Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Blogger Kat Blaque tracked down her troll and got him fired

Kat Blaque's fans tracked down a man who was trolling her - and later, he lost his job

Doug Bolton
Wednesday 30 September 2015 15:05 EDT
Comments
Blogger Kat Blaque's troll was fired after being identified by her fans
Blogger Kat Blaque's troll was fired after being identified by her fans (Kat Blaque/YouTube)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A blogger who received a torrent of racist and sexist insults online has got justice - after the man leading the campaign against her was fired from his job.

Kat Blaque, a blogger and YouTuber, was subject to a campaign of abuse on her popular Facebook page, which has over 30,000 fans.

As a black, female feminist who makes videos about racial and gender equality, Kat is used to abusive comments directed towards her on social media.

However, one user, called Kenneth, was more frequent with his comments - leading Kat to chronicle his attacks on her, in an article for the Huffington Post.

Kenneth threatening to rape and kill me didnt bother me. Thats part of my daily existence. Having people rush to defend...

Posted by Kat Blaque on Tuesday, 29 September 2015

In an early post, Kenneth called Kat a "dumb c***" and made a reference to black culture 'tearing things down'. These posts attaracted the attention of Kat's fans, who found that Kenneth's account contained a great deal of personal information, open for everyone to see - such as pictures of himself, and his place of work.

Against Kat's wishes, fans began posting negative reviews and comments on Kenneth's personal and work pages, which only caused him to escalate his abuse.

In one post, he makes a public rape threat, telling Kat: "I'd throw you on the bed and ravage you and you'd f****** love it."

In another public post, after claiming that he didn't make a rape accusation, he writes: "It's alright. You'll get yours. Remember I'm a conservative, I like my guns."

Later, he simply writes: "Anybody got a noose?" below one of Kat's posts.

Kat insists that she stayed out of what happened next - even more fans began complaining about Kenneth's behaviour to his employer, and left negative reviews on his professional pages.

One morning, Kat woke up to a message from one of her fans - a screenshot of an email from Kenneth's employers, which said he was "no longer affiliated with the company."

While Kat says in her article that she didn't want to get him fired, her chronicling of the story may have helped raise awareness of the difficulties that black women face online.

Ending the post, she writes: "What bothers me the most about all of this is that there are people who will, and have defended him."

"As a woman, I should never have to tolerate and swallow threats of sexual violence."

"Kenneth still truly believes that he was unjustly relieved of his job and still doesn't see how what he did was wrong."

"That's scary. It's unsettling to me that someone could do all of that and still not see it, but people like him are never that self-aware and will probably never see it."

Edward Snowden signs up to Twitter

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in