Alice Brennan: Hi, Alice Brennan here -- welcome to Background Briefing.

You've got a new lover... and they've invited you over to meet the parents.

It's your first sit-down dinner all together.

You've just arrived... something's bubbling away on the stove...

Everyone's standing near the kitchen... The dad's cooking... you get offered a drink.

You have to do the small-talk... This is it... your opportunity to shine, to prove you're a good catch.

Things can be... awkward.

Osman Faruqi: Well, exactly you want to make a good impression.

Alice Brennan: This is ABC Journalist Osman Faruqi... and when he was meeting his new girlfriend's parents in August last year, he was quietly confident that he had things under control.

Osman Faruqi: Look I'm not going to lie. Mums in particular love me, you know. I don't know what it is, the beard or just my general demeanor.

Alice Brennan: And this story is about HIM -- and it's about how something totally normal -- dinner at the new girlfriend's parents' place -- turned into a traumatic event that changed his life.

Something that lead Osman to call police, lawyers, security and even trauma counsellors.

Osman Faruqi: My story is one aspect to something that is much bigger and much more significant than I had even thought about before.

Alice Brennan: This week's story is about the way personal contact details have become weaponised in vitriolic online conflicts.

It's something a bit different for us...it's a co-production ...Alex Mann is the reporter on this story... and yes it is ABOUT Osman Faruqi, but Osman is also a journalist, he's the deputy editor of ABC Life... and he's reporting the story too.

Osman Faruqi: This is not just a story about what happened to me... it could be any one of us. It's about what happens when the online and offline worlds collide, and how people respond when they're under attack.

Alex Mann: By investigating what happened to Osman... who did it... why they did it... we interrogate how equipped we all are to deal with something like this -- individually, yes -- but also whether the people who are meant to protect us are ready, and ABLE to intervene.

Alice Brennan: Now, back to the dinner party...

And just a heads up, this story contains some strong language, and some confronting content

Osman Faruqi: So I'm in the kitchen at my girlfriend's family house... dad's cooking dinner and that's when my phone goes off. It's about 7PM, maybe between seven and eight.

Alex Mann: Osman's a journalist and this isn't a private number. So he's thinking, is this a contact? Is this a friend? Ok fine... I'll answer the phone.

Osman Faruqi: So I step out into the lounge room, which is the room next to the kitchen, to take the phone call.

Alex Mann: And the voice asks him... Are you Osman Faruqi?

Osman Faruqi: ...and when I say I am, this voice tells me to watch myself because they know what I have done, they know who I am, and they think I'm a fucking dog.

At this point. I asked, I'm sorry who is this, who's speaking? And they said you don't need to know who I am. You just need to know that we're watching you.

I just sit there in the lounge room letting it sink in and wondering what is going on

Alex Mann: And then the calls, the voicemails and the text messages start.

Actor reading texts: Go fuck yourself you disgusting piece of excrement, I hope when you die they bury you face down so you can't scratch yourself out.

Actor reading texts: Muslim scum. I will spit on you if I see you in the street, dog.

Actor reading texts: You are the lowest of low scum. Eyes open fucker, you never know what is around the next corner.

Actor reading texts: You're a disgrace, love it or leave it.

Osman Faruqi: And then I realised that something else is going on here. This isn't just a one off. This isn't a prank or this isn't a mistake. Something's happened.

Your body is still shaking, your heart is racing, you're taking lots of shallow breaths. You feel angry, you feel scared, I want to escape, I want to get out of here, what have I done? How do I take control back? All of these things keep replaying through your head, reading the messages again to try and figure out what's going on.

Alex Mann: One guy who knew how all of this started was Avi Yemini.

Avi Yemini: All right guys we're here in Brisbane, we're outside Peter Dutton's office. I'm here with... we good?

Alex Mann: Avi Yemini is one of the loudest voices on the Australian far right.

He is prolific online... he posts 7-8 videos a week -- many of which feature him confronting people he thinks are the enemy. Like journalists.

Avi Yemini: I don't care. You're from the mainstream media, you're a joke, you're you will not report factually today, I guarantee it.

Alex Mann: His YouTube channel is filled with impassioned, down the barrel monologues about freedom of speech, refugees, migrants and crime.

Avi Yemini: These African crime gangs, we should be hitting them harder, not lighter. We should be sending a message...

Alex Mann: He is constantly calling his 143,000 YouTube subscribers to action.

Avi Yemini: Join me, share it around, talk about it, don't stop, don't feel ashamed, don't be scared to be labelled a racist. Just because you're calling a spade a spade. Everybody needs to do it and it starts with you at home.

Alex Mann: He's built a huge online following and in the last three years, a well-earned reputation for creating controversy.

He's targeted journalists, politicians and refugee activists but in August last year, he turned his attention to Osman Faruqi.

Osman Faruqi: I saw a post, it was a screenshot of a tweet that I had sent in the morning of when this went down.

Alex Mann: Osman's tweet had been posted on Avi Yemini 's Facebook page.

Osman Faruqi: It was a commentary on the public outcry against the big supermarkets' plastic bag ban. The exact wording of the tweet was "Australians are a deeply conservative, insular and fearful people with a collective delusion that they are laid back and forward thinking."

Alex Mann: Now, Osman's always had a bit of a spicy online presence and he's outspoken on issues of race.

But that's not the only reason he's a target. His mum is a Greens Senator, he's a migrant from Pakistan, and since he started working at the ABC, he's basically become prime fodder for prominent conservative commentators.

And Osman is more than willing to engage.

Osman Faruqi: to me, it's like it's one thing to have strong opinions online. Lots of people do but it's another thing to receive hate for those based on your background.

Alex Mann: The post about Osman packaged up that anti-immigrant sentiment, and gave Avi Yemini's Facebook followers...of which there were about 140,000.... a direct line to Osman.

Osman Faruqi: Do you want me to read out what it said word for word...

Alex Mann: Yeah sure, if you've got the -

Osman Faruqi: Yeah I think I've got it

Osman Faruqi: The post written above the screenshot by Avi Yemeni and shared with 140,000 Facebook fans said "See this taxpayer funded ABC employee. He smears the country that gave his peasant family refuge. Feel free to let Osman Faruqi know what you think." And then as if it wasn't enough to just message me on Facebook, he'd written my personal mobile phone number as well. And then below that was a message that said after all dot dot dot... he works for you.

Alex Mann: Avi's followers were quick to respond to the call.

And then they found out where Osman lived and things escalated.

Osman Faruqi: They knew the suburb that I lived in, they named the suburb. They also went further and named the exact part of the suburb that I lived in and told me that I should keep my eyes open because they knew where I was and that when they saw me there, they would have a few words to say to me and that they hoped that I had the same balls in real life that I had on Twitter.

Alex Mann: Osman changed his habits - he started catching cabs instead of trains.

Osman Faruqi: In the days afterwards, every time I saw someone follow me home I would stop, I would wait for them to pass. Yeah, I genuinely thought that I was being followed or being stalked or that people knew this information about me.

This felt an extra level of real and that's when I actually decided that no I need to take this to the police. My safety's in threat.

Alex Mann: But when he went to the police, the three officers he spoke to didn't seem to understand what he was dealing with.

In fact, they didn't even understand the difference between Facebook and Twitter.

Osman Faruqi: The whole vibe I got was one of: "this is a waste of time. There's nothing going wrong here".

Alex Mann: Osman told the police what had happened... he provided them with a folder full of screenshots, messages, phone numbers, and even the names of some of the people he suspected were behind them.

He thought "this is enough to go after these guys and hold them to account."

Osman Faruqi: One of the officers said, "oh actually in this country we have something called freedom of speech so we can't actually stop people from saying what they want".

Alex Mann: And so you gave a statement. Did things move on anywhere from there?

Osman Faruqi: Within six hours, I'd received an email which I was, you know, excited by actually to open that. And thought well, the police have perhaps taken this pretty seriously. They've dealt with this in a day. When I opened that email, I realised that wasn't really the case. The inspector said hi. I'm getting in contact in regards to the case. He cited the case number and he said I'm writing to inform you that the following post by Avi Yemeni does not breach the telecommunications act. Please call me if you have any questions.

Alex Mann: But Osman had given the police call logs, phone numbers and social media profiles of people who responded to Avi's post, and threatened him.

He was confused why the police weren't investigating them.

When Osman called the police to follow up, they confirmed they weren't investigating any of the threatening messages he received.

Osman Faruqi: Not only was that a waste of time, but I felt very helpless then, because basically the police, who I'd gone to seeking some sort of help from the fact that I was being targeted had basically said there's no problem here, nothing wrong has occurred. No law has been broken. Good day to you.

Alex Mann: Meanwhile, just a week after Avi Yemeni published Osman's details online, he posted another video on YouTube.

Avi Yemini: Osman Farouk... Faruqi... the latest new recruit for ABC. For those of you that don't know him, he's a vile anti-white racist!

Alex Mann: In it, he says he did nothing wrong, because he just found Osman's number on an old press release.

Avi Yemini: I shared his phone number that he published online himself. The screenshot, I'll put it in the comments here. I shared his number and every Australian has the right to tell him how they feel. I never encouraged anyone to threaten him, and I don't think that's ok. But Aussies have the right to let him know what they think because they pay him. Thanks for the support guys, share it around.

Alex Mann: In his original post he called Osman a peasant, focused on his migrant background and instructed people to contact him directly.

Even though Avi didn't call for people to threaten Osman, once he'd published Osman's number, that's exactly what happened.

So... why do you want to do this? If putting yourself out there in the first place is what brought this abuse on you. It's clearly had a really big effect on you. Why would you subject yourself to this again?

Osman Faruqi: I think it's the kind of stuff I would normally say for a psychologist but you know part of what I've been dealing with for the past six months is this sense of: I've been forced out of a space by the actions of others. And I don't like that.

Why should those who hate me, who threaten me, stop me from doing what I want to do? And part of this story is me convincing myself I think that... "no, you can do it, Os".

Alex Mann: So this is a story about doxing. That's when people expose your personal contact details to a hostile audience and encourage them to let loose -- like what happened to Osman. It's a story about how your life can change forever when you become the target of a dox.

Osman Faruqi: We share so much of our lives online. The internet is full of information about all of us - our job, our relationship status, our phone numbers, even our addresses. Sometimes we've put it there ourselves, and sometimes it's there without us knowing about it.

Alex Mann: And this is also a story about how a combination of archaic laws, and an ill-equipped protective service exposes Australians to harassment and real-life threats.

Air hostess: If you're in an exit row, please place all your bags in the overhead lockers, make sure you're in the allocated seat with your seatbelt firmly fastened your seat-back upright and your tray table locked in.

Alex Mann: OK, I'm sitting on the plane now and we're taxiing just down to the runway. Os is seated about three or four rows back behind me.

Alex Mann: Right now, I'm not sure what I'm getting the two of us into.

I know Osman is keen to do something about the abuse he's been getting, but after getting nowhere with the police, the next steps aren't clear.

To help him figure it out - I'm keen to introduce him to the case of David Clarkson.

Now if your name is David Clarkson, breathe easy. This story is NOT about you.

It's a fake name used by trolls who have been doxxing and harassing people online for years.

There are several accounts with varying names -- they come and go over various platforms. One will pop up, then disappear two weeks later, then another one will launch. Many of them carry a stock shot of a grey-haired man with glasses, smiling...

Trolls have often used the Clarkson profile to publish people's personal details and inundate them with abuse.

They've actually already had a crack at Osman -- just weeks after Avi posted Osman's phone number, the Clarkson profile posted on Facebook, "Hang him, and then deport him".

Tomorrow, at a court hearing in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, one person will use the few clues she has to find out who might be behind the Clarkson profile.

Seeing how this case goes, could give Osman some insight into what his options might be.

The David Clarkson profile is notorious and feared among left-wing activist circles in Australia.

One of its latest techniques is publishing these videos about its victims in an anonymous Google Drive folder, and then distributing them.

Robot voice: Today we continue our exposure clips. This time, we feature far left socialist and Muslim convert.

This is the 5th in a series of exposure clips on far left Asperger's sufferer and far left communist Greens voter...

This is the 29th in a series of exposure clips...

This germ hates the fact that Tony Abbott stopped the illegal Muslim boat arrivals...

Osman Faruqi: I've looked through these videos and from what I can see, the Clarkson profile targets don't have much in common, other than the fact they generally hold left-of-centre views on the environment, women's rights and refugee policy. They're often vulnerable - single parents, people with disabilities, or mental illness.

Alex Mann: And for years the David Clarkson profile has been used with near total impunity. It's published the home addresses of at least five people that we've been able to identify, and it's targeted dozens more with online harassment and threats. When any of the accounts connected to the David Clarkson profile are banned, others spring up under different names. Its victims are contacted at work, at home, and online.

Osman Faruqi: In May last year, one victim moved house after his address was posted online.

The Clarkson profile regularly posts photoshopped images of its victims' children too. Once, not too long ago, the face of a 13 year-old girl was pasted onto a sexual image of a semi-naked woman.

CONTINUE TO PART 2 >>>

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