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Reddit Forum Encourages Users to Spam College With False Rape Reports
Self-styled "men's rights advocates" used their Reddit forum yesterday to organize a spam campaign against Occidental College's… Read…"


An Occidental College spokesman confirmed to Gawker what was suspected earlier today: Online trolls from Reddit and elsewhere disrupted their online anonymous sexual assault reporting system with hundreds of sarcastic, caustic false rape reports.

"Late Monday, the 16th we started seeing a stream of what we would call suspicious reports that were being submitted" to Occidental's Google-based assault reporting form, said Jim Tranquada, director of communications for the Los Angeles college, which has faced scrutiny in recent months for underreporting sex assaults involving its students.

That's about the same time that commenters on Reddit's r/MensRights subreddit began discussing plans to spam the college's reporting system with phony accusations.

That system received about 400 separate assault allegations in 36 hours. "That's far more than we have ever received in the past," Tranquada said. "The sheer number of reports was suspicious."