Keffals: A Case Study on Internet Terrorism and Mass Media Manipulation by Steven Bonnell II part 1 of 8

[Chuck Tamzarian]

Keffals: A Case Study on Internet Terrorism and Mass Media Manipulation

by Steven Bonnell II

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For the last six years, progressives and conservatives have waged
vicious war with one another across cyberspace. With cultural,
political, and advertiser pressure bearing down on these social media
platforms, conservatives have slowly found themselves on the losing end
of the digital battlefield in the ongoing culture war. As their role
flips from oppressee to oppressor, progressives have sometimes found
themselves embracing many of the same styles of aggression conservatives
once engaged in.

This is going to be a cataloging of the past year, a demonstration of
what happens when communities fail to hold their own members
responsible, and what comes of the belief that “there are no bad
tactics, only bad targets.” This is going to be a careful documentation
of lies, scams, threats, bullying, doxxing, and an utter lack of
accountability.

Over the years, I have worried about the types of tactics endorsed by
progressive communities. The uncomfortable distorting of narratives, the
grotesque shape-shifting of facts, and the general inability to hold
themselves to a decent standard of behavioral conduct. I’ve been worried
that the right combination of identity politics combined with a holy
mandate from members of the media may empower deplorable actors to
become the new representatives of our movements, with no one left to put
the brakes on their treachery.

The prevailing narrative circling Kiwi Farms and Keffals is wrong. It is
not the story of a downtrodden trans-activist supported by righteous
members of the media battling against an evil empire of militant Nazis
and transphobes. Rather, it is the tale of an internet bully given far
too much power on a mission to seek fame and fortune by building a
career through vicious conflict, borne out of lies and disinformation.
We have allowed ourselves to gaze into the abyss for far too long, and
Keffals is the result.

In this exposition I am looking to upend the prevailing media narrative
through establishing a clear record of truth with regard to these key
points:

Keffals’ initial rise to fame was through internet bullying and
lies, not through righteous activism.

There is not enough evidence to support the claim that Kiwi Farms
has bullied anyone to suicide.

Kiwi Farms was likely not the main culprit behind most of Keffals’
harassment.

Keffals grossly misrepresented the events justifying her GoFundMe.

The DIY HRT Directory, which had Keffals’ full social and monetary
support, engages in grossly irresponsible behavior with minors.

I | The Ascension of Clara Sorrenti

II | Kiwi Farms

III | Who are the Doxxers?

IV | The Swattings

V | The GoFundMe Heist

VI | Bathtub Hormones & Spy Games

VII | “Keffals” - A Character Analysis

VIII | Call to Action

I | The Ascension of Clara Sorrenti

Clara Sorrenti, better known online as Keffals, is a twitch.tv streamer
and avid Twitter user. She is known a bit for her trans activism and a
lot for her aggressive brigading against social and political targets on
Twitter. After a short stint in real life politics, Sorrenti began her
online career in March of 2020 on twitch.tv to just a handful of
viewers, streaming games such as Raft, Valheim, and Fallout: New Vegas.
A wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping through the United States
inspired her to switch her streaming content over to focus on politics,
with her eventually raising over $200,000 for the Campaign for Southern
Equality to protect trans youth. She now regularly streams to over 1,000
concurrent viewers.

Sorrenti made a name for herself on social media by directing her
twitch.tv chat to brigade targets — sometimes even on her alternate
accounts to get past blocks ( 1 | 2 ) — by “ratioing” them on Twitter
(1). “Ratioing” is when a Twitter user interacts with another users
tweet, either through a direct comment or a quote tweet, and surpasses
the original tweet in likes and engagement. Sorrenti’s Twitter behavior
typically involves her streaming her interactions with conservative or
anti-trans individuals on Twitter, encouraging her audience to engage in
bullying or harassment against whoever she set her sights on, sometimes
even asking other larger creators for assistance. On March 22nd she had
set her sight on Ian Miles Cheong, an active “anti-SJW” famous from
before the days of Gamergate. For hours, Sorrenti would go back and
forth with Ian on Twitter while coordinating the brigading on her Twitch
stream. At approximately 20:50 UTC, her Twitch stream would get
hate-raided, or brigaded by a group of malicious chatters, after she
spent most of her stream fighting with transphobes on Twitter ( 1 | 2 |
3 ). A moderator of Keffals, Soulio (a Twitch user who has urged other
streamers to cut ties with me in the past), would eventually blame my
community for this. Their evidence? Seeing me quote-tweet a friend of
Sorrenti’s on Twitter at 22:56 UTC, over two hours after the raid of
which I was accused of causing. After noticing my quote tweet, Sorrenti
quote-tweeted my tweet at 23:17 UTC in an attempt to get my account
reported and banned.

The only evidence Sorrenti would ever provide for the claim that my
community hate-raided her was that she shut down the raiders by
auto-banning anyone who followed my channel. I was, at the time, the
second largest political streamer on Twitch, with over 650,000
followers. It should be no surprise that auto-banning all of my
followers would slow down any new raiders, as the same effect would
likely have been achieved if she’d banned all Hasan or Vaush followers,
the first and third largest political streamers on the platform at the
time. Furthermore, it is not the case that every person following me on
a platform where I have hundreds of thousands of followers is a fan of
mine. If I were to have directed a hate raid, it would have certainly
far exceeded the handful of chatters who showed up to harass her.

Sorrenti would later claim in that same stream that I don’t stand for
trans people because I support “segregation” between trans women and cis
women in college sports. Ostensibly, this single issue is enough to
erase the numerous supportive debates ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 )
and conversations ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ) I’ve had on my stream regarding
trans issues. On March 23rd, the next day, my Twitch account would be
indefinitely suspended for “hate speech” due to my stance on trans women
competing in women’s sports, with Sorrenti later taking credit for my
suspension ( 1 | 2 ) on Twitter. My ban would propel her into the
spotlight, netting her almost 30,000 Twitter followers (Before/After)
over the next week, making it the single most explosive month of growth
her account has ever experienced on the platform, doubling her following.

Sorrenti’s primary strategy when dealing with people online is to
attack, attack, attack. Her goal is to discredit them as much as
possible using half-truths or lies in order to mischaracterize their
views into something unacceptable or associate them with unscrupulous
actors.

Keffals would go on to utter several half-truths or blatant lies about
me, including:

On March 23rd, she claimed I “stealth people, which is legitimetely
a form of rape.”

I have never stealthed or raped anyone ever, this an absolutely
baseless and malicious accusation stated with no evidence

She softly walks this back later

On March 24th, she claimed I said “if a trans woman does not
disclose she’s trans before having sex with someone, they are a rapist.”

I have never stated that a trans person failing to disclose
their trans identity before having sex with someone makes them a rapist.
This claim is in reference to tweets I made ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ) saying
that you should not surprise someone with a set of genitals they are not
expecting. During that discourse, I explicitly made a carve-out for
people who were post-op, so her framing of my take was a complete and
total lie.

On March 24th, she claimed I was “literally defending a neo-nazi
who called [her] a man.”

I have never retweeted, liked nor endorsed any transphobic
attacks against her. All forms of transphobia are banned from my
chatrooms and my discord. I disavowed her original tweet ( 1 | 2 | 3 )
and my subreddit was critical of it as well.

On March 24th, she claimed I was “showing support for [Kiwi Farms]
while [my] chat actively attempts to dox [her].”

All forms of transphobia are banned from my chatrooms and my
discord. YouTube chat is a bit harder to moderate due to limited
moderation tools, but anyone making threats or comments like these are
instantly banned by moderators.

On March 30th, she claimed I “mocked her for being a childhood
grooming victim.”

I have never mocked her for being a “childhood grooming
victim.” I was mocking her for constantly bending stories and narratives
(Images: 1 | 2 | 3) to suit whatever she was currently fighting about
online.

On May 17th, she claimed I “[let my] audience mock [her] genitals.”

I have never retweeted, liked nor endorsed any transphobic
attacks against her. All forms of transphobia are banned from my
chatrooms and my discord.

On July 18th, she claimed I was directing people to Kiwi Farms to
harass her with a deceptively cut screenshot.

I have never directed people to Kiwi Farms to harass her. I’ve
linked the site a single time in my offline chat on July 1st to
demonstrate that the harassment she was receiving was coming from Kiwi
Farms, and not my community as she’d claimed. I was doing this in
response to her claiming multiple times on June 30th ( 1 | 2 ) — with no
evidence — that my community was the primary one harassing her, despite
her extensive and quickly growing Kiwi Farms thread.

Even in the screenshots she shows, “kiwifarms.net” is clearly a
banned phrase in my chat.

On August 21st, she claimed I “actively lurk on [her] Kiwi Farms
thread.” and blames me for getting doxxed and swatted.

I have never made a post in that thread, most of the
information I receive comes second-hand through Discord and Twitter.

I have not posted the thread link in my chat multiple times,
nor have I ever encouraged my viewers to “get involved.”

On August 25th, she claimed I am “the reason Kiwi Farms found out
about [her].”

I am a victim of Kiwi Farms harassment, and have been for 5
years. It is inconceivable that I could be held responsible for other
threads created on Kiwi Farms that I had no hand in creating.

Originally, on August 21st, Keffals seemed to have a completely
different idea about what started the feud with Kiwi Farms, and said it
was because she “started doing Twitter ratios” and that’s why Kiwi Farms
is “digging up every little thing in the last 28 years of [her] life.”

On September 12th, she claimed I am “best friends with white
nationalist extremists”, using a photoshopped picture of me and Nick
Fuentes as evidence.

I have never been best friends with white nationalist
extremists. This picture is, ironically, an edit done by a groyper, a
Nick Fuentes fan.

I have aggressively debated Fuentes in almost every interaction
we have had ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
| 15 | 16 ).

On September 12th, she claimed I “threatened to rape women and
posted burning Crucifixes in the replies of Black people” in reference
to tweets I’d made back in 2016.

I have never threatened to rape anyone. I made an incredibly
inappropriate tweet towards someone 7 years ago during a heated
exchange, but it was not a rape threat. I’ve since apologized for it and
recognize it was not an appropriate tweet to make.

The “burning crucifix” image was posted once, and it was during
a period where I was fighting with black nationalists, who were
trivializing historical and contemporary racism, on Twitter. While it’s
an unnecessarily edgy and obviously inappropriate tweet, it was not done
with racist intent, which is clear as I was in the comments arguing
about the disadvantages black Americans faced in the United States.

Sorrenti has made every effort to inhibit me from covering anything
related to her. She continuously attempts to discredit me by making
false claims about my reporting, or repeatedly claiming that I’m
associated with Kiwi Farms or its owner, Joshua Moon.

On July 18th, she claimed that “Null has [my] back,” while reading
what is obviously a troll post on my Kiwi Farms account. She tweeted a
similar claim on July 19th.

Joshua Null has stated “the world would be better off with [me]
dead,” that he “will not talk to [me],” that he wished I would be “set
on fire,” and showed up in my Kiwi Farms thread to call me a cuck.

On August 18th, Sorrenti would later admit she blatantly lied
about this claim on Twitter.

Also note that while I have posted on Kiwi Farms, my reaction
score of -875 should give you a pretty good idea of what Kiwi Farms
generally thinks of me.

On August 21st, she claimed I had “actively facilitated all of the
bad things that have happened to [her] over the past several months” and
blamed me for her doxxing.

There is no proof or evidence of any of this. I cannot possibly
be blamed for Kiwi Farms creating a thread on her when I had no
involvement in it.

Again, the only time I’ve posted her thread in my chat was to
counter the allegations that most of the harassment she received came
from my community by proving the existence of a Kiwi Farms thread about her.

On August 27th, she claimed I was “considering bankrolling Kiwi
Farms…[and that I have]...been known to mock trans people who have
attempted suicide” and called for a mass reporting to get my Twitter
account banned.

Earlier that day I’d cautiously expressed an interest in
potentially donating to Kiwi Farms. The only trans person whose suicide
attempt I’ve ever questioned is Doe, someone who claimed they’d taken a
non-lethal dose of Benadryll in a published Google Doc before jumping
back into Twitter politics a week later. This questioning had absolutely
nothing to do with them being trans. I have never made transphobic
attacks against Doe.

On September 12th, she pressured Brianna Wu out of having a
conversation with me, saying she didn’t “want [me] to make money off a
monetized video debating [Brianna].”

I offered to donate $1,000 to a trans charity if Brianna
discussed Sorrenti’s claims with me. She still refused.

On September 14th, she claimed that my subreddit is “the new Kiwi
Farms,” and “Kiwi Farms, when Kiwi Farms is offline.”

I have one of the largest creator subreddits on Reddit. If the
level of harassment from my subreddit was even a fraction of what comes
from Kiwi Farms my subreddit would surely be banned.

All of the behavior that Sorrenti calls out that Kiwi Farms is
notorious for (threats, extreme harassment, doxxing) are explicitly
banned in all of my communities.

On September 14th, she claimed I was a “Kiwi Farms user…[and she
thinks I’m] some kind of Nazi, really seems like it.” She’s also said
I’m “very upset that [my] site is gone,” in reference to Kiwi Farms.

My Reaction score (like Reddit karma) on Kiwi Farms is below
-850. Getting negative Reputation at this level is considered somewhat
difficult without getting banned and is usually only reserved for
lolcows with accounts on the website. For reference, Near, someone
claimed to have committed suicide due to bullying from Kiwi Farms, had
an account as well.

I have only ever posted in my own thread. I have never
interacted with any other thread on Kiwi Farms. (Post history: 1 | 2 | 3
| 4 | 5 | 6 )

The allegation that I’m some kind of Nazi is patently absurd,
and obviously so to anyone that has even a passing familiarity with my
online prescence

In regards to the bombing claim, it wasn’t just addressed to
her followers at large, but specifically her “Ukrainian followers.” ( 1
| 2 | 3 ) When she says she “posted the information” this includes the
physical address of the data center. Interestingly, she also neglects to
mention how she stated that “I know Joshua Moon has expressed warm
sentiments to Vladimir Putin and the site has many Putin supporters on
it.” At best, she takes advantage of a brutal invasion and humanitarian
crisis for her own ends, and at worst she engages in an implicit call to
violence.

She claimed on September 15th that I had previously shared her dox
and was threatening to do the same to her family.

I have never posted direct links to her dox, nor have I ever
threatened to post doxxes of her family.

As you can see, Sorrenti has a tendency to fabricate facts and events.
However, her lies run far deeper than the baseless claims she makes
about me. The prevailing narrative of Sorrenti is that of a fearless
warrior, fighting for trans rights on the internet while armies of
transphobic and hateful trolls try to tear her down. This narrative has
been propagated by her, the Twitter activist community, and partisan
journalists (Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, Ahmar Khan of Global
News, and Alejandra Caraballo of Slate and Wired) who uncritically
amplify her lies.

I am here to present a truer, darker version of Sorrenti than that of
what the media has fabricated. Before we dive much deeper into her
though, we need to take a close look at the malicious and false campaign
she ran to take down Kiwi Farms.

--
continued in part 2