Initially, Westwood was confused with the comment left on his TikTok video from a user going by the name of ‘Monty’ from an account markmontgomery09, which read ‘Blah blah blah you got me blah blah blah I’m a victim poor me’.
“When I read the comment it had struck me as a little weird” says Westwood. “The language in it seemed to appear as some sort of bot or something because it didn’t completely correlate with the stuff I was actually saying in the video, so I decided to take a deeper look at who this person was. I just happened to click on this tiny-small grey circle with an exclamation mark in it and a box appeared telling me that it was a state controlled account.”
Although Westwood admits he’s unsure of exactly which government state this account is linked to, he claims that this isn’t his first time being trolled on the internet in which only in a recent months a Canadian Youtuber that he’d supported and was due to feature in a book he was writing launched a malicious hate campaign which he’d suspected may have been linked.
Regardless, this event which he captured on video before the account had changed their settings to remove the government notice raises many questions as to which state exactly is trolling child protection advocates online, and why.
“A few people have admitted to me that they never really believed me when I said previously that I’d suspected internet sabotage and black-hat shadow-banning was happening in my life. This is a big thing for me because I’m not just a crazy to everyone anymore, I could actually prove it” he says.
The question as to whether Westwood’s video was down to individual targeting or a more generalised approach to child protection remains to be answered, but he calls for more accountability from government and its security services in regards to where it places its priorities.
You can see the video on his TikTok channel at https://www.tiktok.com/@
@benwestwooduk Is this proof that the government have been trolling and saboutaging all of my work? I've been onto this for years!!! I might be wrong here, but it's suss. #conspiracy #corruption #government #shocking ♬ original sound - Ben Westwood
He also reflects on his events in another video at https://www.tiktok.com/@
@benwestwooduk What does accidently exposing state sponsored trolling towards those that speak about #csa and #cse mean for not only my life but public debates on security ethics? #stopabuse #trolls #government ♬ original sound - Ben Westwood
Contact - benwestwooduk@gmail.com