EFFORTPOST Man Who Sued Reddit and Harassed /r/Screenwriting Members So Much That He's Actually Mentioned in US Supreme Court Documents Pays Writers to Post Positive "Facts" About Him on Subreddit About Him

A man named Joseph Neibich sued Reddit for defamation with intent to unmask 50 anonymous /r/Screenwriting members, but, unsurprisingly, he failed. He then tried to have this case sealed, but, once again, he was denied. So, now, he has actually hired people to create positive posts about how totally amazing he is in order to manipulate algorithms about his case and his /r/Screenwriting harassment on search engines.

Below is the original drama from 2021:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/l5cbbs/rscreenwriting_under_fire_as_a_screenplay_contest/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/mkfuuz/fyi_these_screenwriting_contests_operated_by_a/

Screenwriters flagged a group of scam contests that exploited aspiring writers by race, gender, sexuality, religion, and/or location for $50+ per entry and then posted warnings on /r/Screenwriting. The contest manager, a fledgling middle-aged screenwriter from Arizona, threatened to sue Reddit if the original posts weren't removed. The moderators stood their ground and case 20STCV10291 was filed in an LA Circuit Court. Over the course of 2 years, that contest manager harassed /r/screenwriting members, both on social media and by calling them personally once he learned their true identities that had been hidden behind the JOHN/JANE DOE ones.

The case lagged on until the contest manager and other parties settled out of court, and it was dismissed in 2021. The contest manager hired online reputation services to remove any mention of his name in case 20STCV10291 from the internet. For example: Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx v. Reddit Inc - Trellis Law or Santa Clara Law's Digital Commons.

Long after Reddit was dismissed in this legal case, the contest manager continued to harass one of /r/Screenwriting's moderators, who then posted the following warning:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/ntxqul/important_if_you_have_been_harassed_by_joseph/

Nobody really cared about this lawsuit anymore. That is, until 2023, when Reddit admins posted Reddit's Defense of Section 230 to the Supreme Court, which actually referenced the original /r/SubredditDrama post linked above.

TL;DR: The Supreme Court is hearing for the first time a case regarding Section 230, a decades-old internet law that provides important legal protections for anyone who moderates, votes on, or deals with other people's content online.

Now, this embarrassing old legal case - 20STCV10291 Neibich v. Reddit - would actually be referenced by the largest court in the United States.

To update /r/Screenwriting about the Reddit Amicus Brief, moderator /u/wemustburncarthage posted the thread /r/Screenwriting mentioned in the Reddit Amicus Brief to SCOTUS. She mentioned some context about the contest manager's ongoing behavior:

He has stalked, harassed and defamed many of us for calling out his fraud, and while some of us were lucky to receive pro bono legal representation (me included, thanks to the support mentioned in this brief) not all of us had that option, and were put to unjust expense.

A lot of us are still recipients of his obnoxious attention seeking behaviour, hedged under the guise of his delusional belief in his own importance as an industry player. He's not an industry player. He's a citation in a landmark US Supreme Court case, forever enshrined in that legal history, defined in precisely the character he deserves.

Later in 2023, the contest manager decides to file a Request to Seal Records in order to completely hide his case from the public. While that's going on, something weird begins to happen on Reddit...

The username /u/JeffreyJosephNeibich was registered on Reddit and is quickly suspended before he can post anything (because any user name with josephneibich in it is automatically suspended).

/u/JeffreyJosNeibich (now suspended) then pops up instead and begins to spam their user page with random positive facts about the contest manager (all of these have now been deleted, of course):

His love for animals:

Love helping animals get adopted with my hubby Jeffrey Joseph Neibich

Hiking trips with his fictitious wife, "Hillary":

Hillary L Neibich is camping with Jeffrey Joseph Neibich at HorseShoe Bend

And, of course, helping the homeless:

Joseph Neibich took his only day off last week to help a homeless woman find housing.

(The only comment on the post about was from him, and it simply said "Yea." This dude genuinely thought that confirming a post that he himself made would lend it credibility. I also love that he imagines that he's a great script writer, yet that's the best fake story that he could invent to venerate himself. It legitimately reads like North Korean propaganda for Kim Jong-Un.)

Once the contest manager's request to seal all records was denied by the LA Court, a new subreddit popped up in the hopes of overshadowing negative search results from Google:

/r/JosephNeibich (now set to private) - "All about the life and works of Joseph Neibich"

Posts were made on the subreddit such as:

Life and Work of Joseph Neibich

Joseph Neibich's journey in the film industry is a story of passion, creativity, and hard work. From his early days in marketing at...

Biography of Joseph Neibich:

Joseph started his career in film in 1997, when he moved to Los Angeles and began working in marketing at Paramount Pictures. This experience...

Joseph Neibich Charity Works

...and so forth.

Try it for yourself by searching for "reddit neibich" on Google. Instead of information about the previously mentioned case, you're instead greeted with results about how wonderful and amazing this heroic human being is.

The posts on /r/JosephNeibich came with totally legitimate comments from completely real Redditors such as...

/u/Fresh-Ad8642 (now suspended):

I like it I like it

I like

I like

I like it

/u/Sweet_Peet_Scotch (now suspended):

So great and powerful

So great and powerful

So great and powerful

/u/Intelligent-Love6969 (now suspended):

Silly love

/u/Street-Ad-6308:

Joseph Neibich is great consumer advocate! I love it.

And some other totally earnest new Reddit accounts who just happened to only post about Joseph Neibich:

/u/Academic-CatLover (now suspended)

/u/SeaworthyDiver676

/u/DesignerMortgage9799

/u/TinyWarrior4Love

In other words, a Redditor has been hired by Joseph Neibich to post on /r/JosephNeibich in order to make Joseph Neibich look better on Google search results. Right before that user began posting about Neibich, however, they only concentrated on OnlyFans updates.

A parody subreddit, /r/JosephNeib-word (get it? ), has also been set up.

Will it work? Or will Joseph Neibich go back to his old ways where he is emailing moderators threatening legal action? Whatever happens, we know one thing: it will be far more entertaining than any script that Neibich could ever write.