Bryan Pesta

Pesta v. Cleveland State University et al.

Last updated: April 27, 2023

There has been a recent malicious attempt by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard to implicate me in the lawsuit Pesta v. Cleveland State University et al. Anonymous trolls have further sent me misguided threats based on Kirkegaard’s lies and unfounded allegations I have “harassed” Bryan Pesta. In reality, I have no interest in Pesta and had nothing to do with him being sacked from Cleveland State University. Pesta named four individuals who sent email complaints about him to CSU. I am not listed because I did not send any (nor have I ever contacted someone else’s employer). Nevertheless, on April 15, 2023, Kirkegaard published a blog post on his website (and Substack) naming me as the fifth harasser which is false and potential libel.

RationalWiki

The below is a screenshot from Kirkegaard’s blog post:

Almost everything Kirkegaard says is demonstrably false. He is a habitual liar, so I am used to his lies:

I never created Bryan Pesta’s RationalWiki article – the individual who did (Jinx) was Jinkinson Smith (no relation). It took me less than a minute to find out this information and confirming by personal communication (see below). Jinx published a blog post criticising Kirkegaard’s excessive self-citations. Kirkegaard has inflated his h-index or other citation metrics on his Google Scholar.

Bongolian is a moderator with more than 35,000 edits. This account is obviously not me nor my brother. Based on their userpage they claim to have travelled to many countries. They spell using American English. There are more clues to this user’s identity but Kirkegaard does not fact check.
Tobias. This account is mine. Note I identified myself as Oliver D. Smith and named the account after Tobias Rieper. I never edited RationalWiki anonymously, aside from when I used my house IP-address 86.10.119.131 to make edits (2010-2012) before I created an account. The edits I made to Pesta’s article were on May 4, 2019. There was nothing remotely harassing in my edits. I merely uploaded a photo under fair use after someone had requested it, corrected spelling or punctuation errors, and added the factual sentence: “He holds a PhD in Psychology from University of Akron.”
Johns is a sysop with tens of thousands of edits. Based on their userpage, they were born in 1966 and are a part-time chef; he also worked as a tour guide in France. Needless to say, this is not me. The edits on this account are primarily on dieting and nutrition, which I have minimal interest in.
Cog, Its JJ, are SPAs (single purpose accounts) who only edit Pesta’s article (Cog made a single edit). These are not my accounts; Kirkegaard does not provide a shred of evidence they are mine.
Keyes is a Legend. I suspect this sockpuppet is owned by Emil Kirkegaard. He has a history of accusing me of being his own pseudonyms. I am not interested in Pesta’s lawsuit and would not waste my time like he does writing about it. The only individual who is trying to falsely implicate me is Kirkegaard; note Keyes is a Legend was named after Os Keyes who Kirkegaard misgenders.
Ernor. This user apparently is not familiar with who I am. They quit editing and are in full time employment (not having spare time to edit). Note that they are suspected of being someone else.

Blaming accounts onto me untruthfully was not enough, so Kirkegaard added character assassination:

The “lots of information” is disinformation Kirkegaard repeats on his blog, Substack, Kiwi Farms, or gets his friends to (uncritically) repeat for illusory truth effect. None of the hatchet-job articles about me were online prior to me getting into a feud with Kirkegaard. For the past 5 or 6 years, he has tried to harm my reputation by abusing search-engine results to my name, but then complains if I send legal notices or get court orders to remove the defamatory content. I can only describe his internet behaviour as sociopathic; many others have said similar things. Some of the websites Kirkegaard decided to badmouth and spread malicious falsehoods about me, banned him e.g., Encyclopedia Dramatica, so he is running out of places.

Stalking my Family

The “stalker” allegations about myself repeated ad nauseum by Kirkegaard are psychological projection. Below is a screenshot of Kirkegaard asking Edward Dutton to dig up my family members’ birth records. My whole family know Kirkegaard is a vexatious litigant and stalker because we have had to put up with him harassing us for years. He despicably targets family members of those he is in an internet feud with. This includes doxxing my twin brother, father, and mother while attacking them across blogs and social media. In contrast, my only communication with Kirkegaard’s family was for legal purposes – to serve a judgment debt on him. I am not a stalker but a creditor; Kirkegaard is a debtor who still owes me money.

Cancel Watch

The latest site Kirkegaard uses to write diatribes against his critics (e.g., Os Keyes, Kevin Bird) is Cancel Watch at Substack. Cancel Watch tries to justify its online harassment of its targets by accusing them of “ruining lives” despite doing the same thing. The anonymous owner of Cancel Watch sent me this threat:

Several fake/spoof accounts on social media of me have also been created by Cancel Watch. There is little doubt Emil Kirkegaard is behind all this since I have experienced it before. If it is not him who owns the Cancel Watch Substack or Twitter account (@watch_cancel) he is probably the individual instigating the attacks. He is a mutual follower of Cancel Watch on Twitter, has retweeted their account, and copied the same photos of Os Keyes and Kevin Bird (which had first appeared on Cancel Watch) onto his own blog posts. There is also the fact persons being targeted by Cancel Watch are outspoken critics of Kirkegaard. Kevin Bird (pers. commun.) agrees Kirkegaard is likely behind Cancel Watch. I now find myself targeted.

Why?

The reason why Kirkegaard is trying to implicate me in a lawsuit I have nothing to do with is obvious – his frivolous defamation lawsuit against me failed (he is in contempt of court and will soon have bailiffs knocking on his door) so is now lashing out and trying to get others to name me in lawsuits for imaginary misdeeds. As I have proven, I never created Bryan Pesta’s article on RationalWiki nor recently edited the page (I briefly did four years ago). The few individuals who sent email complaints to CSU have bizarrely been labeled “terrorists” by Kirkegaard on his blogs and social media. Some people sympathetic to Pesta on Unz Review, have even disapproved of Kirkegaard’s antics and criticised him for ad hominem attacks.