INTERNET ABUSE
DAVID ROBIE CHALLENGES U.S. CYBER-STALKER BILL WHITE'S VENDETTA

For the past four years, Café Pacific publisher and media academic David Robie and others have been the target of an internet campaign of vilification, defamation and abuse by American cyber-stalker Bill White. As well as being personally vilified, Robie has faced a series of bogus websites being created by Bill White in Robie's name and in the identity of websites that he has been involved in publishing — such as Café Pacific and Pacific Media Watch. After years of ignoring White, Robie now replies to White's vendetta.

By DAVID ROBIE

Exposé reports
Including ABC's 7.30 Report in Australia and the Los Angeles Times

Feedback to the Toktok page
Now reopened in spite of Bill White's abuse

'Clown Forum' for Bill White's victims
Closed on 8 February 2003, due to Bill White's abuse, see archive or VoyForum

Photo of Bill White

West Australian Supreme Court judgement against Bill White for defamation

FOR the past four years, I have suffered in silence. But no more. After becoming the target of American cyber-stalker William ("Bill") H. White's unwelcome and hostile attention for obscure reasons, I adopted a policy of ignoring him. I faced a barrage of email hate messages, some threatening my employment as a media academic, and a host of bogus websites created in my name. But still I ignored him.

However, in the past month as the madness intensified, I have decided along with others, such as distinguished Australian media academic Professor John Henningham, to confront this bizarre and grossly defamatory vendetta.

Why is the campaign of vilification happening? All that is apparent to me from the scores of email messages and dozens of websites created by Bill White (alias Coppcar), is that he has some obsession with Divine Word University at Madang, Papua New Guinea, where he was once employed and forced out because of harassment of other staff.

On the face of it, this seems a clear-cut case of "payback" and Bill White has the time to devote his entire sad life in waging this defamatory war. (He describes himself as a "retired attorney".) But why target me? I spent a decade of my life teaching journalism at secular universities in the South Pacific. I have never worked with DWU, yet Bill White somehow sees me as part of a grand conspiracy of alleged DWU "corruption" that only he can untangle.

His attention towards me seemed to start because of my association with Trevor Cullen as a colleague and a friend, which began when I coordinated the Journalism Programme at the University of Papua New Guinea (1994-98) and he was head of Communication Arts at DWU.

I have always found Trevor to be sincere and inspirational as an educator and dedicated to helping others. In his academic research, he has been devoted to a major health concern for the region — HIV/AIDS and particularly media coverage. A vitally important topic. I am pleased to call him a colleague and friend. Why would somebody like Bill White want to constantly defame and harass such a kindly person?

When Bill White discovered that Trevor was on the editorial board of advisers for an academic and industry journal that I edit, Pacific Journalism Review, he began a campaign against me, demanding that I dump him from the board. Later, when he found that Trevor had also contributed a chapter on reporting HIV/AIDS to my 2001 book, The Pacific Journalist: A Practical Guide, Bill White began hounding me over that as well.

Bill White claimed "massive fraud" on my part on his malicious website www.davidrobie.com, apparently because I ignored his paranoid demands. (He subsequently dropped this claim and instead devoted the page to an obscene attack on me). His pathetic attacks and harassment are laughable, except that he takes his vendetta so seriously and his bogus and defamatory webpages regularly surface high on search engines such as Google.

He has also been claiming that I am a party to an alleged fraud over Trevor's PhD. This is also a gross and defamatory lie. Trevor gained his PhD in 2001 at the University of Queensland, which at that time had one of the best journalism schools in Australia that is in a university with one of the highest standards of accountability, academic rigour and transparency in its doctoral examination process.

I never had anything to do with Trevor's PhD or with the research process. But I have every confidence in his work and in UQ's academic procedures.

Bill White claims on his websites he has "documentary proof" of his various allegations against many of his victims, who have included Papua New Guinea's recently Acting Governor General Sir Peter Barter; Professor Henningham, and PNG Post-Courier publisher and general manager Bob Howarth. Groups as diverse as AusAid, Pacific Media Watch and Pacific Islands Report have also come in for attack. The common thread seems to be that they have been perceived by Bill White as defenders of DWU in his initial vendetta.

I have never seen any shred of evidence for any of his wild claims. Even the "evidence" he claims he produced to me about his allegations over the PhD and my textbook are without foundation. He refers to some alleged obscure or minor factual or typographical inconsistencies. It is quite outrageous, defamatory and dishonest that Bill White is using this sort of thing to allege "fraud".

In countries like Australia and New Zealand, he would face heavy damages for defamation. However, Bill White has cowardly and successfully sheltered behind the internet and the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment to wage his war of defamation.

The experience for me and my journalism colleagues about media freedom with responsibility has been salutary too: how difficult it is to defend yourself against the actions of an unscrupulous fanatic. Many times I have been forced to close my Café Pacific Toktok discussion group — which has traditionally encouraged robust debate — because of Bill White's internet abuse.

As fast as I have removed his defamatory websites, Bill White has posted them on another domain server. I also complained to Google several times about these defamatory sites. Google replied: "Unfortunately, we cannot remove live pages from our index without a court order to do so. If you find listings in our results that are dead links, you can remove them." But we are working on this.

Last month I established a website, Clown Forum, for the victims of Bill White to expose their experiences. This opened the floodgates for ever more vitriol and abuse from Bill White, who then posted a new defamatory website attacking Pacific Media Watch.

Fortunately, Professor John Henningham has compiled an excellent website, Bill White, Cyber-Stalker, exposing this man's activities across the Pacific from his haven in Los Angeles. Bill White will eventually meet his fate for his litany of lies and his campaign of malice. Trevor Cullen has also posted a page on Bill White's vendetta.

One final question: if Bill White has genuine grievances (which I doubt) against Divine Word University then he should have been addressing them to appropriate authorities, not vindictively harassing me or others. His vendetta has nothing to do with me. I have never met Bill White, communicated with him and never worked at DWU.

David Robie
Publisher
Asia Pacific Network/Café Pacific
Auckland
New Zealand
asia.pacific@lycos.com

>> Bill White: Cyber-stalker and links

>> Pacific academic awarded $95,000 for cyber libel

>> West Australian Supreme Court judgment against Bill White for defamation

>> Bill White: ABC's 7.30 Report exposé

>> Bill White: Los Angeles Times exposé

>> Rules of 'disengagement' regarding Bill White, USA

>> 'FLAMED' or defamed by Bill White or Coppcar? Fight back on the 'Clown' forum

>> Trevor Cullen's NEW website on Bill White, April 2003

>> Trevor Cullen's 2003 open letter to Pacific Media Watch

>> Australian media professor exposes Pacific cyber-stalker

>> How the PNG internet's biggest clown gets his payback

>> Trevor Cullen's 2000 open letter on Bill White

>> Background and links— Coppcar Unmasked

>> Bill White's mental problems — Coppcar Unmasked (and how to identify a BW website)

>> Attorney demands removal of 'lawyer from hell' sites — Chilling effects database

>> Cyber-stalking — library and background

>> Cyber-stalking and internet harassment

>> Cyber-stalking - a psychological profile

>> Man jailed for two years for cyber-stalking in Canada

>> Brian Martin's Whistleblowers Australia site

>> Transparency International

>> Search for Bill White's domains - Whois.net

>> Bill White's bogus defamatory websites include:

URL: www.davidrobie.com/
Registrant: William White, Self, P.O. Box 811335, Macys Center, Los Angeles, California 90081, United States. Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: DAVIDROBIE.COM. Created on: 19-Jun-02. Expires on: 19-Jun-04. Last Updated on: 01-Feb-03

URL: www.divineword.net
Registrant:self (DIVINEWORD3-DOM) 269 South Western Ave. PMB 226 Los Angeles, CA 90004 US Domain Name: DIVINEWORD.NET Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: White, William (WW5096) bill747@HOTMAIL.COM self 269 South Western Ave. PMB 226 Los Angeles , CA 90004 213- 773-968

URL: www.peterbarter.com/
Registrant:William White (PETERBARTER-DOM) 269 South Western Ave. PMB 226 Los Angeles, CA 90004 US Domain Name: PETERBARTER.COM Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: White, William (WW5096) bill747@HOTMAIL.COM self 269 South Western Ave. PMB 226 Los Angeles , CA 90004 213- 773-968

URL: www.pngnews.com
Registrant:WILLIAM WHITE269 SOUTH WESTERN #226LOS ANGELES, CA 90004 USRegistrar: NameSecure.comDomainName: PNGNEWS.COMCreated on: 1999-11-02Expires on: 2001-11-02Administrative Contact:WILLIAM WHITE269 SOUTH WESTERN #226LOS ANGELES, CA 90004 USPhone: 781-735-5579EMail: bill747@hotmail.com

URL: www.trevorcullen.com
Registrant:WILLIAM WHITE269 S. WESTERN AVE. #226LOS ANGELES, CA 90004 US Registrar: NameSecure.comDomainName: TREVORCULLEN.COMCreated on: 1999-10-24 Expires on: 2001-10-24Administrative Contact:WILLIAM WHITE269 S. WESTERN AVE. #226LOS ANGELES, CA 90004 USPhone: 781-735-5579EMail: bill757white@hotmail.com

BILL WHITE'S FREE WEB PAGE SITES:

URL: www1.50megs.com/divineword/
URL: www1.50megs.com/bill747white/
URL: users2.50megs.com/divineword/
URL: www3.50megs.com/laymission/
URL: www5.50megs.com/dirk/
URL: www5.50megs.com/brettababe/
URL: www5.50megs.com/peterbarter/dwu/
URL: www6.50megs.com/coppcar/
URL: www7.50megs.com/ayotte/
URL: www7.50megs.com/ausaid/
URL: www7.50megs.com/divineword/

URL: www.angelfire.com/or2/
URL:www.angelfire.com/musicals/maria/florkova2.html
URL: mynetcentral.com/divineword/
URL: www.coppcar.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.coppcar.com.easyhost.com/
URL: www.coppcar.org.easyhost.com/
URL: www.czuba.org.easyhost.com/
URL: www.czuba.com.easyhost.com/
URL: www.divineword.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.frmanning.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.mikemanning.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.peterbarter.com.easyhost.com/
URL: www.srflorkova.org.easyhost.com/
URL: www.srflorkova.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.florkova.com.easyhost.com/
URL: www.lay-mission-helpers.org.easyhost.com/
URL: www.lay-mission-helpers.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.laymissionhelpers.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.mihalic.net.easyhost.com/
URL: www.oves.org/easyhost/
URL: www.schmelzle.org.easyhost.com/
URL: www.trevor-cullen.com.easyhost.com/
URL: www.voy.com/4573/
URL: www.davidrobie.com/
URL: www.cafe-pacific.com/ (easyhost.com)
URL: www.pacificmediawatch.com/ (easyhost.com)

Key words: Cyber-stalker, internet harassment, internet defamation, internet hate campaign, internet persecution, Bill White, Divine Word University, Peter Barter, Sir Peter Barter, Trevor Cullen, Cullen, John Henningham, Henningham, Professor John Henningham, Bob Howarth, Jeremy Malcolm, David Robie, Robie, Ausaid, Cordaid, Edith Cowan University, Queensland University, University of Queensland, Jschool, J-school, Journalism Education & Training, Papua New Guinea, Pacific, Café Pacific, Pacific Media Watch, Lay Mission Helpers Association, Melanesian Tourist Services, Dr Jim Guzek, James Guzek MD, Montfort Missionaries, William H. White