Something weird is going on.

Yesterday, A Voice for Men’s Facebook page was temporarily suspended. I’m not sure how long it was down, but by the time I discovered Paul Elam’s announcement of the suspension late last night, it had been restored.

Elam — who apparently decided to come out of retirement for the occasion — declared that the suspension

appears to be the work of censorious feminist ideologues working in a modern Facebook environment that favors their agenda.

Mike Buchanan — the head of the UK’s ludicrously unsuccessful Justice for Men & Boys party and a longtime AVFM pal — declared in a comment on AVFM and in a post on his site that the censorious feminist ideologue responsible for this dastardly deed was a woman named Rose S Garston, a self-described “thorn in the side of MRAs” who had taken credit for the suspension in a post on her own Facebook page.

As proof, she posted a screenshot of the note she got from Facebook informing her that her complaint had led to AVFM’s suspension. Garston also took credit for getting the Exposing Feminism Facebook page taken down.

So, case closed then, right? Well, not exactly.

Because “Rose S Garston” does not seem to exist.

True, a Google search of the name shows there was a woman of that name born in 1903 in New Haven, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this almost certainly dead person is not the one posting on Facebook.

The rest of the Google results link to “Garston’s” Facebook page, to several comments “she” made elsewhere using “her” Facebook account, and to and assortment of MRA and Alt-Right sites that picked up Buchanan’s post.

“Garston” scrubbed “her” Facebook page of most of its contents sometime last night, but an archived version of the page — linked to in Buchanan’s post — raises even more red flags.

The page portrays “Garston” as a “fat acceptance” activist as well as a feminist. But to my eyes it doesn’t look like the page of a real feminist or fat acceptance activist. It looks like the work of a troll.

For one thing, there’s the matter of the picture purportedly of Garston that sits atop the page — showing a young woman holding a sign explaining why she supports fat acceptance. I don’t doubt that the person in the photo is a real fat acceptance activist; a Google image search shows that the photo was originally posted two years ago on a Tumblr blog devoted to fat acceptance.

But it’s also appeared on a zillion other pages since then, including a number mocking fat acceptance. It’s on Know Your Meme. It was used in a Youtube video called “The Fat Acceptance Movement is Bullshit.” Internet-famous fat-shamer (and fat person) Matt Forney used it in a post on “Fat Acceptance, Cultural Marxism and Identity Politics.”

It’s literally the first image that shows up if you do a Google image search for “fat acceptance” — making it the obvious pick for a lazy troll looking for a picture of a fat activist to pretend to be.

Then there’s the Facebook post from “Garston” in which “she” sets forth “her” views on the subject.

Stop the fat shaming. Fat is beautiful. Fat is healthy. It is the patriarchy that has dictated women must all be skinny as rakes for the viewing pleasure of men. Fuck that. You want that donut? That chicken burger and fries? That 15inch pizza? Then, go for it. Get it down you. Enjoy 🙂 Word of advice though. Being fat wont stop men catcalling you. At my heaviest I was 717lb and men would still catcall me when I was in my mobility scooter buying groceries.

Really? Really? If this was written by anyone other than a troll, I will eat my cats.

Assuming “Garston” is not the honest-to-goodness feminist fat acceptance activist “she” purports to be, then who is behind the account?

Could it be Elam himself or some other AVFMer trying to gin up some attention and sympathy?

I doubt it. Not that Elam wouldn’t stoop this low. He would. But I don’t think that Elam has the imagination to come up with something like this. And I doubt he would risk getting his Facebook page permanently banned in order to stir up a fake controversy.

No, I suspect it’s the work of someone who doesn’t much like feminism, or fat acceptance, or AVFM.

Could it be the work of some longtime fat-shamer like Forney or Roosh? In addition to using the same picture that Forney used for his post dissing fat acceptance, “Garston” also posted a screenshot from a Dr. Oz show about a 700-pound woman. As you may recall, Roosh made a bit of a spectacle of himself during an appearance on Dr. Oz to discuss his own fat-shaming campaign.

So … maybe? Probably not, though.

Regardless of who did it, if the point of this apparent trollery was to cause a headache for AVFM and to stir up animus towards feminists, well, it’s succeeded at both.

Over on the Men’s Rights subreddt, the regulars worked themselves into a self-righteous frenzy over what proved to be a very short-lived suspension.

Someone called NixonForBreadsident got 97 net upvotes for a comment decrying what he saw as

a co-ordinated effort to render anything against feminism on Google, Facebook and other social media. As in they’ve literally had meetings to push this agenda. This is a major fuckup on their side though, the world has been steadily getting pissed off by feminism and the one thing that unites people is when you censor content. NOTHING is too big to fall. Remember that.

Our old friend ThePigmanAgain declared that

this is very bad news. The hammer is starting to fall all over the place and one has to wonder how long it will be before the PC fascists who run FB start to ban ordinary members who also happen to be MRAs.

r4ks4k was a bit more succinct, saying only

Well then f**k facebook.

The original comment did not contain the asterisks, of course.

I have no idea how this whole thing is going to shake out.

Your move, troll. I guess?

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