In the midst of the fallout over Rolling Stone’s recent exposé on rape culture at UVA, which centered on the story of a student identified as “Jackie,” conservative blogger Charles C. Johnson presented himself as one of the young woman’s harshest and most outspoken critics by threatening to doxx her if she failed to “tell the truth.” Shortly after Rolling Stone partially retracted the article, Johnson tweeted a warning shot indicating plans to release Jackie’s personal information and photo; a few hours later, he made good on his promise … sort of. Johnson posted a photo of a woman holding a sign identifying herself as a rape survivor at a 2011 SlutWalk, claiming it was Jackie — except it wasn’t. Now, the woman in the photo could sue Johnson.
Little Green Footballs reports that the woman in the photograph, whose name is Angie, never attended UVA and plans to pursue legal action against Johnson for the false identification. But the blogger did not merely assert that Angie was Jackie without confirming her identity; he also maintained that “it’s very possible” the woman in the photo is Jackie even after her identity was confirmed. SlutWalk DC, which hosted an event where the photo was taken, issued a fiery response to Johnson’s actions:
It’s come to our attention that Charles “Chuck” Johnson of GotNews.com has used an image of one of our SlutWalk D.C. 2011 attendees with the claims that she is part of the events unfolding at UVA. We would like to state with 100% knowledge of the truth that his claims are unfounded, vile, and dangerous. We, nor the photographer of the image, gave permission for this photo to be used or provided any details to this “journalist”. He has put another young woman in danger of harassment and we are beyond disgusted. He was wrong and violated all journalistic integrity in publishing the information that he did.
Johnson is no stranger to threatening legal action or to releasing personal information as a form of retaliation. In September, he threatened the latter against the staff of this website.
(h/t Jezebel)
