Fake News is Fragile

When Cal Coast News uses fake accounts to attack your family on reddit, you know you’re doing something right.

Last week, I penned a column about the website’s poor handling of a story involving over 40 women alleging two SLO County business owners of sexual assault. As a result, they retaliated against me in all sorts of petty ways — from using a fake account to regurgitate conspiracy theories they made about my family on their website to incessantly editing Wikipedia with misinformation to leaving fake reviews of my book to making comments to accusers about me that are patently untrue.

I used to be exhausted by it, but I’ve since downgraded their bullshit to “laughably sad” status. However, I am grateful to my readers for making me aware of their activity.

It’s laughably sad because I’ve merely held up a mirror to them. An opinion or two is always thrown in for good measure and that’s it. There is no need to embellish or distort. It’s all there with their ink on paper and the ink has long dried.

But Cal Coast News likes to play victim, even though they got a poor track record of doing that. Karen Velie has told at least two victims that I’ve “harassed” and her associates for a decade. Holding them accountable is not harassment, just like it’s not “harassment” of a popular business when accusers tell their stories and hold that business owner accountable. But please Karen, tell us more about how amazing the decor is inside Kin Coffee Bar.