SAN JOSE — A prominent Silicon Valley investor accused by an anonymous Japanese blogger of sexual harassment earlier this year says in court papers he has unmasked the blogger’s identity: a male business rival based in San Francisco.

In a stunning revelation, lawyers for Anis Uzzaman, the Bay Area investor accused of sexual harassment, say the blogger made up the story to tarnish competitor Uzzaman’s image. The blog post, originally written in Japanese, was translated into English and revealed in a defamation lawsuit filed last month by Uzzaman.

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How Silicon Valley silences sexual harassment victims The blog post, which accused Uzzaman, CEO of San Jose-based Fenox Venture Capital, of mistreating women, is one of many online postings to call out a powerful investor or tech executive for alleged inappropriate behavior. But even as women’s stories bring about real change — including forcing accused harassers out of their jobs — Uzzaman’s case also highlights the potential risks of online accusations.

“While I have seen a rise in awareness regarding sexual harassment in Silicon Valley in recent years, I have also seen a steep increase in anonymous online defamation,” Palo Alto-based attorney Katrina Saleen, who represents Uzzaman and Fenox, wrote in a statement. “We need to be careful to hold wrongdoers accountable, but not to blindly believe everything we read online.”

The author of the blog post, who appeared to be a female startup founder upset over being “pushed around and taken advantage of” by a powerful VC, is actually Brandon Katayama Hill, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based consulting business btrax, Saleen alleged in an amended complaint filed last week in San Mateo County Superior Court.

Hill did not respond to telephone and email messages seeking comment Monday.

Hill and Uzzaman compete in the same ecosystem, and both specialize in connecting Asian companies to Silicon Valley resources, according to the complaint. Last year, Fenox stole some of btrax’s thunder by launching a startup competition dubbed Startup World Cup that directly competed with btrax’s own Japan Night event, Fenox’s lawyers wrote. In the face of the “huge success” of Startup World Cup, btrax ended its involvement with Japan Night last year, according to the complaint.

The blog post at the heart of the lawsuit was written in March by an anonymous blogger who appeared to be a female startup founder, and published in Japanese on Japanese blogging site Hatena. The author claimed she was “pushed around and taken advantage of” by an unnamed VC who matched Uzzaman’s description, that he pressured her to accompany him on a business trip and stay in a five-star hotel with him, and that he told her he would invest in her company “If I approve of you.” The blogger also claimed the VC “takes advantage of” women working in his firm, including his personal assistant.

Uzzaman, who speaks fluent Japanese and specializes in deals in Japan and South East Asia, denied the allegations. This spring, responding to an order from a Tokyo judge, Hatena released the IP address from which the blog was posted. It came from a San Mateo County address owned by Comcast, according to the complaint.

Uzzaman and Fenox then sued the anonymous blogger in San Mateo County Superior Court for defamation, and subpoenaed Comcast for the identity of the subscriber using that IP address. On July 12, Comcast revealed that the address was Hill’s, according to the complaint. Uzzaman and Fenox added Hill as a defendant in their lawsuit last week.

Hill is fluent in Japanese, is known to blog on Hatena and has spoken negatively about Uzzaman and Fenox in the past, according to the complaint.

Even as women such as Susan Fowler Rigetti use blogs and social media as far-reaching platforms to share their stories — her February blog post on sexual harassment and sexism at Uber, which she wrote in her name, started a firestorm that ultimately forced CEO Travis Kalanick to resign — the Fenox case shows that those outlets can be abused, said San Francisco-based attorney David Lowe.

“I’m hoping that a case like this might deter people from using that platform to simply inflict damage on a competitor,” he said.

Sonya Smallets, another San Francisco employment attorney, called the Fenox case “very unusual.” Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said.

“Obviously you don’t want people to be able to make up things about other people and harm their reputations,” Smallets said, “but there’s also obviously a concern that if you have women who are accusing powerful, wealthy men of sexual harassment, that a defamation lawsuit can have a chilling effect.”