Penguicon 2024 disinvited SF author Patrick Tomlinson after he was targeted by a major online harassment campaign. Yes, that’s right. Penguicon disinvited a program participant for being the victim of harassment. He discusses the convention’s actions on his website, and I’ve confirmed much of what he said from other sources.
What the convention did to him is known as the “heckler’s veto,” though “heckling” is far too mind a term for the stalking campaign against him. It’s often a technique organizers use to get rid of someone they don’t like or find inconvenient. USC cancelled its valedictorian speech by Asna Tabassum because of vague “safety concerns.” The administration never said what dangers concerned them or who, if anyone, was making threats. The Provost’s statement cites “security concerns that rose to the level of credible” but nothing more specific. It subsequently cancelled all commencement speeches. The message USC unintentionally delivered was that threats work.
At least USC didn’t hold the speaker to blame, as Penguicon has. Tomlinson says that a board member claimed: “When we say that you use violent rhetoric, we can simply refer back to the feedback form from 2022, where you called all of us ‘ret*rds’ for having a mask mandate. In terms of incitement, the fact that you engage with your stalkers on social media is, in my mind, dangerous and fuels their desire to be bold and violent.” Tomlinson says he never made such a statement anywhere and that the poorly secured feedback form was targeted by a stalker. As far as I know, neither Penguicon nor the board member has retracted the accusation. Thus, PenguiCon has become a participant, intentionally or not, in the smears.
I have some familiarity with online stalking and harassment. A pair of loonies who believe they’re famous and only my refusal to acknowledge their fame stands in their way have been targeting me since 1995. It’s down to a little outburst every few years, but the most recent vague threat was this year. They and their “army” have called me in the middle of the night, threatened my life, broken into accounts, made harassing phone calls impersonating me, forged my name to spam, and harassed my mother on the phone. The campaign against Tomlinson is far worse. Most recently, a fake Craigslist ad tricked innocent people into walking off with some property on his porch. He has been “swatted” (made the subject of fraudulent calls resulting in dangerous SWAT raids) over 40 times. The Independent has details confirming the campaign and its possible origin.
Some people call these lunatics “trolls,” as if what they do were merely the equivalent of stirring up unnecessary acrimony on a Web forum, and they place the blame on Tomlinson for “engaging” with them. Tomlinson says in his article:
Secondly, this is not a simple group of trolls. Ignoring them does not make them go away. Indeed, it has been our long experience after nearly six years ignoring them is what makes them double down and become more bold and violent. The old chatroom axiom “don’t feed the trolls” does not apply to this cult. Pushing back against their incessant online defamation and harassment does not “goad them into action.” They are already sufficient goaded by their clinical obsession. Instead, it is the only way to defend my professional and personal online reputation from their slander and threats.
This case reminds me of the bomb threat made against a hotel that was hosting Motor City Furry Con. There was a similar threat during the previous year’s con, making it likely that the con was the target. As far as I know, the hotel responded reasonably, not punishing the convention for being the target.
There’s always more going on than I know, but PenguiCon’s handling of the issue appears inexcusable.
Update: I just noticed a comment in the trash claiming to be from Tomlinson. I say “claiming to be” because I can’t think of any reason the real Tomlinson would curse me out for this post. It landed directly in the trash because it was so full of curse words, and it must have been there for a while before I noticed. The people conducting the smear campaign have single-digit IQs, but they’re persistent.