Mo Ansar accuses me of ‘Hate and Harassment’.
Update – 04/01/2015 – Nearly four months after falsely accusing me of a ‘campaign of hate and harassment’ on Twitter, Mo has decided to delete the tweet in question (screenshot below). He did so after I drew further attention to it in this blog post and suggested these allegations may be grounds for reporting him to Twitter’s support. Is this deletion an admission of false allegations? And if so, did they lead to false reports which have contributed to my twitter account being permanently suspended? Please read the full blog entry for background and the ethical dilemma this presents for Ansar on the serious topics of ‘Hate and harassment’.
I’ve made no secret of my fascination with the now declining media presence of Mo Ansar (may it rest in peace), and I’ve weighed in on the many instances of his questionable character right here on this very blog.
I also frequently challenge his authoritarian, yet nonsensical Twitter ramblings, but as anyone who follows my twitter account will know: this will never take the form of abuse, hate, threats or expletives1. I don’t think I deserve any credit for behaving like a decent human being, but I’d like you to keep it in mind given the seriousness of the below accusations levelled at me by Ansar.
- I used to have some fun playing a harmless game I named ‘#GSGametime’ with my followers. The game involved encouraging followers to ask someone a nonsensical (yet polite) question and wait to see what their responses would be. For example, we once asked Deepak Chopra the question: ‘Why are you leaving?’ Which lead to this response. We also asked Joel Osteen whether they ‘were still auctioning their shoes‘. We also once asked Mo Ansar: ‘Why do you think Cats are Haram?’ This practical joking was for the purpose of inspiring confused and therefore amusing responses. Unfortunately, Ansar didn’t bite. Yes, this game is callow and I’ve not played it since Nov 2013; but it’s certainly not harassment or hate ↩