RAYNHAM —
It can be a dirty business this thing called blogging.
Click on an Internet website, go to a blog that’s linked to it, and post anonymously to your heart’s desire — saying just about anything you want about anyone you choose without fear of legal ramifications.
Michael Quish, the owner of MSM Executive Luxury Vehicle Service, a limousine company with an office on Route 44 in Raynham, claims that he’s become a victim of cyber-bullying.
A small group of people, he said, have been using blogs as a means to damage his personal and professional reputation.
He said he’s been labeled a domestic batterer and that it’s been implied that he’s a pedophile. Someone else, he said, recently posted a message suggesting that his company was about to file bankruptcy.
All of those accusations, he said, are flat-out false.
Quish said his troubles with bloggers during the past half year or so can be attributed to his vocal and visible support of bringing casino gambling to Middleboro.
Quish last summer even went so far as to stand near the Middleboro rotary and hold up a sign urging others to join his cause.
And at a subsequent, federal hearing with representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs he described how some people driving by had directed racist comments at him.
“Is this payback for that?” he asked.
Quish said the pedophile reference developed from an online chat session on Middleborocasino.com — one of approximately 25 website domains he owns — when he was jousting with an anti-casino opponent.
At one point he became frustrated with an adversary who, he said, had been taking cheap shots at him under cover of anonymity.
He now admits the comment he typed in that led to the trouble could have been written more artfully. It read: “Nice welcome! Now knock the crap off with the multiple browsers and give me what I crave!”
Very quickly someone posting as “middleboro mom” suggested that Quish, who goes by the online moniker Mr. Limo, was “telling kids ... to come out and play.”
Then someone with the online handle King of Hearts claimed to be an 11-year-old who wanted to post comments. Quish said he recognized that a proxy server — a means of hiding or masking a user’s address — was in play, and so he immediately “booted him off.”
Within an hour of the initial posting, he said, his remark had been copied and pasted onto Middlebororeview.blogspot.com, a blog that Quish says is owned by a woman named Jesse Powell — an avid opponent of an Indian casino resort being built in Middleboro, and someone who had recently lost a bid for a Selectmen’s seat.
He also has a record of the same “middleboro mom” later in the day having written that “[T]his guy allowed my 11-year-old and a bunch of friends to post on his site” and that he “sent videos of children to someone” and should be “investigated by the authorities.”
Quish, himself a father of two young children, said that “someone grabbed a little statement [I made] and ran with it.”
He said when a blogger gets hold of a comment and misconstrues it, especially within the context of young children, it can quickly escalate “to a real dangerous point.”
Quish said he can’t prove it in a court of law but is convinced Ms. Powell was behind the postings and that she has been intent on damaging his reputation.
A call on Friday to a phone number listed as belonging to a J. Powell in Middleboro was not immediately returned.
Another blogger who goes by the name Gladys Kravitz, and is described on her site as “Middleboro’s Nosy Neighbor” (a reference to a gossipy character in the TV show “Bewitched”), less than three weeks ago, according to Quish, stated that he was going bankrupt.
That, he said, is potentially harmful considering that he’s heading into prom season and could lose limo jobs as a result.
Adding a bizarre twist of irony is that Richard Young, president of CasinoFacts — a Middleboro-based group of volunteers who oppose a casino coming into their town — accuses Quish of having called him a pedophile on Quish’s Middleboro Casino website.
Young said that when he asked Quish to remove the comment he did so. The moral of the story, he said, is that “if we have an issue we need to deal with it like adults.”
Quish, however, said he never posted anything of the sort and was completely taken out of context. He said his message on his website to Young was to stop already with all this talk of pedophilia.
Quish said he’s reported the cyber attacks — which he is quick to point out are the handiwork of a small minority of people who oppose his stance on casinos — to Raynham Police Chief Lou Pacheco.
He also said that he and a small group of concerned citizens recently held a meeting to discuss the potential for devising a bill, one that would hold people liable for making slanderous comments on Internet message boards and blogs.
And Quish said he’s voluntarily taken down all the message boards on his premier website, the one he hopes will one day benefit his business if and when a casino resort comes to Middleboro.
Now, he said, he would appreciate it if those in the other camp would do the same, to once and for all put an end to all of the electronic squabbling and mean-spirited name-calling.
“It’s just wrong and has to come to an end,” he said.
cwinokoor@tauntongazette.com
6 comments:
As a Middleboro resident who has been following this issue, I feel compelled to point out that there has been bad behavior on both sides of this fence. Having said that, given the recent events, I think that all involved should remember that we are a community and neighbors and have to live together. I wish that people who post things online would keep in mind that they are speaking about not only an individual and a family, but a neighbor. What they do and say has an effect and they should be mindful of being GOOD neighbor.
This was a quote off of Carver Chics Blog.
Anonymous said...
"However, there is another - The International Gay Rodeo Association. Perhaps the investors are actually gay rodeo cowboys working a loophole we haven't figure out yet".
Why are the anti's always talking about gays and children in this debate?
May 7, 2008 9:00 PM
http://www.middlebororeview.blogspot.com
Why does Jessie have all that mans names locked up. Does she love him.
What would Mark think?
Its amazing the quick transformation of the Anti Blog's.
The Internet Avenger is working.
It seems that after Mr kennedy took away there last annonymous posting platform they magicaly went back into there quite, stalking mode.
They lie in stealth, Reading everything just waiting for there next target.
These people fool no one.
A little too much attention all at once, The word must of went out from the leaders retreat back into your holes!
Hopefully the Internet Avenger will be a strong force in keeping these people under the microscope and held accountable for there actions.
There is no place in this debate for the birth of a Hate Group.
Thank You Internet Avenger for being here for the people.
You are very welcome. I doubt, however, that the sudden silence has anything to do with me. I suspect that the recent newspaper article regarding Mr. Limo has rattled some cages. I also would not be at all surprised to hear that certain bloggers may have been contacted by the police, recently. I've seen some records that seem to indicate that the police may, in fact, monitoring certain sites.
As for me, I've only just begun. :}
I think that all involved should remember that we are a community and neighbors and have to live together. I wish that people who post things online would keep in mind that they are speaking about not only an individual but there family and employee's as well.
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