How a Bloomberg reporter was trolled online for two years

Dune Lawrence of Bloomberg writes about the defamation campaign against her online by Chinese businessman Benjamin Wey after she wrote a negative article.

Lawrence writes, “I didn’t sue for defamation. I talked to people about it, and all of them told me the same thing: It would be long, invasive, and horrible, and Wey would likely use the opportunity to further attack my privacy and reputation.

“Wey kept at his trolling, with at least four more stories devoted to me, plus references in posts about his other targets. Whenever a new image of me came online, a Blot article followed, with the same insults stamped over the image: FRAUD, DUMB, RACIST, INCOMPETENT.

“There were real consequences. My husband and I were turned down for homeowners insurance; the underwriter told my husband I was ‘high-profile.’ I traded cards with another journalist at an event, and the next day he e-mailed to ask what the heck I’d done to make anyone so angry at me. I felt as if I had a dirty little secret. I’d forget, and then moments like that would upset me again. Not many people bothered to ask for my side of the story. Maybe that was because not a lot of people saw the Blot stories—the entire site got only 50,000 views a month. But I imagined people I contacted for work, especially native Chinese, coming upon the Blot posts. How many of them would return my calls or e-mails?”

Read more here. Lawrence writes that she wrote about it to fight back but worries what will happen next.