Mod from reddit here, and account claiming to reprsent Dr Diep is threatening legal action, including taking down threads on HRN

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

This was the message they sent us.

Quote

 

At this time Dr. Diep has decided not to reply to posts and is instead seeking professional legal advice. Before then, they have asked me to relay these items: Your negative posting has caused mental distress and financial damage to the doctor and his office staff. To resolve the issue, remove any threads and links that disparage the Doctor or his office (some are listed below). If the situation is not resolved, the office is ready to hire a legal team as your baseless posts are causing tremendous distress and financial damage to the doctor, the office (our employees are not getting their work hours due to surgery cancellation), and the business. We expect this matter to be resolved by March 14, 2023.

Posts to be removed: https://www.reddit.com/r/HairTransplants/comments/zumdgi/dr_john_diep_of_los_gatos_ca_has_been_officially/

https://www.reddit.com/r/HairTransplants/comments/zmh768/the_amazing_hair_restoration_network_community_vs/

https://www.reddit.com/r/hairtransplantnetwork/comments/zo6evz/response_to_melvins_reply_for_im_a_mod_for/

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/topic/66980-im-a-mod-for-reddits-hair-transplant-sub-i-am-making-a-direct-call-for-hrns-leadership-to-actually-listen-to-their-own-amazing-community-and-remove-dr-john-diep-of-los-gatos-ca-from-their-list/

https://www.reddit.com/r/HairTransplants/comments/u5682c/xpost_from_rtressless_dr_diep_caught_astroturfing/

 

We are waiting for verification that they are who they say they are before moving forward with further discussions, but I am posting here to inform you that we currently do not have any plans to take down threads currently. However, the admins of reddit may choose to take them down for us. As for the HRN tread, I don't believe I even have the option to remove my own thread, if it's taken down it would be by HRN.

At this time I am wondering if anyone else has been threatened by legal action by Dr Diep's team. @Melvin- Moderator may have some advice for you if you, as this site has had legal threats from clinics in the past.

For further details, you can come to our subreddit and look at the pinned posts. I believe there's some sort of rule here against posting to other forums.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Wallaby_Upstairs

[Melvin- Admin]

We have not had any threats, and none of our posts have been inflammatory. Anything published on a public forum can be used in a court of law. We were sued in 2009 by Alvi Armani, claiming that we were creating these aliases to attack him on this forum. At that time, we were not vetting these posters. Since then, we have reached out to patients to obtain their names and date of surgery to confirm they are indeed the surgeon's patients. Threads from legitimate patients will not be taken down because we have done our due diligence to ensure these patients are legitimate. 

Unfortunately, there have been cases where a handful of unhappy patients create multiple aliases to attack a particular surgeon. This practice shouldn't be allowed, and it isn't in our community. There is a poster, jimcraig152, aka lopsided, on Reddit that was caught creating another alias on here, str8npluggy. He posed as an interested patient of Dr. Diep to hide his identity, but his IP address turned out to be the same. Qui Bono was caught creating two separate aliases as well. I no longer visit your platform because these types of individuals go unchecked. I had to ask our community to stop sending threads and posts about our community and me, mainly from a few profiles that only post about this forum. I can only imagine what has been said about Dr. Diep. Whether you believe he's bad or unethical, there is a responsibility to verify serious allegations, especially given the anonymous nature of Reddit. That is just my advice. We have learned that freedom of speech doesn't mean you're free to say whatever you want about anybody; it could be very costly. 

Good luck,

[shiba1985]

unlike this forum, which has an actual owner, who is the Dr Diep representative going to take legal action against for the subreddit posts? the mods and the posters of the subreddit I assume are anonymous. And suing Reddit would be expensive and unrealistic. 

Edited March 9, 2023 by shiba1985

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

41 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

There is a poster, jimcraig152, aka lopsided, on Reddit that was caught creating another alias on here, str8npluggy. He posed as an interested patient of Dr. Diep to hide his identity, but his IP address turned out to be the same. Qui Bono was caught creating two separate aliases as well. I no longer visit your platform because these types of individuals go unchecked.

 

I have removed comments by both those accounts, you have actually thanked me for comments removed from lopsided pair. So I am confused about how you came to this conclusion. I also did a check on qui bono, questioning on the details of his procedure, and I even reached to you for a statement as his issue with Dr Konior was first brought up on this subreddit, and you provided me a statement that I posted in qui bono's thread. So you seem to be well aware of those accounts being indeed checked, on your behalf as well, so your description of 'unchecked' seems out of place to me. I also reached out to Dr Konior to inform him he has a right to address and provide a statement for allegations given by Qui Bono.

If there's anything that you feel could be done better, you are free to message me anything you want. There was a thread that attacked you on thanksgiving, that I locked the comments as soon as you provided a reply, so you got the last word in and didn't have to worry about it until after the holidays. I unlocked the thread after the holidays. I thought that this thread was the reason you left. I was not aware of your impression of 'unchecked'.

 

30 minutes ago, shiba1985 said:

unlike this forum, which has an actual owner, who is the Dr Diep representative going to take legal action against for the subreddit posts? the mods and the posters of the subreddit I assume are anonymous. And suing Reddit would be expensive and unrealistic. 

I'm more worried about the users. Many are anonymous, but many of Diep's patients, both here and on reddit go by their real identity. Diep knows who they are, he has their information and everything since they were his patients.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Wallaby_Upstairs

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, shiba1985 said:

unlike this forum, which has an actual owner, who is the Dr Diep representative going to take legal action against for the subreddit posts? the mods and the posters of the subreddit I assume are anonymous. And suing Reddit would be expensive and unrealistic. 

There have been lawsuits against Reddit, but they’re futile. What would end up happening is supermods would take over the sub and probably ban the posters and remove the mods. Wallstreet bros main mod sued Reddit cause he was removed and banned from his own sub.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/reddit-sued-wallstreetbets-trademark-settlement-1235327626/amp/

Could the surgeon sue patients? Yea. It’s probably a hard case to win for the surgeon. But it will be very costly for both parties. Our lawsuit ended up getting dropped. But we spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. I don’t know everything that has been said cause I don’t go there. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot slanderous posts and unsubstantiated allegations. If posts are done with intent to cause financial harm, the doctor has a case. Especially if it’s speculative in nature. 

Overall, I think it’s gonna be hard to prove and expensive. But it will be expensive for both parties. 

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

 

I have removed comments by both those accounts, you have actually thanked me for comments removed from lopsided pair. So I am confused about how you came to this conclusion. I also did a check on qui bono, questioning on the details of his procedure, and I even reached to you for a statement as his issue with Dr Konior was first brought up on this subreddit, and you provided me a statement that I posted in qui bono's thread. So you seem to be well aware of those accounts being indeed checked, on your behalf as well, so your description of 'unchecked' seems out of place to me. I also reached out to Dr Konior to inform him he has a right to address and provide a statement for allegations given by Qui Bono.

If there's anything that you feel could be done better, you are free to message me anything you want. There was a thread that attacked you on thanksgiving, that I locked the comments as soon as you provided a reply, so you got the last word in and didn't have to worry about it until after the holidays. I unlocked the thread after the holidays. I thought that this thread was the reason you left. I was not aware of your impression of 'unchecked'.

 

I'm more worried about the users. Many are anonymous, but many of Diep's patients, both here and on reddit go by their real identity. Diep knows who they are, he has their information and everything since they were his patients.

I used to get posts almost daily of these two particular individuals making claims about me and this forum. Honestly I don’t care that’s why I never reached out to you. But yea I think their behavior goes unchecked, especially since both of these individuals have a history of creating multiple aliases and accounts to push their narrative.

Apparently Jimcraig accused me of being Dr. Bicers rep, which is a flat out lie. I was sent a screenshot a while back. Overall, I don’t think this behavior is being moderated. Fair enough, I’m a mod and somewhat of a public figure, so I suppose it comes with the territory. But you better believe that eventually there will be lawsuits from surgeons that are being attacked. 

Our forum has been around for 22 years. In the beginning, Pat let everything fly, people said whatever they wanted about whoever they wanted. But he quickly learned that all it did was make the community a toxic place. Pat learned that a forum is like a garden. In order for the garden to flourish you need to pull out the weeds. Otherwise, the weeds take over. I’ve had the privilege to be mentored by someone whose seen it all. This is just my 0.2 cents. You have every right to run your community as you see fit.

 

[Judelaw]

Damn Melvin they compared you to Sam Bankmam Fried and said you have bad vibes. If anything you should be suing for defamation 😂

[Melvin- Admin]

4 minutes ago, Judelaw said:

Damn Melvin they compared you to Sam Bankmam Fried and said you have bad vibes. If anything you should be suing for defamation 😂

I live rent free in their head, they can say whatever they want about me 😁

[AlexMeister21]

As a former Diep patient who is vocal about my negative results and experiences, they have not threatened me with legal action. If they did, I would file an anti-SLAPP motion. 

[Melvin- Admin]

10 minutes ago, AlexMeister21 said:

As a former Diep patient who is vocal about my negative results and experiences, they have not threatened me with legal action. If they did, I would file an anti-SLAPP motion. 

It’s not that simple unfortunately, we’ve been in nearly a dozen lawsuits. If there’s a good lawyer that could argue malice and intent to cause financial harm, it probably won’t get thrown out right away.

Without divulging too much of our own suit. We weren’t even the one’s making these statements. We were simply hosting them, and we didn’t get the suit thrown out right away. That said, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’m not worried about our community. We’ve been pretty fair and balanced. 

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

2 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I used to get posts almost daily of these two particular individuals making claims about me and this forum. Honestly I don’t care that’s why I never reached out to you. But yea I think their behavior goes unchecked, especially since both of these individuals have a history of creating multiple aliases and accounts to push their narrative.

Apparently Jimcraig accused me of being Dr. Bicers rep, which is a flat out lie. I was sent a screenshot a while back. Overall, I don’t think this behavior is being moderated. Fair enough, I’m a mod and somewhat of a public figure, so I suppose it comes with the territory. But you better believe that eventually there will be lawsuits from surgeons that are being attacked. 

Our forum has been around for 22 years. In the beginning, Pat let everything fly, people said whatever they wanted about whoever they wanted. But he quickly learned that all it did was make the community a toxic place. Pat learned that a forum is like a garden. In order for the garden to flourish you need to pull out the weeds. Otherwise, the weeds take over. I’ve had the privilege to be mentored by someone whose seen it all. This is just my 0.2 cents. You have every right to run your community as you see fit.

 

Please point to an instance of them creating multiple accounts to push a narrative on my subreddit. Or are you asking me to ban them based on an allegation from you from something that didn't happen on reddit but this site specifically?

Like I said, I pointed to specific instances where their behavior indeed went checked. Please provide an instance of them going unchecked on my subreddit. I don't claim to have a allknowing view of every single thing that they post, but you make it seem I am letting them get away with just anything. Back that up with evidence, if you can. I still don't know how you can come to that conclusion when we have specific talks of those two accounts being checked. I also don't know what you brought this up, it's a total non-sequitur to the issue I brought up, your reviewers facing legal action as well as your site, but if you want to go on a tangent on those two posters or my moderation, fine by me.

"Apparently Jimcraig accused me of being Dr. Bicers rep, which is a flat out lie."

Okay, so is this the instance of him being 'unchecked'? I don't know the context of this, he could be referring to the financial ties. But maybe you're thinking me not censoring everything he says about you as 'being unchecked'? Again, you're free to post any examples. But again your conclusion doesn't make sense to me because of the lack of specific examples of them being unchecked, vs the specific examples of them being checked that you are well know about because we discussed in over private chat.

You're steering this conversation in a direction which I feel is unproductive and uninteresting for your users. I offered to have such discussions with you on your subreddit on reddit /r/HairTransplantNetwork , but if you want to further discuss here that's fine by me. But my primary interest is what's best for your user base.

Thank you for clarifying you that you have not received any legal notices and have no intention of taking any posts down.

1 hour ago, AlexMeister21 said:

As a former Diep patient who is vocal about my negative results and experiences, they have not threatened me with legal action. If they did, I would file an anti-SLAPP motion. 

From what Melvin describes, HRN's lawyers have good experience with this. Perhaps they can connect you up if anything legal were to happen.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Wallaby_Upstairs

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

2 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot slanderous posts and unsubstantiated allegations.

I'm sure you are aware of exactly what was posted because I posted it on this forum, and you wrote a lengthy response, and I responded to that response on your subreddit. I stand by everything I said. If there' anything you want to further discuss, we can do it there, here, or anything. Again, if you would like to amend that statement you put out, which is also edited into to my post on my subreddit, I would be more that happy to include it. The offer is good indefinitely.

[Melvin- Admin]

12 minutes ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

Please point to an instance of them creating multiple accounts to push a narrative on my subreddit. Or are you asking me to ban them based on an allegation from you from something that didn't happen on reddit but this site specifically?

Like I said, I pointed to specific instances where their behavior indeed went checked. Please provide an instance of them going unchecked on my subreddit. I don't claim to have a allknowing view of every single thing that they post, but you make it seem I am letting them get away with just anything. Back that up with evidence, if you can. I still don't know how you can come to that conclusion when we have specific talks of those two accounts being checked. I also don't know what you brought this up, it's a total non-sequitur to the issue I brought up, your reviewers facing legal action as well as your site, but if you want to go on a tangent on those two posters or my moderation, fine by me.

"Apparently Jimcraig accused me of being Dr. Bicers rep, which is a flat out lie."

Okay, so is this the instance of him being 'unchecked'? I don't know the context of this, he could be referring to the financial ties. But maybe you're thinking me not censoring everything he says about you as 'being unchecked'? Again, you're free to post any examples. But again your conclusion doesn't make sense to me because of the lack of specific examples of them being unchecked, vs the specific examples of them being checked that you are well know about because we discussed in over private chat.

You're steering this conversation in a direction which I feel is unproductive and uninteresting for your users. I offered to have such discussions with you on your subreddit on reddit /r/HairTransplantNetwork , but if you want to further discuss here that's fine by me. But my primary interest is what's best for your user base.

Thank you for clarifying you that you have not received any legal notices and have no intention of taking any posts down.

From what Melvin describes, HRN's lawyers have good experience with this. Perhaps they can connect you up if anything legal were to happen.

 

 

I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m simply pointing out my observations on your platform. I gave you a few users I suspected were duplicate accounts of the individuals via pm before. I bring these two people up because these are exactly the type of people that would post slander on a platform. 

Basically, Dr. Bicers rep was replying to him and he accused them of being me. I have not ever been a rep to any surgeon. I would have to dig up the screenshot from a pm I received a while back. I bring it up because this is exactly the kind of thing that goes on in your subreddit, and if that’s happening about me, it’s probably happening elsewhere. I don’t know why you’re gatekeeping what is useful or productive to our users. I think it’s both interesting and useful to see the kind of behavior that will get you sued. 

Complaining about a doctors skill, bedside manner, or results is an opinion. You can’t sue for that, it gets thrown out.   Making false accusations about a surgeon’s education, medical background, and or license/certifications is something that can be construed as defamatory. Again, I’m not on your platform so I don’t know what’s being said, I’m only pointing out the instances where false accusations have been made against me that would be construed as defamatory. It’s just an example. I’m not asking you to take it down or anything about me down. Ultimately, you’re a volunteer mod. I don’t believe you have any responsibility to protect these users. 

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

1 hour ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m simply pointing out my observations on your platform. I gave you a few users I suspected were duplicate accounts of the individuals via pm before. I bring these two people up because these are exactly the type of people that would post slander on a platform. 

Basically, Dr. Bicers rep was replying to him and he accused them of being me. I have not ever been a rep to any surgeon. I would have to dig up the screenshot from a pm I received a while back. I bring it up because this is exactly the kind of thing that goes on in your subreddit, and if that’s happening about me, it’s probably happening elsewhere. I don’t know why you’re gatekeeping what is useful or productive to our users. I think it’s both interesting and useful to see the kind of behavior that will get you sued. 

Complaining about a doctors skill, bedside manner, or results is an opinion. You can’t sue for that, it gets thrown out.   Making false accusations about a surgeon’s education, medical background, and or license/certifications is something that can be construed as defamatory. Again, I’m not on your platform so I don’t know what’s being said, I’m only pointing out the instances where false accusations have been made against me that would be construed as defamatory. It’s just an example. I’m not asking you to take it down or anything about me down. Ultimately, you’re a volunteer mod. I don’t believe you have any responsibility to protect these users. 

The only concrete observation you pointed out is Bicer, everything else is speculation, something you just complained about previous in this thread. " these are exactly the type of people". Again, I can only discuss concrete examples, I have no interest in debating with your speculative imagination.

This is why I always move towards a factual timeline, so we can discuss facts. So for you have make speculations about something happening, but you have yet to ground it.

If you link me the Bicer conversation, I can give you my full thoughts and make the appropriate deletions appropriate. We have a strict civility rule on our subreddit, and what you describes breaks that rule, and I would remove it. I don't have a godview, but when I see rule breaking comments I remove them. I have removed comments from both of those users against you. So you insistance on the no check narrative, as far as you describe it, has no substance. I just took a look in the Konior thread and I removed a comment where he claimed you were trying to gas light him.

"I don’t know why you’re gatekeeping what is useful or productive to our users. "

You think speculating on my modship and these users is useful to your users? Then provide concrete examples, and as I said, I don't mind if you want to continue this line of discussion. You brought up an example of incivility towards Dr Bicer's rep, and the way you describe it, would not be allowed on my subreddit, I would gave that rep the same courtesy I gave you, multiple times.

I can see how you think the Bicer example is interesting to your users. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around unsubstantiated claims about my moderatorship is useful to your users. Regardless, like I said, I am more than willing to engage.

You still haven't provided any examples of qui bono's behavior on my subreddit. You gloated about living rent free, but it seems that you both are living in each others heads. I gave this advice to him and I'll give it to you, move on from that drama. If you want to point any rule breaking behavior from him, I would appreciate that. But it's best if you two just forget about each other, which I understand is easier said than done since you two used to be close friends.

" Ultimately, you’re a volunteer mod. I don’t believe you have any responsibility to protect these users.  "

Thats right. None of of the reddit mod team is paid. We don't get money that originates from surgeons, or anywhere. We are free to moderate and comment without financial bias. No single person in the hair transplant community has a responsibility, but the many contribute many hours, for free. There are people who have finished their hair transplant journey, but stay afterwards and continue to spend hours and hours of their valuable free time just helping other people, and we should do everything we can to enable these people.

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Wallaby_Upstairs

[Gatsby]

I have to admit from my limited (by choice) experience, sub reddit is very sub par for a forum. Dr Bicer was being harassed constantly by some idiot called lopsided (who had multiple alias') about ANOTHER patient's results which he had no idea what he was talking about? I tried to warn him to back off and I actually tried to afford you the opportunity @Wallaby_Upstairs of this. All I received from your forum was that I worked for Dr Bicer and that I favor her too much on this forum and that I was Melvin? 🤥 That forum really needs to vet the mental health of some of it's members and drain the swamp.

[Gatsby]

I forgot to add that I took being told that I am Melvin as a compliment! 🙏😉

[Melvin- Admin]

5 hours ago, Gatsby said:

I have to admit from my limited (by choice) experience, sub reddit is very sub par for a forum. Dr Bicer was being harassed constantly by some idiot called lopsided (who had multiple alias') about ANOTHER patient's results which he had no idea what he was talking about? I tried to warn him to back off and I actually tried to afford you the opportunity @Wallaby_Upstairs of this. All I received from your forum was that I worked for Dr Bicer and that I favor her too much on this forum and that I was Melvin? 🤥 That forum really needs to vet the mental health of some of it's members and drain the swamp.

Can you post a screenshot. 

[Rafael Manelli]

The best way to avoid unhappy patients is to be a good doctor 

[WhereIsMyMind]

Imagine threatening to sue random internet forum people. Never seen so much stupidity condensed in the same statement. 😁

[Melvin- Admin]

10 hours ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

The only concrete observation you pointed out is Bicer, everything else is speculation, something you just complained about previous in this thread. " these are exactly the type of people". Again, I can only discuss concrete examples, I have no interest in debating with your speculative imagination.

This is why I always move towards a factual timeline, so we can discuss facts. So for you have make speculations about something happening, but you have yet to ground it.

If you link me the Bicer conversation, I can give you my full thoughts and make the appropriate deletions appropriate. We have a strict civility rule on our subreddit, and what you describes breaks that rule, and I would remove it. I don't have a godview, but when I see rule breaking comments I remove them. I have removed comments from both of those users against you. So you insistance on the no check narrative, as far as you describe it, has no substance. I just took a look in the Konior thread and I removed a comment where he claimed you were trying to gas light him.

"I don’t know why you’re gatekeeping what is useful or productive to our users. "

You think speculating on my modship and these users is useful to your users? Then provide concrete examples, and as I said, I don't mind if you want to continue this line of discussion. You brought up an example of incivility towards Dr Bicer's rep, and the way you describe it, would not be allowed on my subreddit, I would gave that rep the same courtesy I gave you, multiple times.

I can see how you think the Bicer example is interesting to your users. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around unsubstantiated claims about my moderatorship is useful to your users. Regardless, like I said, I am more than willing to engage.

You still haven't provided any examples of qui bono's behavior on my subreddit. You gloated about living rent free, but it seems that you both are living in each others heads. I gave this advice to him and I'll give it to you, move on from that drama. If you want to point any rule breaking behavior from him, I would appreciate that. But it's best if you two just forget about each other, which I understand is easier said than done since you two used to be close friends.

" Ultimately, you’re a volunteer mod. I don’t believe you have any responsibility to protect these users.  "

Thats right. None of of the reddit mod team is paid. We don't get money that originates from surgeons, or anywhere. We are free to moderate and comment without financial bias. No single person in the hair transplant community has a responsibility, but the many contribute many hours, for free. There are people who have finished their hair transplant journey, but stay afterwards and continue to spend hours and hours of their valuable free time just helping other people, and we should do everything we can to enable these people.

 

It looks like Jim has since crossed my name out.

 

It’s ironic that Jim is claiming to be a victim of cyberbullying when he constantly posts disparaging and harassing posts about me and multiple surgeons. I didn’t even know about this until someone sent me the screenshot today.

I probably shouldn’t have mentioned quibono, he’s not relevant to this case. At least I don’t think he’s ever said anything about this particular doctor that could be considered slanderous, but I could be wrong.

I only brought him up because he’s posted things that aren’t true on multiple occasions. But it’s not relevant in this situation. 

As for speculation, this is what other users tell me and what they send me via screenshots. @Gatsby was also attacked by Jim claiming he is a rep, and that he’s me. Adrian isn’t a rep, nor is he paid. He volunteers his time just like you. Do you see a pattern of behavior? 

Here Jim is attacking Dr. Bisanga, making outlandish claims that his patients here are bots. 


 

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/search/?&q=Dr. Bisanga &type=forums_topic&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles

All you have to do is search to see that Dr. Bisanga has dozens of actual reviews by legitimate patients. Claiming these are bots/shills is defamatory. 
 

Community members,

I’m no lawyer, so this is just my layman understanding. But to bring the Dr. Bisanga post again as an example. Jim claims that Dr. Bisanga is an invention of the forum i.e., not legitimate. He claims that the positive reviews and posts about him are shill/bots. That is a false statement that can be proven to be false. It is said with the intent to damage the surgeons reputation/credibility, which could lead to financial harm. You can get sued for that.

Now, the second part about the temple work is a critique/opinion. It can’t be proven to be false because it’s that’s persons perspective. I bring this up because many of you post on Reddit as well. Anything you say on a public forum can be used in court. How many of you have 100k to blow on legal fees? Just because a surgeon can’t win a case, or has a low chance of winning doesn’t mean you won’t spend thousands upon thousands of dollars defending yourself. Be mindful and most of all don’t be a bully. 

 

Wallaby,

I’ll close this out by saying, I’m not asking you to do anything. You run the community how you see fit. I’m bringing all of this to light to show our community the reasons why your community could be threatened with a lawsuit, and why our community isn’t.  We’ve been there and done that, we have a duty to verify claims made on the forum, something I told you via pm months ago. I want to also add that Jim claims to be banned on this forum, he’s not. His posts were being moderated to ensure he didn’t post anything defamatory or harassing. I think you can see why as demonstrated above. However, given my recent discovery of his cyber bullying behavior. He will be permanently banned.

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

9 hours ago, Gatsby said:

I have to admit from my limited (by choice) experience, sub reddit is very sub par for a forum. Dr Bicer was being harassed constantly by some idiot called lopsided (who had multiple alias') about ANOTHER patient's results which he had no idea what he was talking about? I tried to warn him to back off and I actually tried to afford you the opportunity @Wallaby_Upstairs of this. All I received from your forum was that I worked for Dr Bicer and that I favor her too much on this forum and that I was Melvin? 🤥 That forum really needs to vet the mental health of some of it's members and drain the swamp.

Hi Gatsby, every post I've seen you make is well reasoned and well informed, so I take whatever you say very seriously. You're KookyStatistician107 right? I had no idea you dropped by. I send you a private message there, I didn't see any previous chat messages. From your account I just see one stand alone comment. It could be that you deleted your messages, but speculative imagination is not encouraged on my forum and this seems like blatant violation of rule 2.

If you can provide me concrete examples I could provide moderation accordingly, but from your account history I don't see anything like how you dscribe. But like how I would not tolerate speculation of who you are working for, I would not tolerate speculation of any diagnosis of mental health. People should work towards a factual timeline when there are disputes.

[HappyMan2021]

15 hours ago, AlexMeister21 said:

As a former Diep patient who is vocal about my negative results and experiences, they have not threatened me with legal action. If they did, I would file an anti-SLAPP motion. 

@AlexMeister21 yea, as far as I can tell your Diep reviews and posts have been 100% non-defamatory nor slanderous. 

If a doctor sued me for posting an honest review, I would gladly countersue the doctor. Seems like an easy win for the patient and I would welcome the $$$. 

It's kind of like if a movie producer sued a movie critic for posting a bad review.....there is no case....(as long as the review is not slanderous or libelous)

If Diep's argument is that you are financially hurting him by posting an honest negative review, well I don't really know how to respond to that, that is how the world works lol. 

Edited March 9, 2023 by HappyMan2021

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

Qui bono has seen this thread and wanted me to give a correction that he never considered him and Melvin friends. I mistakenly got that impression when I heard you two used to send each other private messages before things deteriorated.

I see the Jim Craig post. I removed the comment for being speculative imagination, though the account he was replying to was much more problematic I found. I would have banned it if their account wasn't deleted. It's hard to tell since the account is deleted, but it seems they attacked him first.

The 2nd post I have saw and leaving it up. Even though you have a post history in our subreddit and therefore entitled to rule 2 protections, you are also a public figure and are open to criticisms. That being said, I understand how this would suck. I try to keep this in mind. If this popped up on the holidays like that thanksgiving thread, I would have removed it and asked him to put it up later. That being said, this decision is absolutely not above criticisms. 

Thank you for grounded your assertions in these concrete examples.

For the Bisanga post, the first part is speculation on activity that's occurring on this forum, which I am leaving out of my policing. You or anyone else are welcome to debate that comment, but that is something I won't censor. You are absolutely in the right to point out how his assertion that Bisanga is a fictitious imagination may or may not be grounded in reality. But simply deleting the comment is not that way. I don't have a link to that comment, so I'm not sure if anyone pushed back on it.

I have my critiques about the HRN leadership, but for the users, I have always maintained that HRN has the superior userbase community when it comes to knowledge, it's why I recommend people come here, along with the corpus of user reviews.

What follows is what appears to me a technical breakdown. If the facts are wrong, those should be debated, but I am not going to remove a factual or attempts at a factual basis.

"It is said with the intent to damage the surgeons reputation/credibility, "

I have to push back on this, you don't know why he said it. It could be that's his genuine opinion and his intent is to provide this best information possible. He has done many technical breakdowns of why he is not a fan of his work. People are free to push back on that technical breakdown.

Since our mod team has no revenue that is sourced from doctors, there are no financial biases that would prevent us from putting the full force of our moderating decisions on doing what's best for the user, including without threat of litigation. I understand that as a smaller site than reddit, the latter may be a luxury that might be out of your grasp.

As for the JimCraig banning or lack of, I would love to hear more. His take is that he is heavily moderated. I don't remember what caused him to be heavily moderated or his take. But he showed me screen shots of his Dr Diep update not being approved for over a year. From the screenshot, I saw nothing rule breaking. His take is that since none of his posts were being approved, including the update which I thought would be useful to your community, he is effectively banned. Someone else posted a link to his reddit update, which you edited. So it seems that you were actively moderating his review thread, but still wasn't approving his update. That's his side of the story, I would love to hear your side.

 

[Melvin- Admin]

4 minutes ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

Qui bono has seen this thread and wanted me to give a correction that he never considered him and Melvin friends. I mistakenly got that impression when I heard you two used to send each other private messages before things deteriorated.

I see the Jim Craig post. I removed the comment for being speculative imagination, though the account he was replying to was much more problematic I found. I would have banned it if their account wasn't deleted. It's hard to tell since the account is deleted, but it seems they attacked him first.

The 2nd post I have saw and leaving it up. Even though you have a post history in our subreddit and therefore entitled to rule 2 protections, you are also a public figure and are open to criticisms. That being said, I understand how this would suck. I try to keep this in mind. If this popped up on the holidays like that thanksgiving thread, I would have removed it and asked him to put it up later. That being said, this decision is absolutely not above criticisms. 

Thank you for grounded your assertions in these concrete examples.

For the Bisanga post, the first part is speculation on activity that's occurring on this forum, which I am leaving out of my policing. You or anyone else are welcome to debate that comment, but that is something I won't censor. You are absolutely in the right to point out how his assertion that Bisanga is a fictitious imagination may or may not be grounded in reality. But simply deleting the comment is not that way. I don't have a link to that comment, so I'm not sure if anyone pushed back on it.

I have my critiques about the HRN leadership, but for the users, I have always maintained that HRN has the superior userbase community when it comes to knowledge, it's why I recommend people come here, along with the corpus of user reviews.

What follows is what appears to me a technical breakdown. If the facts are wrong, those should be debated, but I am not going to remove a factual or attempts at a factual basis.

"It is said with the intent to damage the surgeons reputation/credibility, "

I have to push back on this, you don't know why he said it. It could be that's his genuine opinion and his intent is to provide this best information possible. He has done many technical breakdowns of why he is not a fan of his work. People are free to push back on that technical breakdown.

Since our mod team has no revenue that is sourced from doctors, there are no financial biases that would prevent us from putting the full force of our moderating decisions on doing what's best for the user, including without threat of litigation. I understand that as a smaller site than reddit, the latter may be a luxury that might be out of your grasp.

As for the JimCraig banning or lack of, I would love to hear more. His take is that he is heavily moderated. I don't remember what caused him to be heavily moderated or his take. But he showed me screen shots of his Dr Diep update not being approved for over a year. From the screenshot, I saw nothing rule breaking. His take is that since none of his posts were being approved, including the update which I thought would be useful to your community, he is effectively banned. Someone else posted a link to his reddit update, which you edited. So it seems that you were actively moderating his review thread, but still wasn't approving his update. That's his side of the story, I would love to hear your side.

 

I don’t know the full story, but from what I was told by @Gatsby a reddit user sent Jim a private message sharing his pictures to get his thoughts, as he’s listed as a “knowledgeable poster” on the subreddit. From my understanding, Jim took those pictures and posted them publicly without his consent to disparage Dr. Bicer, and make claims that she was lying about the number of grafts. I’m not 100% sure if my recollection is valid so @Gatsby correct me if I’m wrong.

But if that’s true it violates the patient’s privacy. It’s absolutely egregious to say the least. If that doesn’t warrant a banning, then we have fundamental differences in what should or shouldn’t be allowed in a community. Protecting a patient’s privacy has nothing to do with financial biases either, it’s about protecting the member.

As for the post about me. I don’t care what this individual says about me. He can post pictures of me everyday until he’s blue in the face. I posted it because it was ironic he claimed to be the victim of cyber bullying when he’s in fact a cyber bully himself. 

The people who recommend Dr. Bisanga are his patients. He’s claiming the people who recommend him are shills and bots. I fail to see how that is an opinion, when there are literally dozens of verified reviews on this forum. Again, I’m not asking you to take it down. I was merely providing an example of something I feel a lawyer could argue is defamatory. But I’m no lawyer, it’s just my understanding from our own suit. 

Jim posted his last update in December 2022.

 

 

It may take me time to approve because I have million things to do. I’m one moderator for a large community but a valid post will be approved. That said, he’s permanently banned and will no longer have access to post anymore.  
 

Guys,

 I will make this my final request I don’t care what this person has to say about me or the community. Stop sending me dms with screenshots. If you feel it’s egregious reach out to wallaby, it’s his decision what he will or won’t allow. Sharing someone’s pictures via a private message and posting it publicly shows his true nature and character. I’ll leave it at that. 
 

Good luck on your legal issues. 
 

Onwards,

[AlexMeister21]

1 hour ago, HappyMan2021 said:

@AlexMeister21 yea, as far as I can tell your Diep reviews and posts have been 100% non-defamatory nor slanderous. 

If a doctor sued me for posting an honest review, I would gladly countersue the doctor. Seems like an easy win for the patient and I would welcome the $$$. 

It's kind of like if a movie producer sued a movie critic for posting a bad review.....there is no case....(as long as the review is not slanderous or libelous)

If Diep's argument is that you are financially hurting him by posting an honest negative review, well I don't really know how to respond to that, that is how the world works lol. 

If Diep tried to sue me, I probably would take him on, especially if anti-SLAPP would potentially throw the burden of legal fees back onto the plaintiff, Diep in this hypothetical scenario. I deliberately took several videos combing through my hair and showing my scar before I had my repair surgery in case I would need them for legal concerns one day. The fact that I had to get a repair surgery at all and in only the areas Diep operated on should be evidence enough. Otherwise, I have multiple statements from other surgeons commenting on the issues with my previous surgeries and of course I have photos. I don't know if I'd be able to countersue though. All of his patients have to sign a contract before surgery that basically throws away their ability to sue, but maybe it'd be different in this case.