A Twitter troll is harassing the family of a Sandy Hook victim, and it took 24 hours to help

@InternetSheriff, as he or she goes by currently, is a Sandy Hook “truther”: someone who believes, against all the evidence, that the killing of 26 elementary school students and teachers in December 2012 was a “false flag” attack orchestrated to clamp down on gun rights.

There are a surprising number of people who hold this viewpoint, alas. But @InternetSheriff is unique in that he keeps registering Twitter accounts under Soto’s name, where he spouts theories about how Soto’s family was paid off, or Soto never existed, to anyone who will listen.

Most people would presumably agree that @InternetSheriff’s behavior is despicable — made more despicab

A Twitter troll is harassing the family of a Sandy Hook victim, and it took 24 hours to help

From friend of the site George Knapp - this highlights the sad, sad state of the world.

To continually, randomly abuse the family of a dead person goes beyond the pale and is a special form of sickness.

The actions of this person are the kind of thing that politicians love to take advantage of in order to condem conspiracy theorist and regulate more, and the actions of Twitter itself in not doing more to remove this kind of thing sooner furthers their cause.

But the problem here isn't politics, or Twitter.

Its the mind of a very, very sick individual

Persistent trolling is - to me - a sign of severe psychosis. I've seen so much of it during my time on many different internet forums - ATS gets more than its fair share of returnees who can't let things go - and while I expect replies to this post crying "freedom of speech" it goes WAY beyond that. No one has freedom to harass or belittle and abuse.



This thread has been promoted on the ATS Twitter Feed with the following image:

a reply to: neformore

Im not a "truther", however I do not believe the official story about what happened. I also believe that we will never know either. There are too many anomalies in the whole SH saga. And I think what really did happen there is far less nefarous than what sandy hoax people are pushing. "SH Truthers" are beating a dead horse, even if they found concrete evidence no one will believe it because of their beliefs.

That being said, the reality is SH could have happened, and the families should be left alone regardless. Harassing the people involved serves no purpose except to otherwise discredit and marginalize other non-related conspiracy theories.

And your absolutely right, no one has the right to harass someone because they suspect they were involved in something they don't like.

ETA: I read your post thinking this guy was stalking the family, in person or over the phone. If they don't like how twitter works then they should block him or cancel their account, they have no rights to anything when it comes to the internet.

Many may not agree with that, but that's the reality of things on the internet. Its not like they are putting up with some troll.. defaming their character because they absolutely need twitter to survive. This sounds to me more like an attention seeker stuff.

If I had a child that was killed, and someone was making my life miserable on a free open social venue that I didn't need, I would cancel my account and probably eventually realize how dumb twitter really is.

a reply to: neformore

But it is ok for the WP to post a pic of the victim's sister crying at Sandy hook, to support their story?

a reply to: neformore

I hope you do not get any freedom of speech type of comments.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

People should take a look at what that really means because from what I have seen many don't really know.www.law.cornell.edu...


Personally I think @InternetSheriff’s is as low as one can go. Pond scum is more useful.

Maybe he can troll the 16ft of cold tiles on prison walls for the next few years.... Harassment is a criminal offence right?

People are #ed up, nothing changes neformore....

I mean, is this worse than picketting a veterans funeral with signs that say all marines are fags and will go to hell, for example?

a reply to: neformore

Persistent trolling is - to me - a sign of severe psychosis. I've seen so much of it during my time on many different internet forums - ATS gets more than its fair share of returnees who can't let things go -

Interesting analysis.

I would say persistent "trolling" can be a reaction to persistent lying, persistent manipulation etc.

Is it the persistance that makes someone psychotic?

a reply to: neformore

Are these tweets available for us to review?

Their obsession with 'no dead kids' is sick. They can't see how messed up their brains are. Huge egos. They are the worst kind of trolls that can be found on the internet. I feel for the families. No one should have to be harassed like that, and especially people who have lost children like that.

Question accuracy of police reports - yes. But don't say there are no dead kids or that families got paid off with free houses. Absurd hurtful nonsense.

Personally I don't think we are told the full truth about the incident, but I find it hard to believe that it was a completely fake situation. Even if I did believe it was a completely fake incident, what is the point or harassing someone on Twitter? Does the guy think by harassing this person they will just reveal the truth (as the harasser sees it?)

If the parents are fake, they aren't going to admit anything, so harassing them is pointless.

If the parents are real, then you are doing something truly horrific.

So honestly, what does that fool think he is going to accomplish with his harassment?

If you want to get really into the conspiracy angle these fools harassing the family could be shills in order to discredit anyone who questions the official story. Just like the laser beam and no-plane people could be shills in order to discredit those who question the events of 911. Just like the reptilian people could be shills to discredit those who believe in a group of powerful nefarious people manipulating society from behind the scenes.

Controlled opposition works incredibly well, making anyone that disagrees with you look like a nut because someone else who disagrees really is a nut (or is acting to appear that way)

Just like 911, the Sandy Hook incident is too emotionally loaded to have a mature and objective conversation about, so it just seems utterly pointless regardless of what someone believes.

originally posted by: neformore
Persistent trolling is - to me - a sign of severe psychosis.

Very possibly true. Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality. Delusional beliefs of their own grandiosity as well as obsessive pushing of things like 'no dead kids' ... I'm sure a psychologist would entertain a diagnosis of psychosis for the persistent trolling like that.

Question police reports = reasonable behavior
Trolling parents of dead children = sign of a possible mental health issue

** That's not an online diagnosis, but just my opinion.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Question police reports = reasonable behavior Trolling parents of dead children = sign of a possible mental health issue

Let me ask you a question.

What if the reasonable act of questioning police reports shows that there is no real evidence that anyone was murdered, or shows that the official story is bogus?

originally posted by: neformore
But @InternetSheriff is unique in that he keeps registering Twitter accounts under Soto’s name, where he spouts theories about how Soto’s family was paid off, or Soto never existed, to anyone who will listen.

All the family has to do is avoid using twitter....

originally posted by: hellobruce
All the family has to do is avoid using twitter....

Innocent grieving families shouldn't have to avoid a popular social media because a mentally unbalanced troll keeps harassing them by making account after account after account after account. It shouldn't be that way. I hope the family can take legal action.

a reply to: FlyersFan

How does the family feel about the WP showing a picture of their surviving daughter in distress?

Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality.

Reality shows that the official SH story is a lie.........

Is there any proof that these events on Twitter even happened? Where are the tweets?

a reply to: neformore



Wow...what an asshole.

it's one thing to not believe the official story, and to ask questions about things that don't make sense....

but harassing people? what the actual f**k?

What depresses most is that this ladies account name is "TeamVickiSoto". When did that trend start with putting "team" in everything and who is to blame for that?, its infuriating.

Since i cant read the posts in question i cant possibly comment.

originally posted by: neformore
Persistent trolling is - to me - a sign of severe psychosis. I've seen so much of it during my time on many different internet forums - ATS gets more than its fair share of returnees who can't let things go - and while I expect replies to this post crying "freedom of speech" it goes WAY beyond that. No one has freedom to harass or belittle and abuse.

I agree, and I agree that the simple-minded excuse of "freedom of speech" is no longer adequate.
When does freedom of speech become something sinister and unacceptable?
I can guarantee that if those claiming freedom of speech had a child being threatened by someone on the street they would suddenly change their mind about the notion of unlimited freedom to attack and abuse people.

Freedom of speech is a great thing, but when people use it as an excuse to stalk, harass, abuse, threaten, then something HAS to be done about it. It's not good enough to just claim that someone has the right to say what they want, when you happen to agree with it.

Example - it's not "freedom of speech" to scream fire in a theater and kill twenty people in the panic crush.
It's not "freedom of speech" to be a religious extremist threatening to carry out a murderous attack.
It's not "freedom of speech" to claim that other groups of people are sub-Human end should be executed.

There have always been psychologically damaged people, but now they just have a larger audience to preach to and abuse. The only difference these days is that every village idiot has a means to spew their nonsense to anyone around the world. The problem here is the way companies like Twitter and Facebook refuse to take any responsibility for what happens via their servers.

There is a simple solution to this... companies like Twitter and Facebook need to be forced into providing a traditionally adequate customer service system. Twenty years ago you couldn't have a large corporation with so many customers and not have customer service. This is one of the ways these corporations have managed to amass so much profit and power - they have gigantic businesses being operated on a shoestring in comparison to other companies of their size.

If a company is operating a social network like these examples they should be required under law to provide a reporting system for abusive and threatening users. Those users should then be looked at, and if their actions are believed to be criminal it is passed to the authorities. If not criminal, but abusive, they should be banned from the service or otherwise prevented from communicating in any way with those they attack.

Facebook has at at least attempted to provide something like this, but it needs a hell of a lot more work to become adequate.

We do this all the time on forums, the same kind of abuse would not be accepted here, or on the vast majority of communities out there. We are all expected to abide by these rules of decency, and so should companies like Twitter.

I don't give a damn what some delusional person thinks about an event, they have absolutely no right to be abusing or threatening someone over their opinions.

a reply to: neformore

I must have misunderstood your post, I thought the guy was harassing these people in person.

This is a non-story, because... its twitter harassment lol.