Transgender activist and internet broadcaster Clara Sorrenti of London, Ont., says she’s leaving the country for a time at least to escape unrelenting harassment that has become “really bad.”
Earlier this month, Sorrenti, 28, who’s known as Keffals on the streaming platform Twitch, was the victim of a swatting attack after police dispatchers fielded two calls claiming she was about to shoot people at city hall. Officers who arrived at her home arrested her at gunpoint, but have since said she was not at fault.
Since then, online trolls have continued to harass Sorrenti.
While she has more than 42,000 followers and now even speaks about American anti-trans legislation and transgender rights, she says some people target her because of her activism.
She previously told CBC: “I get messages almost every day from trans people, especially young trans people, saying that I gave them courage, that they can be who they are. But people hate me and want to shut me up.”
Recently, in one instance, someone ordered multiple pizzas to the hotel room where Sorrenti had been temporarily staying.
“Things have gone really bad,” she told CBC News on Monday night.
“I had to leave the first hotel because I got doxxed,” said Sorrenti about the practice that sees someone’s personal information posted online.
“My Uber account got hacked and they found out where I was staying through the Uber account,” she said. “The information from my entire family got posted online. All of our email addresses, phone addresses, home addresses.
“Everyone in my family got a robocall telling us that we got doxxed.”
Hi <a href=”https://twitter.com/Uber_Support?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Uber_Support</a> my account was hacked and had the password and email changed. Hundreds of dollars worth of food showed up on my doorstep. Can you please message me so I can remove my payment info from the hacked account and get reimbursed?? <a href=”https://t.co/WvmATJB2xH”>pic.twitter.com/WvmATJB2xH</a>
—@keffals
Harassers from ‘all over the place,’ Sorrenti says
Sorrenti is concerned London police don’t have the resources to stop online trolls who are based all over the world.
“This is a very international thing,” said Sorrenti. “A lot of the people who are doing this to me and to my family are Americans. They’re from the U.K., they’re from all over the place.
“The cybercrime element to this — I don’t know that the London Police Service has had to deal with something of this degree of intensity.”
London police said they can’t comment because Sorrenti’s case is still an open and active criminal investigation.
In the meantime, Sorrenti plans to go to Europe for a month or two, although she isn’t willing to share any more information about her departure or destination as she fears trolls will try to send police to the airport if they know she’s there.
She’s heard her harassers want to get her on a no-fly list.
Sorrenti believes the bulk of the harassment stems from KiwiFarms, a website that describes itself as a “community dedicated to discussing eccentric people who voluntarily make fools of themselves.”
“The best way to support me is to put pressure on a company called Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a company that’s supporting a website called KiwiFarms, and all of this is happening because of that one website,” said Sorrenti.
CBC News has reached out to Cloudfare and is awaiting a response.
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