A man clobbered protesters with a bike lock at a Berkeley rally, police say. The Internet went looking for him



By Abby Ohlheiser and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. June 3, 2017

Several days after the attacks in Berkeley, 4chan users claimed that the assailant was Diablo Valley College professor Eric Clanton.

Last week, police arrested Clanton, 28, and charged him with four counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of wearing a mask.

Clanton’s attorney, Dan Siegel, told The Washington Post his client has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He emphasized that his client is innocent until proven guilty, but his “life has been upended” by anonymous people on the Internet — particularly people on 4chan.

The users of the message board known for a celebrity nude scandal, pranks and the creation and corruption of the Pepe the Frog meme are also known for their enthusiasm for identifying people they think have done wrong.

Lately, a popular target has been left-leaning activists who show up to pro-Trump rallies and other demonstrations, such as the uproar in Berkeley over the cancellation of conservative Ann Coulter’s scheduled appearance. BuzzFeed reported that in recent months “4chan users have become more and more interested in the identification and doxing of anti-fascist activists.” Doxxing is the making of private or personally identifying information public without the consent of the target.
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One user hit pay dirt: a now-deleted video of a scuffle where the man with the bike lock lost his bandanna. His face was exposed.
It wasn’t long before they claimed to connect the face to a name: Clanton.



Some of the tweets about Clanton in the days after 4chan’s purported identification have since been deleted. One still-live tweet reads, “Nice house, #ericclanton. Would be a shame if something happened to it.” The Twitter user attached an image of what is implied to be Clanton’s home. Multiple archived threads from 4chan and 8chan’s /pol/ boards in the days after the Berkeley protests contain an alleged address for Clanton.

An imgur composite circulated among 4chan users displays nearly two dozen pictures of him and includes details from what they claim was his professor page at the community college.

Clanton, who is out on bail, is scheduled to appear in court this month to set dates for the preliminary hearing. His job duties have been suspended, and he may be fired, said Siegel, his attorney.

“He has to basically hide out from these right-wingers who are … doxxing him, who are publishing what would otherwise be private information,” Siegel said. “People are talking about killing him, about raping him in prison.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-...m=.37c18b9e9759

imagine those "right-wingers" behaving so meanly?