The hit piece on the woman behind Libs of Tik Tok by the Bezos-funded Washington Post's professional victim Taylor Lorenz was based on a cyberstalking thread by an ex-Twitter employee who is working on a German-backed project.
Software developer Travis Brown, a former Twitter open source advocate per LinkedIn, unearthed Libs of Tik Tok's history on Twitter and posted a thread Saturday detailing information about the account's profile changes.
Lorenz cited Brown's series of tweets in her WaPo report published Monday doxing the woman who created the Libs of Tik Tok sleuthing persona.
Brown is working on an ongoing project with support from Prototype Fund, an organization that provides financial support to Brown's so-called "Hatespeech-Tracker." Protoype Fund is a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Travis Robert Brown’s Hassreden-Tracker is composed of his existing tools, such as cancel-culture, which Travis uses to track, stalk, dox, and harass those he has a personal vendetta against. You can see the hundreds of lists he’s created here.https://t.co/3LZSFEivOB
— Pontic Steppe Dad (@PonticSteppeDad) April 19, 2022
"We give those affected by online hate speech a tool to defend themselves," reads the Hatespeech-Tracker's project description on Prototype Fund's website.
Brown's open-source project "cancel-culture" on GitHub shows a compilation of data he has gathered to track, stalk, dox, and harass targets he has a personal vendetta against, according to an anonymous Twitter user who shared a website link that exposes Brown's bullying, cyberstalking, and online harassment tactics.
Hatespeech-Tracker builds on several existing open-source projects Brown is maintaining, including the cancel-culture project which he defines as tools for Twitter archiving, indexing, and block list management.
"Eight months later and we now have an archive of 35 million deleted tweets, mostly from the far right and their allies..." Brown tweeted in September.
Brown explained that his scraper crawls its way through "right-wing grifter / bootlicker Twitter" through the Wayback Machine, which archives links.
"If you ever need a record of a specific instance of harassment on Twitter ... hit me up—there's a chance we have it indexed," Brown solicited in a follow-up tweet.
Hassreden-Tracker uses the Twitter API, Github API, and scrapes the Wayback Machine.
His project violates Twitter’s Developer Policy, Developer Agreement, and Privacy Policy. His hosting of the data on Github violates their Acceptable Use Policy.https://t.co/jNodZGXWkK
— Pontic Steppe Dad (@PonticSteppeDad) April 19, 2022
According to the Twitter user exposing Brown's cyberfare, Hatespeech-Tracker uses Twitter API and Github API. "His project violates Twitter's Developer Policy, Developer Agreement, and Privacy Policy. His hosting of the data on Github violates their Acceptable Use Policy," the Twitter user explained Monday.
"What makes the story even more interesting is that Travis worked at Twitter. I'm speculating here, but we believe he has friends on the inside which is why his account has not been banned and his API access has not been shut off, despite clear violations and mass reporting," the Twitter user speculated.
If you're a journalist (a real one, not you Taylor), please pick up this story and reply here for more receipts (I'll DM you).
If you want to report Travis:https://t.co/uAJAy3hNMa
— Pontic Steppe Dad (@PonticSteppeDad) April 19, 2022
Brown's cancel-culture uses Twitter API with Elevated Access, according to the website unmasking Brown. "Use of this API requires signing Twitter's Developer Policy and Developer Agreement contract twice, as well as manually submitting an application describing the use of the tool and answering specific questions regarding where and how the data will be used," the site elucidates.
In the WaPo piece, Lorenz credited Brown with the effort to dox Libs of Tik Tok.
"Pro-tip: if you want to run a viral moral panic account for the worst people on earth and stay anonymous, maybe start from scratch instead of doing whatever the fuck this is," Brown tweeted Saturday. He included a snippet of code listing the previous screen names associated with the woman operating Libs of Tik Tok.
Brown had compiled over 100 deleted tweets by one of Libs of Tik Tok's old Twitter handles, according to Lorenz's report, using the cancel-culture generator.
The woman behind @libsoftiktok is “holed up in a safe location”, fearing for her life. This is not the first woman who has feared for her life due to Travis Robert Brown’s cyberstalking and incitement of harassment. pic.twitter.com/c1UZXWFDbr
— Pontic Steppe Dad (@PonticSteppeDad) April 19, 2022
Libs of Tik Tok revealed Lorenz appeared at her family's homes Monday. Brown knows that his project has incited real-world stalking and harassment. He didn't express remorse for his actions. When a Twitter user asked Brown if it's okay that Lorenz appeared at Libs of Tik Tok's family residence to harass her relatives, Brown said that "it's part of the job" for journalists to knock on people's doors.
Negative 11 downvotes on Reddit for his defiant:
— Pontic Steppe Dad (@PonticSteppeDad) April 19, 2022
"Can you be more specific about what you mean by this 'latest disgusting harassment wave'?"
Brown has stated he is "not opposed to doxing in principle" and believes "it's an extreme tool for extreme cases of community self-defense."
Although he has claimed he's "never distributed any kind of list," Brown has provided Antifa accounts involved in career sabotage with data for doxing efforts.
One particular "deleted-tweets-archive" project includes datasets generated by Salish Coast Anti-Fascist Action based on Brown's coding. Its purpose is to "provide research material to researchers and others regarding threats to our communites" by targeting alleged "Nazis, fascists and other bad actors." The Post Millennial's editor-at-large Andy Ngo is named in the Antifa project's description as is The Post Millennial itself, which is falsely describes as a "far-right tabloids."
Lorenz is now claiming victimhood in the fallout of her doxing piece on Libs of Tik Tok. The Washington Post also lied, insisting they did not publish details about Libs of Tik Tok's personal life and defending Lorenz's journalistic standards.
Meanwhile, after the failed takedown, Libs of Tik Tok's popularity has skyrocketed.