted internet smear campaign in response to her peer-reviewed and internet writings on potentially harmful therapy practices, particularly attachment and other similar therapies involving coercive restraint of children. The postings have mostly been made by anonymous and presumably pseudonymous posters on blogs, public newsgroups, and other internet websites. These statements have often been malicious, false, and even profane, and have included not only Dr. Pignotti but also some of her colleagues and supporters (see
http://phtherapies.wordpress.com
and
http://monicapignotti.wordpress.com
).

Although the posters are, to date, unidentified and unidentifiable, it is clear from their content that they are one or more individuals who are upset by Dr. Pignotti’s criticisms of certain interventions directed at vulnerable children, such as internationally adopted children with serious developmental disabilities and/or behavior problems. Rather than take the high road and address the substantive criticisms raised by Dr. Pignotti and her co-authors, the anonymous posters have elected to take the low road and personally attack and malign the critics.

We, the undersigned, unequivocally oppose the cowardly and unethical behaviors of the internet posters, and strongly affirm Dr. Pignotti’s right to raise legitimate criticisms of their therapeutic practices without fear of false and defamatory attacks. Criticism of therapeutic practices that lack empirical support and may be harmful is vital for the profession and we are deeply concerned that smear campaigns could discourage others from engaging in public scrutiny of these and other practices. We call on the internet posters to stop such practices immediately. We further call on the posters to publicly identify themselves and to voice their criticisms in the form of clear descriptions of their concerns, using recognized venues such as peer-reviewed articles rather than in the form of baseless personal attacks.  Additionally, we ask that any prospective employers of Dr. Pignotti not allow the actions of these posters and the fact she has chosen not to remain silent, to impact their hiring decisions.

Signed:

Scott O. Lilienfeld, PhD, Professor of Psychology (Clinical), Emory University

Eileen Gambrill, PhD, Professor, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley

Bruce Thyer, LCSW, BCBA, PhD, Professor of Social Work, Florida State University

J. Michael Bailey, Professor Northwestern University

Aaron T. Beck, M.D., University Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Evelyn Behar, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago

Carolyn Black Becker, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Trinity University, San Antonio

Stephen T. Black, Ph.D., Ph.D, Social & Clinical Psychologist

Richard R. Bootzin, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona

Lynn Brandsma, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Chestnut Hill College

Roxane Cohen Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology & Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine

James C. Coyne, PhD., Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Professor of Health Psychology, University of Groningen

Bella DePaulo, PhD

Benjamin Emmert-Aronson, M.A., Doctoral student in Clinical Psychology, Boston University

Wayne C. Evens, MSW, Ph.D., Associate Professor/Program Director, 1501 West Bradley Ave., Peoria, IL 61625

Trudy Festinger, DSW, Professor of Social Work, New York University

Howard N. Garb, YC 03, USAF, Ph.D., Chief, Psychology Research Service

Associate Editor, Military Psychology , 559 AMDS/SGPL, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, TX  [Please Note: Does not represent an endorsement by or the views of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.]

Brandon Gaudiano, Ph.D., Assistant Professor (Research), Alpert Medical School of Brown University

James Herbert, PhD, Professor Clinical Psychology and Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Drexel University

D. Lynn Jackson, Ph.D., LCSW (FL), ACSW, Assistant Professor/ Field Coordinator, Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions, 1155 Union Circle #311456, University of North Texas, Denton, TX  76203-1456

Robert K. Klepac, Ph.D., Psychology Training Director Emeritus, Wilford Hall Medical Center, Research Associate Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center – San Antonio

Steven R. Lawyer, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Idaho State University

Julia H. Littell, Ph.D., Professor, Graduate School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Bryn Mawr College, 300 Airdale Rd., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA

Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Psychology & Social Behavior Criminology, Law & Society Cognitive Sciences School of Law, University of California, Irvine, 2393 Social Ecology II, Irvine, Calif. 92697-7080  USA

Jeffrey M. Lohr, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Psychological Science, University of Arkansas

Steven Jay Lynn, PhD, Professor of Psychology, SUNY Binghamton

Robin MacFarlane, PhD

Cathleen Mann, PhD, Independent Practice

Jean Mercer, PhD, Professor Emerita, Richard Stockton College

Michael B. Miller, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.E., Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, email: mbmiller@umn.edu, phone: 612-564-5364

Randal S. Pennington, PsyD, Training Director, Wasatch Mental Health, Provo, Utah

Brady J. Phelps, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Dept. of Psychology, South Dakota State University

Ken Ruggiero, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina

Susan Kiss Sarnoff, DSW, Associate Professor, Ohio State University Department of Social Work

Sally Satel, MD, American Enterprise Institute

Lee Sechrest, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Arizona

Ian R. Sharp, Ph.D., Clinical Scientist and Senior Trainer, Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology Industry

Bradley H. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Director, Community/Clinical Graduate Training Program,  University of South Carolina

Carol Tavris, Ph.D., Social Psychologist, Author, Lecturer

George Tremblay, Ph.D., Department of Clinical Psychology, Antioch University New England

Timothy R. Tumlin, Ph.D., Independent Practice, Darien, Illinois

Kristin von Ranson, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology (Clinical), University of Calgary

Hollida Wakefield, M.A. Licensed Psychologist, Private Practice, Northfield, MN 55057

Robert L. Weiss, Ph.D., Professor emeritus of Psychology, University of Oregon

Robert W. Wildblood, Phd, Retired Associate Professor of Psychology, Licensed Applied Psychologist in Virginia, Licensed HSPP in Indiana

Alexander Williams, M.A., Clinical Psychology Graduate Student, University of Kansas

There are, however, a subset, (I believe a minority) of mental health professionals who somehow managed to obtain and keep credentials, but do not, in my opinion deserve respect. I do not take the position that someone is automatically entitled to respect, much less deference, just because they possess credentials. Such people are not above criticism and to believe they are is a dangerous assumption to make, given what history has taught us about the harm done in the name of therapy, even sometimes by licensed mental health professionals. The reverse is the case: licensed mental health professionals are constantly accountable to the public they serve. While violations and unethical behavior can be reported to state boards, unfortunately, state boards do not always do their job or are very slow to do it. They need to be called out on this behavior and possibly cronyism.

Respect for credentialed mental health professionals needs to be earned. Quite frankly, I find the sense of entitlement among this subset I referred to to be quite breathtaking.  So, to clarify my position, in case people are confused about where I stand, what follows is a list of characteristics I respect in credentialed mental health professionals, followed by a list of characteristics I do not and should not respect in a minority of credentialed mental health professionals.

I respect credentialed mental health professionals who:

• Take the time to evaluate what evidence supports the interventions they use with their clients.
• Are transparent about this evidence with their clients. That means that if they are proposing to use an intervention that has no research evidence, they disclose this and let the client know that he or she is, in essence, engaging in an experimental treatment. The client should also be informed of any evidence-based alternatives that exist.
• Admit when they have made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. The difference is that the ethical credentialed mental health professional admits to mistakes and learns from them.
• Treat their clients with respect and dignity.
• Speak out against abuses they see in their profession.
• Question authority and question claims made by colleagues that lack adequate support. This does not mean personally attacking them; it means criticizing and questioning the substance of the unsupported claim. Unfortunately, people who practice pseudoscientific approaches are often unable to tell the difference between the two and see all criticism as “negativity” and personal. In fact, criticism of the substance of the person’s claims is very positive and can result in changes that are highly beneficial for clients.
• Respond to criticism about their own work in a calm, rational manner rather than engaging in personal attacks on critics.

Now, let’s have a look at the flip side. Here are a list of qualities of the credentialed mental health professionals I have been accused of not respecting and for the record, I believe these folks are in the minority. Note that not everyone I have criticized has all of these characteristics. This is just intended to be a list of some characteristics, any one of which would tell me that the person does not deserve respect.

• Uses interventions he or she claims are effective that actually have no sound research evidence to support their effectiveness.
• Fail to inform the client about the interventions being delivered and instead claim that such interventions are highly effective when there are no published randomized clinical trials to support their efficacy. Such claims are based only on testimonials and anecdotes or
• The interventions being used have some published studies but they are not of the level required to claim efficacy of a treatment (for example, studies that used a comparison group with no random assignment and yet the person insists this is enough to claim the treatment is “evidence-based”).
• Delivers proprietary seminars for treatments that lack evidence to support their efficacy, and yet claim that they are superior to established interventions.
• Declares self to be an “expert” and this declaration is repeated endlessly by anonymous individuals, yet little substance can be found for such expertise. As Robyn Dawes pointed out in his excellent book, House of Cards, if so-called expertise has no empirical substance, it means very little (for example, the people who claim to be “experts” in multiple personalities and yet deliver treatments that some former clients have sued over because they made them worse).
• When colleagues criticize such a person’s work, writings, and/or claims, instead of responding, he/she attacks the critics personally and sometimes with a very loud, public smear campaign.
• The person feels entitled to automatic respect and deference because of the fact that he or she is licensed.
• The person asserts that people who are not licensed have no right to criticize him or her without considering the actual merit of the criticisms and responding to that.
• Makes threats to sue critics or actually does sue critics when he or she has no winnable case. The purpose of such suits is sometimes just to drain the person financially and consume the person’s time and energy. In other words, the legal system is used for the purpose of harassment although now, in many states, defendants who are targeted with frivolous lawsuits can be awarded attorneys fees and sometimes even more in damages.
• If all else fails, hires an internet “reputation” clean up company to harass and threaten critics. Note that not all internet reputation companies behave in this manner, but some apparently do. For example, last weekend, a certain website was put up that had obscene pictures and attempted to link some of my colleagues and me with hatred of Muslims and other religions and appeared to be inciting hatred and potentially violence. The website’s ISP was traced to a reputation defending company and in an earlier version of the web page actually mentioned the name of a certain therapist we have criticized and we were threatened about what would happen if we did not remove material about him on a certain website. Apparently they realized the stupidity of what they had done and removed the therapist’s name and eventually removed the obscene pictures and religious bigotry, but the evidence has been saved and many people saw the therapist’s name on the website before it was removed, including prominent people in the mental health community and certain agencies. Many of us, including an attorney I recently spoke to, believe that a reputation defending company is behind all this since a “who is” search traced back to them. Although they backed off and what they now have up is just a lame personal attack on the individual, their activities are now being closely monitored by people who have a pretty good idea of what they are up to. In my opinion, if these people were hired by that mental health professional, he should fire them and sue them because their dirty tactics against us have done far more to damage his reputation than the people he is accusing (who’s only intention is to abide by actual evidence for public benefit) have ever done.

These are just some of the characteristics I keep in mind when evaluating whether a “credentialed” professional deserves my respect. I recommend that the public, particularly people who are considering therapy for themselves or their family members do the same. Automatic deference to someone, just because they hold a credential, could be dangerous which is why people need to be good consumers.

Contrary to what certain “credentialed” people would have us believe, it is not libel or defamation for an unlicensed person to criticize a licensed mental health professional as long as the statements are not factually false (note I am not a lawyer but this is, according to my own research, what my own understanding of the libel and defamation statutes in the US that I have read, state). Here in the United States, freedom of speech is for everyone, not just people that the state deems to be in authority. False, malicious statements against anyone, regardless of credentials held, can be legally actionable, but every citizen has the right to express their opinions and make factually correct statements about any other citizen. If any so-called “expert” attempts to tell you otherwise, that is someone who, in my opinion, ought to be avoided.

Also note, to anyone I have criticized, I practice what I preach and am, myself, open to correction. If you feel my criticisms have been unjustified I ask that you please get in touch with me and let me know the following:

1. What factually false statement you think I made. Please be specific. What, when, where? Note that this must be a statement I made, as I am only responsible for the statements I make, not the statements of others. If you have a problem with a statement made by a colleague, you will have to take it up with that individual.
2. Provide me with a rebuttal to the allegedly false statement — not an attack on me, a factual rebuttal.
3. If you can prove to me that I made a factually false statement, I will publicly admit to the mistake and correct it.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3. I’m a very reasonable person and my track record proves that I do admit it when I make mistakes. However, thus far when it comes to my recent criticisms of certain interventions for children, I have yet to be presented with any factual statement I made that was incorrect, but I remain open to the possibility if evidence to the contrary were to be presented to me.

This particular blogger has an unfortunate habit of posting documents and then writing things on the blog other than what the documents say. Either the blogger has a serious reading comprehension problem or he believes that his readers are stupid.

The latest claim being made by the crackpot anonymous blogger is that someone contacted the producer of Judge Judy to check this out and she claimed that she had been contacted by someone who she was “pretty sure” was Mercer. Pretty sure? I really hope this is not how the Judge Judy show checks people out to see if they were for real. Any female could have contacted the show claiming to be Dr. Mercer. Obviously, if the poster even contacted the show at all and got that response, that is what happened. Someone contacted the show claiming to be Dr. Mercer who, in fact, was not Dr. Mercer. Or the whole thing could have been concocted.

The bottom line being evaded is that Ronald Federici lost his lawsuit against Jean Mercer, Advocates for Children in Therapy and Charly Miller, so now his supporter appear to be left with nothing more than rather pathetic attempts to lie about Judge Judy. While personally, I would have loved to have seen Judge Judy telling off Federici and watching him lose the case on national TV, I’m not at all sure that any of the parties involved would have accepted the invitation, even if Federici had.

Another interesting point is that the blogger noted that Judge Judy would have been considered an arbitration, not a trial. Federici did not agree to appear on Judge Judy but in the Fairfax Court when the people involved in the cases were asked if they would like to participate in an arbitration, according to the report I heard, he wanted to do so. Dr. Mercer declined and consequently the case went before the judge and Federici lost. In other words, Dr. Mercer did not want arbitration, Federici did.

I have the truth directly from Dr. Mercer that she did not ask to be on Judge Judy. She would have no reason to lie to me, but obvious, blatant lies have been spread about us on the internet (e.g. the lie that I was fired from FSU when I was not, the lie that my PhD was revoked when it was not, the lie that Dr. Mercer is transsexual and much more). There would be nothing wrong with it if Dr. Mercer were transsexual but she is not and the people posting it are obviously bigots trying to use this lie to smear her. Obviously the anonymous crackpot bloggers and usenet posters have no credibility after telling these obvious, easily refutable lies and hence, nothing coming from these anonymous individuals can be trusted. I’m sure there will be much more to come.

Based on reports I have of the small claims case, Dr. Mercer was cool, calm, collected and rational while Federici attempted to ask her rambling questions that the judge kept calling him on for being leading questions. The judge finally gave up, put a halt to Federici’s leading questions, and found in favor of Dr. Mercer, ACT, and Charly Miller.

Oh, and one more thing. That blog is evidence that the anonymous blogger has direct ties to Ronald Federici or that someone with direct ties is spreading things to others to post, as the blogger was able to obtain a copy of a letter addressed to Federici. Evidence saved and duly noted.

“A stay of proceedings is a ruling by the court in civil and criminal procedure, halting further legal process in a trial. A stay is sometimes used as a device to postpone proceedings.”

Christopher Comins’ lawyers are big fans of the “Stay.” They’ve utilized it once already and have motioned to do so again.

I should have knocked on wood last month, when I wrote:

“I am eager to prove in court that Comins’ lawsuit was an abuse of the legal process (see my Counterclaim).  But… I fear (Comins and his attorneys) may be content to just filibuster and dilly-dally, forcing us to keep trading pointless and redundant motions until I can’t pay the bills anymore.”

The filibustering and dilly-dallying is now under way.  And it’s not the first time.

The “Unofficial Stay” (June 3, 2010 to late January, 2010)

As the Motion to Dismiss explains:

“When this case was first filed, it was clear that it was a frivolous attempt to silence VanVoorhis and that it had no likelihood of success on the merits. The parties agreed to simply stay the entire action while a resolution was discussed.”

That resolution was supposed to involve Comins suggesting specific edits to my offending blog entry in an effort to help me track down those alleged “factual inaccuracies.”  Even though I felt strongly that nothing in the blog constituted defamation, and that legally they had no right to demand I change anything, I wasn’t opposed to having a dialogue about making some changes.  It sounded like a nice compromise–as long as it felt as though I was being asked, rather than threatened and bullied.  I liked the idea of being treated like a human.

So I went ahead and converted my blog entry into MS Word format for Mr. Comins’ convenience, and sent him the file (via our lawyers).  That was in early June of 2009.

Silly, stupid me–I took them at their word.  I kept thinking any day now they’d send their suggested edits and we’d settle the lawsuit.  Would you believe I actually pictured Comins sitting at a computer and mulling over track changes?

Over the next seven months, I was wildly unproductive.  I tried to nibble away at my dissertation, but the unresolved SLAPP lawsuit was always on my mind.  The law firm representing Comins wouldn’t return my attorney’s calls, and the longer we went without hearing back from them, the more I sensed they planned to take another swipe at me, eventually.

I started thinking about the cost, how quickly thousands of dollars had blown away in just a week or two of settlement negotiations. I guess someone like Comins can misplace a few thousand dollars without even realizing it.   But a few thousand dollars is actually a lot of money to me. If there was going to be a Round 2, I had to get serious my Legal Defense Fund.

And the more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off. A compromise didn’t seem fair–given what I’d sacrificed compared to him, and the fact that I’d done nothing wrong, while he had (in fact, the wrongness of what he’d done was so severe that the state of Florida is currently attempting to send him to prison for it).

Then, sure enough, in January of 2010:

“Comins unilaterally decided that he would insist upon pressing the case forward, and that he would insist that VanVoorhis produce his written discovery and file a responsive pleading – which VanVoorhis did.”

Hindsight

I realize now that the “unofficial stay” was just a farce–as Comins’ legal team accidentally revealed today in their Response in Opposition to my previously discussed Motion to dismiss:

“Given concerns with the statute of limitations, Plaintiff could not simply wait to file this action until the criminal issues were resolved… Additionally, Plaintiff’s criminal trial was originally scheduled to occur in March, but was delayed until August.”

In other words, when they expressed a willingness to reach a settlement that wouldn’t either bankrupt me or strip me of my First Amendment rights, they were just screwing around. From their perspective, they had to sue me in May of 2009, and then find an excuse to jerk me around for a year.  They did so by faking a desire to reach a settlement, getting me to submit to them a copy of my blog in MS Word, and then sitting on it for seven months.

They waited to call off the “unofficial stay” until it looked like the criminal trial was within sight of finishing.  By waiting until late-January, they assumed it would give the criminal case time to finish.  But the criminal trial “was delayed until August”–and when we had the nerve to ask direct questions in our discovery requests, it screwed up their whole plan. Had Christopher Comins provided honest responses to those questions, he would have incriminated himself, jeopardizing his criminal trial.  So the dog shooter’s attorneys had to dilly-dally some more on his behalf, attempting once again to use a disingenuous Stay to stall proceedings.

This is first class legal dilly-dallying at it’s finest, using the Fifth Amendment as both their sword and shield.

“How can you waste all that time, effort, and money rather than just deleting your blog?”

The short answer is, “How can I not?”

Our troops take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” They kill and die in the name of this cause; they get their arms and legs blown off for it.

What am I sacrificing, really?

Worst-case scenario: the frivolous lawsuit goes to trial.  So I’ll have to travel down to Orlando Florida and spend a few days inside an air-conditioned courtroom.

There’s no risk that I’ll come back a different person, haunted by memories too painful to ever talk about.  Or that I won’t come back at all.  My partner might not get the wedding she dreamed about as a little girl, but in the end she knows she’ll still be able to hold me.  Even if we need to put off having kids for a few years, I won’t be raising them from a wheelchair.

Next month my best friend is going back to Afghanistan.  I don’t tend to agree with the wars he goes to fight in.  But I am in awe of the sacrifices he has made, and continues to make, on behalf of his country and its Constitution.

How can I turn my back on the First Amendment just because supporting and defending it is inconvenient?

How can you?

As a S.L.A.P.P. victim, I am able to express firsthand to ordinary citizens the damage that can be done by such lawsuits.

Most people assume that as long as they’re telling the truth or expressing a personal opinion, they have nothing to fear from our legal system. It is true that such is protected Free Speech under our Constitution.  But what people don’t realize is that certain loopholes exist in our legal system which render the First Amendment impotent.

For those who can afford to utilize them, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs for short) are a highly effective way to suppress truth and silence opinions.  What intimidates citizens is not the threat of losing a lawsuit.  Rather, the cost of winning is what ultimately censors critics.

I’ve been informed that it may end up costing as much as $100,000 to successfully defend myself in court against a SLAPP suit filed against me by wealthy dog shooter Chris Comins.  It’s no wonder so many citizens do the math and decide its in their best interest to shut up, rather than pay the high cost of admission to hold powerful elites accountable for misdeeds.

In addition to these financial burdens, Christopher Comins’ SLAPP suit has halted my professional progress and, worst of all, forced my fiancé and I to delay our plans to get married and begin our family.

H.R. 4364 will ensure that if a plaintiff brings a defamation suit, he must do so in good faith or he must pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees.  This bill deserves strong bipartisan support, as the only parties who could possibly oppose it are those who file frivolous and unfounded lawsuits that do serious harm to the First Amendment.

I realize federal legislation won’t be enacted in time to help me, but it gives me comfort to know at least one Representative has taken steps toward protecting others in the future from the pain and suffering this lawsuit has caused me.

Please write your congresswoman or congressman in support of the Citizen Participation Act of 2009.

Further Reading on H.R. 4364

Eric Goldman

Only someone who is either extremely deficient in thinking skills or who is deliberately attempting to mislead people about my views would conclude I would support such a law. If anyone is on the wrong side of that debate, it would be Ronald S. Federici, who tried (and ultimately failed) to gain jurisdiction over several defendants from out of state in his internet defamation lawsuits, so it would seem to me that the NC proposed law would be right up his alley. Plus, since it would criminalize defamation, it would spear him the expense of having to hire a lawyer, although the disadvantage would be that he’d have to convince the State to press charges, which would be highly unlikely since so far he has been unable to state a claim that was acceptable to the court (e.g. his Federal case against me was dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted). Nevertheless, if that law had been in existence in Virginia, Ronald Federici could have gained jurisdiction over all of his defendants, had he been able to state a claim. Go here for documents which show that it is Ronald S. Federici who repeatedly tried to get defendants brought in from out of state so he could sue them for internet defamation, conspiracy and tortious interference. However, a Federal judge put an end to that by overruling the decision of a small claims court judge (Federici also lost the small claims cases against Mercer, Miller and Advocates for Children in Therapy, but the judge in that case had stated that he believed Virginia had jurisdiction over them — however when case law was presented to the Federal judge in his later lawsuit, it was ruled that Virginia does not have jurisdiction over any of the defendants and that the mere fact that people in Virginia read the postings was not sufficient reason for Virginia to have jurisdiction. A law like the one proposed in NC, however, would have changed that).

In any case, I completely agree that the NC law would have completely killed Constitutional rights to free speech and I am adamantly opposed to it and overjoyed that it was defeated. Is that clear enough for you, anonymous cyber smear campaigners? It is well known that I publicly support anti-SLAPP legislation and the kind of law that was proposed in NC could have encouraged all kinds of frivolous lawsuits and had horrific unintended consequences.

What I do think is that something needs to be done about is extreme cases of obviously malicious fabrications being posted on the internet that can wreck a person’s life. Now that is draconian. That is something our Constitution does not guarantee and that, under law, is subject to usually civil defamation statutes. What still needs to be worked out is how to deal with anonymous people on the internet who are getting away with this. The fact that such postings can come from outside the US makes this issue particularly complicated and problematic and I, for one, am not so arrogant as to presume that I have the answer for how to deal with this. There are no easy answers to this and since the internet is still relatively new, this is something that probably won’t be worked out for years. Also, wording of such a law needs to be worked out so that it would clearly distinguish between people who are posting malicious lies designed to wreck a person’s life and people who are exercising their legitimate constitutional rights to free speech by expressing opinions and the facts, as they sincerely understand them.

On the one hand, people do need to remain free to exercise their right to free speech, which includes the right to express opinions, including criticism that people might not like and well documented facts. What free speech does not include, however, is malicious lies and outright fabrications of the sort that have been posted about me, for example, copying a posting from a website, altering it and then putting my name in it, something I recently caught the internet smear campaigners doing, red handed. That is a clear demonstration of malice and deliberately posting falsehoods that would even win a case against a public figure. However, in this particular case, I didn’t even need to go to the law. The website owner, once I presented him/her with the evidence, much to their credit, had the decency to remove the posting. However, he/she didn’t have to and not all website owners would have done so. So thank you, Liars and  Cheaters RS, for being decent and honest human beings. Sadly, not every website owner is and hence, the need for some kind of carefully and clearly worded law, not the proposed and now-defeated NC law.

So yes, the State of North Carolina went way overboard and their proposed legislation, I am very happy to report, was defeated. However, that does not mean that anything should go when it comes to malicious fabrications being posted on the internet. Ultimate, however, I believe the solution lies not with the passage of legislation, which will always have its limitations, but with teaching people to critically evaluate statements that are made, rather than believe everything they read on the internet. Were people capable of doing this, it wouldn’t matter what was posted and Google would have to re-evaluate its search algorithms if it wanted to be credible.

Once again, the anonymous smear campaigners appear incapable of telling the difference between legitimate free speech and malicious defamation.

Update August 30: John Knapp just made a posting to his own blog with a very misleading heading that I was “120 days on the same subject and still counting”. This implies that I was posting about something for 120 days, which is completely false. What happened is what I described below. I contacted him 120 days ago about a concern I had. We had a discussion about it, which I allowed him to have the last word on, the discussion took place and concluded on one day, May 2. In fact, about 120 days elapsed with no communication between Knapp and myself.  The next communication between us was one John Knapp initiated on August 25, 2011 when he sent me a friend request on Facebook and then on August 26, John posted about his former client and also maligned her by calling her a cyberstalker and maligned me as well. John Knapp claims I have been “cyberstalking” him for the past 22 months. If you believed someone had been cyberstalking you, would you send them a “friend request” on Facebook? John Knapp sent me a friend request on Facebook and then when I sent him a response he did not like, challenging him on why he wanted to be my “friend” after posting the smear piece about me, he accused me of “cyberstalking” him. Either Mr. Knapp has formulated a mighty strange definition of cyberstalking or his accusations are disingenuous and he hoped no one would notice.

Mr. Knapp claims I reopened the “scab”. No, he reopened it on August 25, 2011 when he made the highly derogatory posting about his former client and attacked me. I refuse to stand by and remain silent when I witness what in my opinion is an egregious humiliation of a former client who filed a state board complaint against him and so yes, I did respond to this on August 26, 2011. People can read it for themselves along with the several other postings he has made about us over the past five days and decide if they agree.

Ironically, he posted our entire private e-mail dialogue on his website, which proves what I am maintaining, that we had a completely voluntary discussion, he never once indicated that he considered it harassment or asked me not to contact him and at its conclusion, I dropped it and let him have the last word. That is what he considers “cyberstalking” on my part. Having a dialogue with a colleague and extending him the courtesy of contacting him privately, as the NASW Code of Ethics says to do and I allowed him to have the last word. Go figure. Also observe the attempted double double bind. I would bet that if I had not attempted to contact him privately and instead had gone straight to his board, he would have complained that I did not follow protocol by first attempting to discuss the matter privately. It would seem that from that perspective, I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t, but what the board will look at is the actions of the individual they are investigating, rather than attempts to shift the blame to those who complained.

Here is a description of what happened in May:

John Knapp, LMSW has repeatedly accused me of harassing him for the past year. However, in  consulting my own records from my e-mail and Facebook messages, my contacts with him have been very limited and even my public postings about him are few and far between. Until recently I had not even mentioned his name on any of my blogs and only did so recently to defend myself against his very public attacks on me as well as a former client. Here is some more detail regarding the facts about my very limited contact with John Knapp over the past year.

May 2, 2011

I sent him a private message on Facebook expressing my concerns (go to the above link to read that and the entire dialogue).

My basis for this was a communication I received from Carol Welch (and yes, I recognize this is hearsay, which is why I contacted him privately to check it out and discuss it with him rather than publicly accuse him of anything), which she has more recently publicly discussed, maintaining that Knapp told her in a phone call: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Monica has Borderline Personality Disorder” as well as his posting on a public Facebook page where he appeared to be supporting someone who was grossly maligning me. Knapp denies this, so at this point it is his word against hers. Note that this action is proper and in keeping with the NASW Code of Ethics which says that if a professional has a problem with a colleague, to first try to discuss it with them privately and if that fails, go to their licensing board. The only reason I am making this public now is that both Knapp and Carol have already made this public and John Knapp has falsely accused me of harassing him and I need to post evidence to defend myself.

In response to this communication, Knapp e-mailed me asking for specifics. I let him know that my problem with his was that he appeared to be supporting someone on Facebook who was attacking me, but most importantly what Carol Welch had written me about Knapp’s alleged statement to her about me (Knapp and I only met very briefly at a conference in the mid-1990s and he doesn’t know me at all, much less ever assessed me). I let him know I considered this improper. His response to me was to deny everything and that he wanted to forward all this to Doug Mesner. My response was that at this time, since there was already a board complaint against him by a former client, I would be willing to do nothing for the time being and let that investigation run its course. Knapp also passed along to me some second-hand communication that he claimed to have received from Jim Martin, a mutual acquaintance that I had been helping Carol with her Board complaint. I let him know that this was completely false. I did not even know that she was filing the complaint until after she had already written it up and submitted it. This, in legal terms is what is known as hearsay and not valid evidence and in fact, it is false although helping someone with a Board complaint does not constitute harassment. Knapp had the last word in this exchange.

Note that John Knapp and I had both received hearsay about one another, but we have chosen to deal with it in very different ways. The way I dealt with it was to contact him privately to discuss it and I did not make any of this public until he and the other party did. His way of dealing with the hearsay about me was to very publicly accuse me of internet harassment. I note this in case to demonstrate that these are two very different things, in case someone wants to accuse me of having a double standard.

Until our most recent exchanges of August 25-27, that was the extent of my direct communication with John Knapp over the past year and that completely voluntary exchange that he voluntarily engaged in and never asked me not to contact him, could in no way be considered harassment.

On August 25, 2011, John Knapp sent me the following message on Facebook:

A note you might find interesting:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/john-m-knapp-lmsw/brava-megan-singer-for-firing-your-therapistout-loud/249684775064547

He also sent me a “Friend” request.

That same day, he posted an article on his blog, attacking his former client and me, accusing me of harassing him.

In response to the article and his private message to me, I sent him the following private message on Facebook:

I see you have launched a highly defamatory attack on me on your website and you want to be my friend? What’s going on with you, John? And by the way, I am not unemployed. I am self employed. Now that I have informed you of that, if you leave that up, I will consider this an intentional posting of a falsehood on your part.

Although he took this as a legal threat, it was not intended that way. The rest of what happened and our very heated (initially private) exchange that Knapp chose to make public, that followed is described elsewhere and although heated, was in no way harassment and he no way asked me to stop (his attacks on me in this exchange were quite strong) and in fact, encouraged me to keep contacting him. There is a big difference between two people having a conflict via e-mail and harassment. It is only harassment if one party asks the other to stop and that person does not. Knapp at no point asked me to stop. In fact, he repeatedly responded to me. It was not until he blocked me that he indicated he wanted no more contact and I have not contacted him since, nor do I have any intention of ever contacting him again.

Strangely enough, his posting blocking me was also peppered with all kinds of questions my background. This is the same type of straw man issue that the AT crowd has tried to fling at their critics. My background is publicly posted in detail on my CV, should anyone care to examine it. However, my background is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, which was the public attack Mr. Knapp has launched on his former client. I do happen to have significant clinical experience (which contrary to Knapp’s insinuations has nothing whatsoever to do with Scientology, which I left and fully repudiated 20 years before I obtained my professional credentials and I have never practiced Scientology as a mental health professional and TFT comprised only about 10% of my work with clients at the time I was practicing it and I have not practiced TFT for more than seven years and am, in fact, a highly published critic of TFT). However, it wouldn’t matter if I had no experience whatsoever. The issue, which Knapp appears to be attempting to distract from by shifting the attention to me, is his obscenity-laced public diatribes towards a former client and a colleague. It really doesn’t take any credentials at all to see that this is just plain wrong. The only requirement to be able to discern that is some shred of human decency.

So in the past year, John Knapp and I had two private, completely voluntary exchanges (the second one initiated by him) on two occasions that in no way fit the legal definition of harassment. Hence, Knapp has made another demonstrably false statement against me that I have been harassing him for the past year.

Public postings on the internet do not constitute harassment. However, until my blog posting of August 27, I had not even mentioned his name on any of my blogs that I could find and on that date, did so only to defend myself against his attacks. Knapp chose to post my private communications of August 26-27 to his blog. If people Google our names together, that will be borne out, although free speech permits me to express any opinions about him that I choose to.

The only other posting I could find about him was one I made in 2009 [which was what I was referring to in my communication to him of May 2, 2011) on one of my blogs entitled “Symptom Lists Can Be Powerful Things” where I criticized some material on his website, but did not mention him by name, again, not harassment, not defamatory and only the expression of my opinions and perfectly legitimate. There were also some discussions about this posting and Knapp’s work that Knapp himself participated in, on a list serv that I run, Anticult Controversies, but again, those discussions occurred over two years ago and Knapp was on the list, at my invitation which he accepted. No communication was begin forced upon him and in no way could this be construed as harassment.

So those are the facts, which soundly refute John Knapp’s accusations that I have been harassing him for the past year, which I have shown are demonstrably false. Anyone reading this blog will see that my attention in the past year has been taken up with a number of matters that had nothing to do with Mr. Knapp who I thought of very little until he began his current, very public attacks on me.

I predict the anonymous smear campaigners who are not affiliated with Mr. Knapp as far as I know, who are upset with my criticism about certain adoption therapists, will try to piggyback off of Mr. Knapp’s profanity-laced postings denigrating me. Just watch.

Mr. Knapp has already piggybacked off of them by quoting some of their material about me, including their prediction “when she appears in court, it will be a complete circus” which turned out to be far from the case. Not only did that one not come to pass, but my lawyer went to court and made a very solid argument in my defense, that got the case dismissed. The proceeding was a dignified one in Federal court where I won my motion for dismissal on both the grounds of the plaintiff’s failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and also jurisdiction, not a circus at all.

The most laughable part of all this is that John Knapp, on his Facebook page, is now asking for an apology from those he has victimized with his public smear campaign after he called his former client a cyberstalker and made statements that, according to that client, are complete fabrications and in my opinion has egregiously violated the NASW Code of Ethics by making public, derogatory remarks about a former client maligning a colleague in a number of obscenity-laced diatribes. Here are some passages that apply:

1.12 Derogatory Language Social workers should not use derogatory language in their written or verbal communications to or about clients. Social workers should use accurate and respectful language in all communications to and about clients.

and this: 2.01 Respect

(a) Social workers should treat colleagues with respect and represent accurately and fairly the qualifications, views, and obligations of colleagues.

(b) Social workers should avoid unwarranted negative criticism of colleagues with clients or with other professionals. Unwarranted negative criticism may include demeaning comments that refer to colleagues’ level of competence or to individuals’ attributes such as race, ethnicity, national origin, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, political belief, mental or physical disability, or any other preference, personal characteristic, or status.

and this: 2.11 Unethical Conduct of Colleagues

(a) Social workers should take adequate measures to discourage, prevent, expose, and correct the unethical conduct of colleagues.

(b) Social workers should be knowledgeable about established policies and procedures for handling concerns about colleagues’ unethical behavior. Social workers should be familiar with national, state, and local procedures for handling ethics complaints. These include policies and procedures created by NASW, licensing and regulatory bodies, employers, agencies, and other professional organizations.

(c) Social workers who believe that a colleague has acted unethically should seek resolution by discussing their concerns with the colleague when feasible and when such discussion is likely to be productive.

(d) When necessary, social workers who believe that a colleague has acted unethically should take action through appropriate formal channels (such as contacting a state licensing board or regulatory body, an NASW committee on inquiry, or other professional ethics committees).

My actions of contacting him were entirely proper and in keeping with (c) above and after that failed, I did (d) and as a result, the NYS board is now in possession of John Knapp’s blog diatribes denigrating his client and colleagues.

And note the passage about dual relationships, which says nothing about there having to be a quid pro quo and note especially the last two sentences:

(c) Social workers should not engage in dual or multiple relationships with clients or former clients in which there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the client. In instances when dual or multiple relationships are unavoidable, social workers should take steps to protect clients and are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries. (Dual or multiple relationships occur when social workers relate to clients in more than  one relationship, whether professional, social, or business. Dual or multiple relationships can occur  simultaneously or consecutively.)

An apology? The irony is rich indeed. Let’s let that state board complaint run its course, see what its outcome is and we’ll see who needs to apologize to whom. Since there is nothing in my activities that even remotely fits the legal definition of cyberstalking or defamation, John Knapp needs to take the time to learn about my history and track record which includes a very recent legal victory in Federal court, getting a case against me dismissed by someone who tried to silence me and failed. Click here for some interesting reading. If Mr. Knapp has even the remotest fantasy that I can be bullied into silence while exercising my very legitimate and constitutional rights to free speech, he has chose the wrong person to try to bully.

Also observe an interesting double standard at play. There are numerous examples of former members and other critics of cult leaders doing much more than I have done in this case, to expose the cult leader and express their opinions. Sometimes this sort of criticism has gone on for decades and I applaud it and completely support the courage of the ex-cult members who blow the whistle. However, when it comes to figures in the anti-cult movement, it seems that such criticism is not acceptable and some behave no differently from cult leaders and try to silence critics with smear campaigns and threats of legal action. It seems that some people hold anti-cult leaders to a very different standard than cult leaders. Sometimes I have great difficulty telling the difference when it comes to the dynamics that I observe at play.

Here is the link to the actual childrenintherapy.org domain registration:

http://whois.domaintools.com/childrenintherapy.org

Why the need for such dishonest tactics? No mention of Candace Newmaker there. It clearly states that the domain is registered to Larry Sarner, not Candace Newmaker. In the posting, the smear bloggers appear to have done a switch with stopchiltorture.org and hoped no one would notice. Later, another discussion was brought to my attention that someone identifying himself as Larry Sarner participated who denied registering stopchildtorture.org. What it looks like is that the smear campaigners are up to their usual antics and have bought the domain and registered it using Sarner’s address. That would be very easy to do, as no one asks for ID when one registers a domain. Last year they bought the domain larrysarner.com so why not this one as well.

Why the need to lie and misrepresent? Because the smear campaigners have no actual rebuttal to the criticism and exposure that Advocates for Children does of bogus therapies.

Recently an attempt to silence ACT and other critics, through a lawsuit failed.

This kind of obsession with domain registrations doesn’t address the issues at hand. Why not try addressing the issues at hand, rather than these ridiculous attempts to smear the critics? It seems they are incapable of any kind of substantive rebuttal.

My “astonishing” number of postings (which even on the highest months, average only around 4 per day = about 15-20 minutes per day of my time) would not exist, were it not for 1000+ postings smearing me. Unlike my postings, the smear postings sometimes include fancy graphics and dredged up postings from more than a decade that would have taken the cyber smear campaigners much time to dredge up. It seems that attacking me is a full time job for someone. It only shows the extent of the smear campaign which is quite “astonishing” to borrow the ridiculous term used to describe my self-defense. Astonishing attacks call for astonishing responses rather than the victim sitting passively back and doing nothing. Once again, the anonymous WordPress posters have tried to blame the victim and failed.

That will not change the verifiable results that anyone with internet access can verify which conclusively shows that I am indeed the target and the victim of an anonymous internet smear campaign.

Perhaps this most recent flood of attacks on me and attempting to reverse things is deigned to distract from the legal documents I recently found regarding the conclusion of Federici v Pignotti et al. Why is it that Federici’s former lawyer who represented him in Federici v Pignotti et al was, according to what he stated in the filing,  unable, despite repeated attempts to reach him? Why did he state that he believed he could no longer ethically continue to represent him in any matter? Your guess is as good as mine, but obviously I have hit a nerve, in spite of the attempts of the anonymous smear bloggers to portray this (which involves a Federal case and order from a Federal judge) as well as my posting on the passage of important anti-SLAPP legislation in Washington DC as “legal trivia”. I can assure you that this is not “trivia” to those of us who have been hit with such lawsuits, nor is a federal case trivial.

This is only part of what I have uncovered in recent public records searches I have conducted.

In the meantime, the support I have received from the mental health profession and academic community shows that such people are not gullible enough to be fooled by this anonymous smear campaign, will not blame the victims and instead are calling the anonymous posters out on their antics.