Venomgate Redux: The VenomFangX Scandal Revisited

After another spate of bad-acts, VenomFangX has left YouTUBE once again. This time permanently, if anyone is to believe him; perhaps even if he does return someone can claim that VenomFangX did not return, as he has chosen to escape from his past by divesting himself of that name like removing a wet coat upon entering a house. So we'll call him Shawn.

Shawn has shut down his VenomFangX channel in the wake of community outrage about his filing of more than two dozen false DMCA notices to various other YouTUBE channels in a transparent attempt to stifle their speech. His false-concern replies noted that he was choosing only those videos that mocked and harassed him unduly and put he and his family in danger. This is a behavior which he basically showed he already knows is illegal from the last time he was caught doing this, in fact he said as much in his apology speech to Thunderf00t from the original Venomgate Scandal.

Then, after several of his targets moved to defend themselves and several retained legal aid, Shawn went ahead and posted a video calling DPRJones a pedophile. A demonstrably false accusation based on bad information and in bad faith – and directed at his primary adversary when it would come to his upcoming legal troubles for filing false DMCA notices.

As he has since shut down his channel, his new apology is posted on the DPRJones channel.

People have mentioned that he sounds contrite, apologetic, as if he intends to get help for his apparent mental problems and criminal behavior – and understand, filing a false DMCA notice is perjury (knowingly and willfully making a false statement for legal purposes), a felony in the United States. Shawn is a Canadian citizen, so I don't know what criminal laws bind him there, but it's likely they also frown at individuals lying on legal documents.

As we well know now, Shawn is a snake. He is a brilliant manipulator of emotions, a plagiarist, a liar, and a known fraud (see: Venomgate and Sick Children Hospital.) In spite of his apology and attempt to escape from his bad behavior as VenomFangX is manages to fail to actually stop this behavior.

As part of his apology he grovels, simpers, and attempts to show contrition by saying that he will get help (which he may) but then he continues on to ask people to remove videos mocking him and outlining his bad behavior as VenomFangX. Claiming that the existence of this history will make it difficult for him to move on.

There are those who will be quick to point out that he isn't welcome to escape his history. What he's done has been done and if he did get into legal trouble there would be court cases and public documents of his actions. That much of his history is now in video form which can be removed does not mean it should be removed at his request.

My issue is altogether different.

VenomFangX has committed a series of crimes. The fruits of these crimes was to remove videos outlining his past, mocking him for his bad behavior, and otherwise documenting his terrible acts. He got caught in the commission of his crime and failed. In his apology – in an attempt to escape justice according to his crimes – he asks people simply hand him the fruits of his criminal behavior. To me this is exactly like the executive caught embezzling $10M who gets caught, but escapes imprisonment through an apology and while apologizing asks people to just give him the $10M he tried to steal "out of kindness."

Don't give Shawn the fruits of his criminal behavior.

Around Azeroth: Leveling with trolls

Anoxia finally hit her 77th level this weekend after a marathon run of quests with the trolls in the fallen city of Zul’Drak. The city is so large that it literally takes up an entire zone of Northrend, filled with trolls of every imagining (mostly the frost variety) who have turned on their own gods to fight the Scourge.

Their predicament is terrible and it saddens me greatly. It’s stupid of them to turn on their own protectors for fleeting power, but this is troll culture: not just cannibalistic but deicidal. The trolls there have taken to themselves to cannibalize their own gods for the might to repel the Scourge which has led to a bitter internecine war. The trolls eating their gods aren’t doing so well either, as some of them have run into a disagreement from those gods themselves.

For example, the healer goddess – a winged serpent – yanked her and hers into an undead nightmare vale upon her death and is now exacting terrible revenge on them for their transgressions. And the mammoth god, who seems to be quite stubborn, detonated himself rather than be quaffed the hungry trolls.

Needless to say, the city is in various states of smoldering ruin.

And it’s been great fun.

Also, in other news:

I am seriously thinking of doing some WoW videos, directed at newbie players to elaborate the various classes in their early roles. Especially now that I’ve been playing a warlock repeatedly from early levels. They are such a fun class.