Joshua Ryne Goldberg

Joshua Ryne Goldberg
Photographic portrait of the face and upper torso of a young man. He has long brown hair and is wearing glasses and a white shirt
Born 1994/1995 (age 21–22)
Arrested September 9, 2015
Orange Park, Florida
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Citizenship American
Alternate name Australi Witness, Tanya Cohen, Madotsuki the Dreamer, MoonMetropolis, European88, Michael Slay
Charge(s) 18 U.S.C. S 842(p), The illegal distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction.

Joshua Ryne Goldberg (born 1994 or 1995) is an American internet troll, who was arrested by the U.S. government for allegedly distributing information about bomb-making techniques as part of an attempt to incite acts of Islamist terrorism on the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. He reportedly did this by posing as a Lebanese-Australian jihadist affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).[1][2][3]

Goldberg first received widespread media attention under his alleged Twitter handle "Australi Witness" following the Curtis Culwell Center attack, a terrorist attack on a Garland, Texas exhibit featuring images of Muhammad in May 2015, in which two assailants died in a shootout with police. The "Australi Witness" persona, had, posing as a Perth jihadist, called for an attack on, and posted maps of, the center where the exhibit was taking place, and praised the jihadist attackers in its aftermath, and was retweeted by one of the assailants before the attack.[4] His trial was suspended after it emerged that he had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia and anxiety disorder as part of a long history of mental illness, and he was found incompetent to stand trial[5] pending efforts by doctors to return him to competence.[6]

Early life and education

Goldberg is Jewish.[7][8][9] He lived with his parents in Orange Park, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville.[10]

Online activities

Islamist-related personas

Australi Witness

Australi Witness was an online persona, claiming to be an ISIS-affiliated jihadist from Australia,[11] who was described by Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, as holding a "prestigious position" in online jihadi circles.[4]

The owner of the Australi Witness Twitter handle claimed in an online forum on May 1, 2015 to have a "quite convincing" ISIS account with almost a thousand followers, and expressed a desire to cause "as much chaos IRL as possible", also stating "Ideally, I want to start a race war and a genocide of Muslims." [12]

Australi Witness urged an attack on the anti-Islamic event being held at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, on May 3, 2015, suggesting that "brothers in Texas" to go there "with your weapons, bombs or with knifes [sic]" to "defend your Prophet".[13] The persona also posted maps to the event. Subsequently, two men, identified as Phoenix, Arizona residents Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were shot dead by police as they attempted to attack the contest. The FBI found that Simpson retweeted a message from the Australi Witness Twitter handle on the morning of the attack.[7][8] Australi Witness claimed credit for having inspired the attack to multiple media outlets,[14][15][16] praised Simpson and Soofi as martyrs,[17] and expressed support for the attack in an interview with Fairfax Media.[4]

Australi Witness posted a 50-page guide online on how to join ISIS.[18] and later posted a list of synagogues in Australia, ostensibly to encourage his jihadi supporters to attack them,[19] He communicated that he was planning an attack in Melbourne to an FBI informant, who posed as a jihadist.,[20] and a 17-year-old who pleaded guilty to planning a Mother’s Day 2015 bombing in Melbourne using pressure cooker and pipe bombs, which was never carried out, was found to have been in contact with Goldberg.[21]

According to the FBI, Australi Witness posted to an ISIS-related website that he had recruited two people, one in Los Angeles, the other in Melbourne, to "using guns, shoot up local synagogues when the maximum amount of Jews are praying", stating that "the entire thing was my idea, and I helped them every step of the way".[15]

Australi Witness also claimed to have worked for Amnesty International,[3] asked followers to target Australian cartoonist Larry Pickering, and repeatedly attempted to associate himself with anti-Islamphobia campaigner Mariam Veiszadeh.[22]

Junaid Thorne and fake jihadist personas

Goldberg reportedly set up a fake account in the name of Australian Muslim preacher Junaid Thorne with the alleged intention of besmirching him. Goldberg also allegedly created a number of fake jihadist accounts, which interacted with the fake Thorne account, and then allegedly sent screengrabs of the interactions to journalists, at least one of whom published a fake interaction in an article of The West Australian in April 2015. The fake jihadist personas were also used to besmirch Amnesty International and the Human Rights Law Centre by claiming the fake jihadists had employment ties or donated money to the organizations.[22]

Feminism-related personas

Caitlin Roper

Goldberg reportedly set up a fake Twitter account in the name of anti-sexual exploitation campaigner Caitlin Roper, who allegedly earned his ire because of her efforts to get the video game Grand Theft Auto V banned in Australia. The fake account sent Promoted Tweets that targeted the transgender community.[22]

Tanya Cohen

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto apologized for believing a hoax allegedly perpetrated by Goldberg under the name "Tanya Cohen" earlier in 2015. During the incident, Goldberg posed as a female leftist Australian activist opposed to free speech.[23] National Review's Charles Cooke described the article that Taranto responded to as "exquisite satire",[24] while Mike Masnick of Techdirt called it "...damn good satire, because it's just stupid enough at the beginning to drag you in and make you believe it, and then, slowly but surely, over the course of a very long writeup, it starts tossing out ever more ridiculous ideas -- drip... drip... drip -- that just, gently, turn up the outrage-o-meter, such that many people don't even realize that it's satire."[25]

White supremacist personas

European88 and Reddit

On Reddit, Goldberg made thousands of racist posts as a neo-Nazi and moderated many racist subreddits, including the "r/CoonTown" subreddit.[26]

"Michael Slay"

Goldberg posted on the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer as "Michael Slay".

One well-known article by this persona regarding how to recruit people from Reddit (particularly the "r/conspiracy" and "r/Europe" subreddits), described as "fertile ground for recruitment" was commented on by Sam Biddle in a Gawker article. [27]

Upon his arrest and unveiling, the administrator of the site removed his posts.[28][29]

Other personas

Goldberg made online posts under a number of different pen names[14] including a Daily Kos diary; and Feministing, a feminist blog.[28]

Times of Israel blog hoax

In April 2015, an item was posted on a Times of Israel blog calling for the extermination of the Palestinian people. The article was ostensibly written by Josh Bornstein, a Jewish Australian lawyer, and triggered widespread condemnation. Bornstein immediately disavowed responsibility for the post, which was deleted by The Times of Israel.[9] It has since been accepted that Bornstein was the victim of a hoax.[30]

Initially, it was believed that the hoax was perpetrated by white supremacists.[30] In May 2015, Bornstein faced online threats from Goldberg's Australi Witness Twitter account,[31] and it later transpired that the hoax post was initially perpetrated by Goldberg.[22]

Philosophy of Rape

Goldberg has been identified as the person behind "Philosophy of Rape", a subreddit that advocated corrective rape against "whores and feminazis", and offered tips on how to do so without getting caught.[32][33]

MoonMetropolis

Goldberg was also active on Twitter and Reddit under the username MoonMetropolis,[14] a "free speech absolutist" who was involved with the Gamergate controversy. He would frequently use this persona to criticize the works of his other personas such as Tanya Cohen, arguing against points that he himself had made.[29]

Goldberg also posted strong opinions on the subject of free speech absolutism to the website Thought Catalog, using both the MoonMetropolis name and his own name.[28]

Unmasking and arrest

News reports about the Australi Witness online persona calling for the Garland attack first brought the account to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[2][20] The Australian Federal Police (AFP) alerted the FBI about the real identity of Australi Witness, with the AFP, in turn, being handed the information by two Australian journalists, Luke McMahon and Elise Potaka.[14][22] However, according to the FBI affidavit filed in court, by the time they received this information from the AFP, their investigation into Goldberg was already well underway.[34] McMahon and Potaka independently tracked and identified the person behind the Australi Witness account after he impersonated Potaka on Facebook, leading to a chain of events which connected Australi Witness to Goldberg.[22] The FBI also directly linked Australi Witness to Goldberg via his IP address.[15]

Australi Witness passed specific[15] information on the manufacture of a bomb targeting a September 11 memorial event in Kansas City, Missouri to an FBI informant, who was posing as a Muslim extremist. According to the FBI, Australi Witness suggested that the informant bomb the memorial in Kansas City after the latter claimed to live near that city,[35] and also encouraged the informant to make the bomb more deadly by adding rat poison to the shrapnel.[2] Australi Witness posted pictures online of what he claimed to be a bomb he was building[3][17] and emailed the BBC claiming credit for the Curtis Culwell Center attack, and warning that a pressure cooker bomb would be detonated in a "large Midwestern US city" on September 11, 2015.[14]

Goldberg was arrested by the FBI after being identified as Australi Witness on September 9, 2015. After a raid on his home by the FBI, Goldberg allegedly admitted to agents that he had distributed the information about making the bomb in Kansas City.[13] Goldberg appeared in court on September 15, where he was ordered to undergo a 30-day mental health evaluation to determine his fitness to stand trial. If tried and convicted, Goldberg faces 20 years in prison.[36]

On December 14, 2015, after an examination by psychologist Lisa Feldman at Federal Detention Center, Miami,[37] US Magistrate Judge James Klindt ruled Goldberg mentally incompetent to stand trial and Goldberg was ordered to be undergo psychiatric treatment for four months at the Federal Medical Center, Butner.[38][39][40][41] Goldberg again appeared before Klindt on June 15, 2016, and was described by prison psychiatrists as "improving", and that there was a "good chance" of him being returned to competency to stand trial. Another status update was scheduled by Klindt for October 15, 2016.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Justin Wm. Moyer (September 11, 2015). "Florida man plotted Sept. 11 attack on Kansas City, Mo., FBI says". Washington Post. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Jason Dearen, Associated Press (September 11, 2015). "Man Charged in Plot to Bomb Sept. 11 Memorial in Missouri". ABC News. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 "Jewish man from Florida accused of posing as Australian Isis jihadist". The Independent.
  4. 1 2 3 David Wroe and Nick O'Malley (May 6, 2015). "Online jihadist hails power of social media after Texas attack". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Documents: 9/11 bomb plot suspect had mental illness history". Associated Press. 2016-01-25.
  6. 1 2 Larry Hannan (June 15, 2016). "Orange Park man accused of terrorism still incompetent, but doctors say he's getting better". The Florida Times-Union.
  7. 1 2 "'Aussie jihadi' behind 9/11 memorial threat is actually a Jewish-American internet troll". The Daily Telegraph.
  8. 1 2 "Australian Online ISIS Jihadist Turns Out to Be Florida Jew". Haaretz.
  9. 1 2 "Florida Jew arrested for posing as online jihadist, encouraging terrorism". Times of Israel.
  10. ↑ Teresa Stepzinski (September 11, 2015). "Orange Park suspect in 9/11 terrorism plot showed signs of depression, reclusive nature". The Florida Times-Union. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  11. ↑ Daniel Piotrowski, Lucy Thackray and Ashley Collman (September 11, 2015). "Florida Man, 20, Arrested for 'plotting a Boston Marathon-style attack on a Kansas City 9/11 memorial'". Daily Mail. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
  12. ↑ "/pol/ - Politically Incorrect". 1 May 2015. Archived from the original on July 18, 2016.
  13. 1 2 "FBI says 'Australian IS jihadist' is actually a Jewish American troll named Joshua Ryne Goldberg". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 "Neo-Nazi, radical feminist and violent jihadist - all at once". BBC News. September 21, 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Ralph Ellis and Greg Botelho, CNN (September 10, 2015). "Man accused of bomb plot at 9/11 event, FBI says - CNN.com". CNN. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  16. ↑ Jay Hathaway (February 27, 2016). "How to prosecute an internet troll". Mel.
  17. 1 2 "FBI says 'Australian IS jihadist' is actually a Jewish American troll named Joshua Ryne Goldberg". The Age.
  18. ↑ "Australian posts guide for joining ISIS". NewsComAu. May 5, 2015.
  19. ↑ "Australian ISIS supporter tweets tips and threats following Garland Texas shootings". Australian Times.
  20. 1 2 "US man tried to organise terror attack in Melbourne, say authorities". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ Padraic, Murphy. "Teenager pleads guilty to planning Mother's Day terrorist attack in Melbourne". Herald Sun. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Luke McMahon & Elise Potka, Unmasking a troll: Aussie 'jihadist' Australi Witness a 20-year-old American nerd". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved September 15, 2015.
  23. ↑ James Taranto (January 16, 2015). "Freedom to Hate". The Wall Street Journal.
  24. ↑ James Taranto (September 14, 2015). "The Goldberg Variations". The Wall Street Journal.
  25. ↑ Mike Masnick (January 7, 2015). "That Crazy Story About Making 'Hate Speech' A Crime? Yeah, That's Satire".
  26. ↑ "Hard Right, Easy Mark". Taki's Mag. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  27. ↑ http://gawker.com/reddit-is-so-racist-white-supremacists-are-using-it-to-1691162974
  28. 1 2 3 Katie Zavadski (September 11, 2015). "'Terrorist' Troll Pretended to Be ISIS, White Supremacist, and Jewish Lawyer". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
  29. 1 2 "Joshua Goldberg, the fake Aussie jihadist, had a hand in every online fight". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
  30. 1 2 Josh Bornstein. "White supremacists stole my identity to spew hatred on the Times of Israel". The Guardian.
  31. ↑ "How lawyer Josh Bornstein's stolen identity was used to spread race hate". Financial Review.
  32. ↑ "Joshua Goldberg, the fake Aussie jihadist, had a hand in every online fight".
  33. ↑ "Gross Subreddit Promises to Teach How to "Rape Safely" as "Corrective Discipline" for Women".
  34. ↑ Hussein, Shakira (September 18, 2015). "Did FBI Islamophobia entrap an American Jew?". Crikey.
  35. ↑ "American Jewish 'online troll' arrested in alleged Kansas City 9/11 memorial bomb plot". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved 2015-09-20.
  36. ↑ News Staff, First Coast News (September 15, 2015). "Orange Park terror suspect ordered to undergo mental evaluation". FCN First For You.
  37. ↑ Larry Hannan (December 29, 2015). "Media asks court to release psychologist report of Orange Park man accused of terrorism". The Florida Times-Union.
  38. ↑ Hannan, Larry. "Psychologist finds Orange Park man who plotted terrorist act to be mentally unstable". The Florida Times Union. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  39. ↑ "Alleged 9/11 terror plot organizer deemed 'not competent' to stand trial". firstcoastnews.com. December 14, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  40. ↑ ABC News. "Judge: Man Accused in Bomb Plot Not Competent for Trial". ABC News. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
  41. ↑ Larry Hannan (January 25, 2016). "Most of psychologist report on Orange Park man accused of terrorism released to public". The Florida Times-Union.

External links

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