Amy Mekelburg (born 1972 or 1973), known online as Amy Mek, is an American activist, critic of Islam, and social media influencer, mainly on Twitter. Her full identity was not known, until she was exposed, by some accounts doxxed,[1] by HuffPost journalist Luke O'Brien in 2018, at a time when she had amassed over 200,000 followers.[2]
Amy Mek | |
|---|---|
| Born | Amy Jane Mekelburg 1972 or 1973 (age 51–52) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of Rhode Island |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 2013–present |
| Organization | RAIR Foundation |
| Website | rairfoundation |
Background
editMekelburg is Jewish.[3] She grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and attended the University of Rhode Island, graduating in 1996 with a degree in communication studies.[2] By 2003 she lived in Manhattan's Upper East Side with her husband.[2] With her husband, she founded a non-profit organization dedicated to overturning the conviction of Paul Cortez, a friend, for second-degree murder, believing him to have been wrongfully convicted.[2] In 2016, she moved to be closer to Cortez, while she presented herself as a psychotherapist in the prison system.[2]
Twitter account
editShe began her Twitter account in 2013, and had gained 200,000 followers by 2018, with endorsements from figures such as Donald Trump and Michael Flynn.[2] Amy Mek was speculated in 2017 by San Francisco Examiner columnist Maureen Erwin[4] and NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian of being a bot account,[5] although she had been interviewed in a New York Times article about women who supported Donald Trump in 2016.[3] She was noted by HuffPost journalist Luke O'Brien to be a very prolific user, tweeting around 25 times a day. O'Brien characterized the majority as Islamophobic posts, in which she "anonymously spread hate online for years", including memes.[2] Her account was banned in France and in Germany due to her postings.[2][6]
She also founded the Resistance Against Islamic Radicals (RAIR) organization to advance her views,[2][3] identifying as part of the counter-jihad movement.[7] The organization was later renamed to Rise Align Ignite Reclaim, or RAIR Foundation, with Chris Gaubatz as its president.[8]
Mekelburg had her identity revealed in 2018 by HuffPost journalist for political extremism and disinformation Luke O'Brien,[9] which sparked a controversy.[2][1][3] Mekelburg's husband was fired from his job at the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a direct result of O'Brien's efforts.[2] A controversy also ensued as Mekelburg's brother, who did not support her views, owned a café, which was targeted with by calls for boycott. Mekelburg's sister in law stated “I’m a little worried about security. We’re getting some pretty nasty phone calls and threats and stuff like that,” [10][11][12] Following O'Brien actions, he himself and his colleagues were also doxxed and in turn received widespread online threats, as the story was promoted on 4chan and by figures such as Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich.[1][13][14] The journalism ethics of revealing Mek's and her family's identities have been debated.[15][16][17] Media Matters for America claimed the incident did not constitute doxxing, since O'Brien did not provide a phone number, address or email address for her, and since she uses a real photo and similar name to her real name online.[18]
Mekelburg has later been active interviewing notable critics of Islam, and reuploading videos related to exposing "the truth" about Islam.[3] She received a blue checkmark for her Twitter account in 2022, following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.[19] In 2023, Elon Musk personally responded to a post by Mekelburg showing a video of a Muslim imam who promoted jihad in France which the imam said would make it an Islamic country, with "He is right".[6]
References
edit- ^ a b c Whelan, Glen (2021). Megacorporation: The Infinite Times of Alphabet. Cambridge University Press. pp. 88–89. ISBN 9781108428026.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k O'Brien, Luke (June 1, 2018) [May 31, 2018]. "Trump's Loudest Anti-Muslim Twitter Troll Is A Shady Vegan Married To An (Ousted) WWE Exec". HuffPost.
- ^ a b c d e Friedberg, Brian; Donovan, Joan (August 10, 2019). "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot: Pseudoanonymous Influence Operations and Networked Social Movements" (PDF). Journal of Design and Science (6): 14–15.
- ^ Erwin, Maureen (March 30, 2017). "Searching for proof of Amy". San Francisco Examiner. Archived from the original on March 30, 2017.
- ^ Erwin, Maureen (November 23, 2017). "Twitter still turning blind eye to abusive bots". San Francisco Examiner.
- ^ a b Li, Roland (July 4, 2023). "Elon Musk supports limiting the rights of nonparents to vote". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ @AmyMek (November 26, 2020). "Counter-Jihad fighters like myself have been receiving these same threats for years..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ "Unmasked anti-Muslim troll Amy Mekelburg connected to Chris Gaubatz". Southern Poverty Law Center. June 12, 2018.
- ^ O'Brien, Luke (2024-08-08). "Authorpage Luke O'Brien on HuffPost". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 2024-08-08.
- ^ Crowley, Chris (June 1, 2018). "How a Brooklyn Beer Bar Got Caught Up in a Story About a Hate-Spewing Twitter Troll". Grub Street.
- ^ Wilson, Michael (June 6, 2018). "An Online Agitator, a Social Media Exposé and the Fallout in Brooklyn". The New York Times.
- ^ O'Hara, Andres (June 7, 2018). "Should A Brooklyn Cafe Suffer Because The Owner's Sister Is A Popular Islamophobe?". Gothamist.
- ^ Bauman, Nick (June 8, 2018) [June 5, 2018]. "A HuffPost Reporter Was Bombarded With Threats. Twitter Suspended Him". HuffPost.
- ^ Wilson, Jason (June 14, 2018). "Doxxing, assault, death threats: the new dangers facing US journalists covering extremism". The Guardian.
- ^ Blair, Taylor; Shah, Paras; Korde-Samos, Roona (December 21, 2021). "Podcast: The Ethics of AmyMek". The Click. American Journalism Online Master’s Program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU.
- ^ Head, Jason (2018). "Case Study: Doxing and Digital Journalism". Media Ethics. 29 (2) (Spring 2018 ed.).
- ^ Kupfer, Theodore (June 8, 2018). "Doxing the Doxer's Doxer". National Review.
- ^ Cristina, López G. (June 1, 2018). "After HuffPost profile of anti-Muslim Twitter crusader, 4chan trolls begin organizing database of "leftist journos"". Media Matters for America.
- ^ Wilson, Jason (November 16, 2022). "Twitter Blesses Extremists With Paid 'Blue Checks'". Southern Poverty Law Center.