The Context
In 2013, former UCLA researcher Nicole Prause began openly harassing, libeling and cyberstalking Gary Wilson. Within a short time she also targeted others, including researchers, medical doctors, therapists, psychologists, a former UCLA colleague, a UK charity, men in recovery, a TIME magazine editor, several professors, IITAP, SASH, Fight The New Drug, Exodus Cry, NoFap.com, RebootNation, YourBrainRebalanced, the academic journal Behavioral Sciences, its parent company MDPI, US Navy medical doctors, the head of the academic journal CUREUS, and the journal Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity (PDF Documenting Prause’s Malicious Reporting Pattern).
By 2019, some of her targets had had enough. Prause was named defendant in two ongoing defamation lawsuits (brought by Donald Hilton, MD and Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes, respectively), a trademark infringement case, and a trademark squatting case.
While spending her waking hours harassing others, Prause cleverly cultivated – with zero verifiable evidence – a myth that she was “the victim” of most anyone who dared to disagree with her assertions surrounding porn’s effects or the current state of porn research. To counter the ongoing harassment and false claims, YBOP was compelled to document Prause’s activities that came to light. Consider the following pages. (Additional incidents have occurred that we are not at liberty to divulge – as Prause’s victims fear further retribution.)
- Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 1)
- Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 2)
- Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 3)
- Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 4)
- Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 5)
- Legal victories over serial harasser/defamer Nicole Prause: She’s the perpetrator, not the victim!
- Nicole Prause’s Malicious Reporting and Malicious Use of Process
- Aggressive Trademark Infringement Waged by Porn Addiction Deniers (www.realyourbrainonporn.com)
- Nicole Prause, David Ley & @BrainOnPorn’s long history of harassing & defaming Alexander Rhodes of NoFap
In an attempt to bury evidence of her egregious behavior, Prause has filed 3 bogus, and unsuccessful, DMCA takedowns with YBOP’s web host, seeking to have screenshots of her defamatory tweets removed. When the baseless DMCAs failed, Prause attempted to steal Gary Wilson’s URL (yourbrainonporn.com) and his trademark (yourbrainonporn), and created a trademark-infringing site (www.realyourbrainonporn.com) and associated Twitter account (@BrainOnPorn).
All of the above is background for Prause’s next attempt, described below.
January, 2020: Prause attempts to bury evidence by threatening YBOP’s web host with a bogus cease and desist letter
FROM WEB HOST TO WILSON
Hello,
We’ve received a cease & desist request from Nicole Prause regarding content that is being hosted on your
Linode:yourbrainonporn.com
The request has been made under the California Safe at Home Act, which prohibits you from engaging in the following:No person, business, or association shall knowingly and intentionally publicly post or publicly display on the Internet the home address, home telephone number, or image of a program participant or other individuals residing at the same home address with the intent to do either of the following:
(A) Incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the person identified in the posting or display, or to a coresident of that person, where the third person is likely to commit this harm.
(B) Threaten the person identified in the posting or display, or a coresident of that person, in a manner that places the person identified or the coresident in objectively reasonable fear for his or her personal safety.
In order to comply with the California Safe at Home Act, we ask that you remove any infringing content referencing Nicole Prause.
Please let us know how you plan to proceed.
Thanks in advance!
Kind Regards,
Trust & Safety Team
WILSON’S REPLY TO WEB HOST
Dear Linode,
This demand is nothing more or less than misuse of the Safe At Home statute to further censorship and defamation.
Nicole Prause’s home address and telephone numbers are not on www.yourbrainonporn.com. The only so-called images of Prause on my website are screenshots of her own tweets, that is, tweets posted by her. She and others have placed thousands of these, or similar, images of her across the Web. Images of Prause are found in hundreds of articles and on Prause’s twitter account and two Facebook pages: https://twitter.com/NicoleRPrause, https://www.facebook.com/nprause, https://www.facebook.com/LiberosCenter/.
In any case, the screenshots of her tweets on my website do not meet the test of the California Safe at Home Act. That is, there has been no intent to do either of the following:
(A) Incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the person identified in the posting or display, or to a coresident of that person, where the third person is likely to commit this harm.
(B) Threaten the person identified in the posting or display, or a coresident of that person, in a manner that places the person identified or the coresident in objectively reasonable fear for his or her personal safety.
Prause’s current spurious cease and desist letter addressed to Linode is but the latest event in her 7-year history of harassment and defamation of me and various others, as documented on these 2 pages:
This is the 4th time Nicole Prause or her agents have contacted Linode to attempt to have evidence of her own carefully documented harassment and defamation removed from YBOP. Below are links to the 3 previous times Prause contacted Linode with unfounded claims. As you can see, all 3 were summarily dismissed by Linode:
1) https://manager.linode.com/support/ticket/10163746
2) https://manager.linode.com/support/ticket/10360774
3) https://manager.linode.com/support/ticket/11015576
It’s important to let you know that Nicole Prause is currently being sued for defamation by two individuals. I have filed sworn affidavits in both lawsuits (as have many other victims of Prause). YBOP pages with the 2 lawsuits:
I believe this cease and desist letter is retaliation for my statements made in those suits. She has also been infringing on my trademarks (after filing a bad faith trademark application for my website’s well established URL as well as its name). See documentation here: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/critiques-of-questionable-debunking-propaganda-pieces/porn-addiction-deniers-www-realyourbrainonporn-com-engage-in-trademark-infringement-campaign/#yboptrademark
The images of her tweets will not be removed from my website, as they do not violate the Safe At Home statute. If Linode cannot protect my free speech rights, I will regretfully have to move my website to a different server. While I would not like to have to take this step, if you feel you must yield to Prause’s threats, I will need the information necessary to remove my content to another host.
Could you please provide any correspondence that led to your message to me?
Thank you.
Best regards,
Gary Wilson
RESPONSE FROM WEB HOST:
Hello Gary,
My apologies if the tone of our prior communication did not convey our sympathy to your position. As in the prior instances of our interactions regarding Ms. Prause, we were merely advising you of the existence of Ms. Prause’s possible claims against your website, and to confirm that you had not published Ms. Prause’s home address or telephone number.
To this end, Linode has invested considerable resources in doing our due diligence in the instant matter (as was the case with Ms. Prause’s previous issues). We take all abuse claims seriously, though as advocates of all our customers, do our best to discourage frivolous reports.
At this time, Ms. Prause has provided us with no actionable requests, so Linode will not be taking any action….
Linode is legally required to forward claims regarding content to our customers, but in doing so, we should have also advised you as to Linode’s behind the scenes efforts.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Important to note that:
- Linode confirmed that YBOP had not published Prause’s home address or telephone number.
- Prause failed to provide any actionable requests (i.e. URL’s of pages containing her address).
EPILOGUE
As before, my web host was not fooled by Prause’s false allegations and fabricated stories of victim-hood. I doubt this will be her last attempt. No matter what she tries, the pages documenting her unethical and often illegal behaviors will remain on YBOP.
In the last few months, Prause has trumpeting to the world that she entered The Safe At Home Program. While I don’t know her circumstances, Prause implied in recent court filings (and tweets) that she entered the program under the pretense that I (Gary Wilson), Alex Rhodes (and maybe Don Hilton) are stalking her! This is a untrue, of course (Alex Rhodes and Don Hilton are suing Prause for her false accusations that they have stalked her, among other allegations). If Prause entered the Safe At Home Program under the false pretense of being stalked by any of us, she is abusing and misusing the program.
Why would Prause enter the Safe At Home Program under false pretense? To weaponize her victim-hood and to try to censor her critics.
As carefully documented on the pages chronicling her behavior (page 1, page 2), she has long falsely asserted that she is a victim of stalking and harassment. In reality, Prause is the perpetrator. For example, she has filed malicious, groundless complaints against over 20 individuals and organizations who held, or published, views on pornography counter to hers: PDF Documenting Prause’s Malicious Reporting Pattern.
As for legitimate evidence of Prause being harassed or stalked by the people she has victimized, there is none. Prause’s lack of evidence was verified by investigative journalist Diana Davison, who authored The Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause. Comments by Diana Davison under video about Prause:
Another comment:
Prause has been trying to censor critics with false allegations that they are somehow violating Safe At Home, which appears to disallow publishing home addresses and phone numbers. Please note: YBOP has never published Prause’s home address or phone number. Prause’s own actions demonstrate that she is, in fact, unconcerned about actual stalking. Up until a few weeks ago (months after she entered the program), Prause’s business address (rather than her surrogate Safe At Home address) was proudly displayed on her LinkedIn page. Just more of her fake victim-hood.
Update (2/10/20): Prause tweets numerous lies: (1) that her address appears on YBOP, (2) that the CA Attorney General forced Linode to remove address from YBOP, (3) that Staci Sprout & I have been posting her home address “online”.
In response to being thwarted in her bogus C&D letter attempts, Prause went to Twitter to attempt to trump up support for her malicious de-platforming and harassment efforts (tagging Linode). She started with a series of three tweets that were nothing but lies. The first tweet falsely states that her address is on YBOP and that both the LAPD and California Attorney General were involved:
As explained above, Prause has never provided a screenshot or a URL to support this assertion. She can’t because her home address has never been on YBOP. Neither I or Linode have been contacted by the California Attorney General. Days earlier, my web host confirmed what I had told them after doing their own due diligence: Prause’s address is not on YBOP:
Important to note that:
- Linode confirmed that YBOP was not publishing Prause’s home address or telephone number.
- Prause failed to provide any actionable requests (i.e. URLs of pages allegedly containing her address).
In her 2nd tweet Prause flat out admits that no one, including YBOP, could have posted her home address, because all of her posted address are fake (including the address she used in her malicious US trademark application to obtain my trademarks YOURBRAINONPORN and YOURBRAINONPORN.COM). Her tweet also falsely states that I am “circulating her address from another account.” She can’t name the (imaginary) account I’m supposedly using to circulate her self-admitted fraudulent address. (Why hasn’t she provided actual evidence?)
Stalking? Prause is the stalker, not I. In fact, Prause is now being sued for defamation by two individuals for falsely accusing both of stalking her (Donald Hilton, MD and Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes). She is right about one thing: stalkers always escalate.
Here’s her 3rd tweet with more lies and contradictions. Unlike tweet #2, she now says we all know her address. (How, if she has never posted it – by her own admission?)
“Brag”? “Followers to like it”? Again, why can’t she produce a screenshot of these events? Because they’re fabricated.
A few hours later, Prause claims the CA Attorney General immediately acted upon her Twitter request, forcing Linode to remove her fake address from YBOP. This never happened.
In a shocking “self-own”, she tweeted an excerpt from the current page of YBOP:
I should amend the above, as I now see that Prause’s address is still on her LinkedIn page as well as on other outlets she controls (as of 2/12/20).
Prause’s Twitter thread ends with her defaming and harassing Staci Sprout, yet again. Prause attempts to spread her smear campaign, tagging SASH and IITAP. However, the president of IITAP has filed affidavits in the defamation suits against Prause, and SASH is well aware of Prause’s malicious activity.
Prause is lying about the CA Office of the Attorney General pulling her address from YBOP. I initiated contact with the attorney general. In this email, the attorney general confirms that Prause’s address was not on YBOP.
A reminder: Prause has maliciously reported Sprout to boards, defamed her, and sent her threatening letters. For a sampling, see Sprout’s affidavit in Alex Rhodes’s defamation suit – Exhibit #10: Staci Sprout, LCSW affidavit (15 pages).
UPDATES: Legal victories over serial harasser/defamer Nicole Prause: She’s the perpetrator, not the victim!
In my two recent legal victories over Prause, she lied to the court, claiming I placed her home address on YBOP. Prause provided no evidence for this claim in either lawsuit, and I won. Bottom line: I have twice proved in a court of law that Prause lied about her home address being on YBOP.
VICTORY #1 – In March of 2020, Prause sought a groundless temporary restraining order (TRO) against me using fabricated “evidence” and her usual lies (falsely accusing me of stalking). In Prause’s request for the restraining order she perjured herself, saying I posted her address on YBOP and Twitter (perjury is nothing new with Prause). I filed an lawsuit against Prause for misusing the legal system (TRO) to silence and harass me. On August 6, the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that Prause’s attempt to obtain a restraining order against me constituted a frivolous and illegal “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (commonly called a “SLAPP suit”). In essence, the Court found that Prause abused the restraining order process to bully Wilson into silence and undercut his rights to free speech. By law, the SLAPP ruling obligates Prause to pay Wilson’s attorney fees.
VICTORY #2 – At a hearing on January 22, 2021 an Oregon court ruled in my favor and charged Prause with costs and an additional penalty. This failed effort was one of a dozen lawsuits Prause publicly threatened and/or filed in the previous months. After years of malicious reporting, she has escalated to threats of actual lawsuits to try to silence those who reveal her close ties to the porn industry and her malicious conduct, or who have made sworn statements in the 3 defamation suits currently active against her.
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