toddandclare.com

== BACKGROUND ==

the Wikileaks Twitter account has drawn attention to an "Elaborate plot now launched to accuse our editor of being a paedophile"
https://archive.fo/sEr0T

the tweet links to this post on prweb.com, posted on 11/10/16
https://archive.fo/b5CNT

the article states that the website and "United Nations signatory" toddandclare.com (t&c network solutions) has published a report accusing Assange of child sex offenses and submitted it to various United Nations entities. the article was apparently authored by t&c themselves and is accompanied by a disturbing video (Rape Culture by Ellie) from their Youtube channel

t&c claims to be responding to an investigation into Assange's use of their site involving a minor. bizarrely, they also claim the investigation is being carried out by the Royal Bahamas Police Force. more bizarre still, they allege Assange approached them first, earlier in 2016, to be an ambassador for an anti-rape campaign.

the article refers to t&c's membership in the United Nations Global Compact initiative. their status as a United Nations Global Compact member also prominently features on their website. an archive from 07/10/16 shows that they were participants at that time and active since 06/05/16
https://archive.fo/bgHSr

however, t&c was delisted from the Global Compact for "Other reason related to the Integrity Measures", apparently one day after they posted their article on prweb.com
https://archive.fo/9Mz3e

t&c has commented on their delisting here
https://archive.fo/Cqt4q

i don't know if that closes the case or not, but i was still interested in who these people were and will summarise a few things i found.


== T&C ONLINE ACTIVITY ==

t&c claim to have run their business since 2011 as an email-based, invite-only dating service
https://archive.fo/lJz5i#selection-817.0-829.1
but searching through google turns up no evidence of their existence before late 2015, at which point they suddenly burst into action.

domaintools has only known about toddandclare.com since 19/09/15
https://archive.fo/iutHb

the @toddandclare Twitter account made its first tweet on 23/10/15
https://archive.fo/zWpJR

the first video on the t&c Youtube channel was posted on 24/10/15
https://archive.fo/AMIsS

the earliest archives of toddandclare.com on archive.org are from 27/10/15
https://archive.fo/nFFJH

google trends data shows how much interest there has been in t&c (none prior to dec/2015)
https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=%22Todd%20and%20Clare%22

it's difficult to believe t&c ran a successful dating service for at least 4 years prior to the above dates without leaving some kind of footprint, even if it did only employ some strange email-based system.


== THE KATIA PROJECT ==

the Katia project is a t&c-sponsored screening program for women. it was announced on prweb.com on 02/02/16, to be launched on the same day
https://archive.fo/VTKji

according to t&c, Noam Chomsky is on the record as having said "very worthwhile project" at some stage, in relation to something
https://archive.fo/hcZP0#selection-91.0-91.26
i guess we're led to believe he was referring to the Katia project, but a google search for '"chomsky" "Katia" "very worthwhile project"' returns no results apart from t&c's material.

t&c only got in on this anti-rape business at this stage. prior to that, their Youtube and social media output was mostly concerned with dating tips and other banal things
https://archive.fo/vVjR6

: the video featured in both of t&c's prweb.com articles, "Rape Culture by Ellie", was the first rape-related media t&c produced and is an advertisement for the Katia project. the video features a girl who is either heavily made up to look like she was beaten or had been beaten minutes prior to filming her part. either way it's a very aggressive video, especially for an organization's initial foray into the subject. the video was posted to Youtube on feb/22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBdzbMpo9I

t&c claims the Katia project is developed by Scott Drotar, described as a "Google engineer, women's counselor, and University of Notre Dame mathematician". he is referred to but not mentioned by name in t&c's video material. according to his website, Drotar did graduate from Notre Dame, but he never says he worked for Google. with regard to Katia, Drotar says he is "proud to be part of their work" and links to t&c's Katia page, which seems at odds with t&c's current perspective which places Drotar more centrally, relegating themselves to "sponsors".
https://archive.fo/nUcvY#selection-259.36-267.1
https://archive.fo/hcZP0#selection-105.131-105.254
https://archive.fo/mvYAr#selection-145.0-155.192
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDG46Vyxh8c&feature=youtu.be&t=5

a weird thing about that last video is the audio messes up when she describes someone involved in the project as a "rape counselor" (as per the subtitles). this person might be Drotar who, as mentioned above, is described elsewhere by t&c as a women's counselor - but not a rape counselor. it looks to me as if that line of dialogue has been poorly dubbed over or deliberately obscured. i'm not sure what to make of that.

Drotar, for his part, seems like a regular developer.


== YOUTUBE ==

searching Youtube for information about t&c mostly turns up their own videos. the majority of these videos are bland relationship tips, some are testimonials from people who look and sound as if they are reading from scripts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv0O99TCmg4

comments are disabled on every video despite the most popular having under 500 views
https://archive.fo/vVjR6

getting a bit weirder, there is a Youtube channel with a bunch of foot fetish videos linking to toddandclare.com (describing toddandclare.com as a "fetish dating" site). the name of the channel is "sara smith", but the videos feature several different women. with the exception of the first video ("weirdest dating video ever"), the women never mention toddandclare.com, so it looks for the most part like the videos were ripped from some fetish site and emblazoned with toddandclare.com links. one of the videos is titled "my dating profile" which could imply these videos belong to a particular user, but no user profile is mentioned, just a link to toddandclare.com. the channel was started on 15/05/16. comments happen to be disabled for these videos, as well
https://archive.fo/X5baP
https://archive.fo/pNPBz
https://archive.fo/0ngvo (the age-restricted Youtube page)
https://archive.fo/81hFi (Youtube's image preview with t&c watermark)

hard to say whether this fetish channel was an attempt by the operators of t&c to quickly generate more interest in their website or if there is some other explanation. a bit of a coincidence that they both have locked comments, but who knows.


== CONTRADICTORY CONTENT ==

t&c claim they hold christian values and the website is almost described as a christian dating site in places
https://archive.fo/6zFTx#selection-1497.55-1497.110
https://archive.fo/6Bs6s

and they aren't just christians, but christians who are into some fundamentalist home schooling movement called "teach them diligently"
https://archive.fo/rY3wD#selection-643.0-649.8
https://teachthemdiligently.net/about/statement-of-faith/

so it's hard to understand how they square their goals and beliefs with some of the profile pictures they host on their website
https://archive.fo/d5n5B
https://archive.fo/UH1Kp
https://archive.fo/koxx6

i'm not sure how odd these profile pictures would seem were it not for those fetish videos. the website in general looks like a sham. the profiles are of uniformly pretty girls with well shot photographs. people put effort into their dating profiles but you expect a few weird looking women or poorly shot pictures.


== BUZZFEED ARTICLE ==

i couldn't find any reliable press on toddandclare.com at all. the nearest thing is an unflattering buzzfeed article that was apparently deleted some time ago. todd hammond talks about it a couple of times and uses it as an excuse for t&c's lack of press
https://archive.fo/rY3wD#selection-636.10-673.238
https://archive.fo/mvYAr#selection-173.0-177.437

a 404'd buzzfeed article mentioning toddandclare.com exists in google's index but not its archives. unfortunately it doesn't seem to be archived anywhere else, either. it was posted on 28/06/16 and could be the one todd hammond is referring to.
https://archive.fo/IZyuC

if anyone finds the article i'd be interested to read it (email below).


== IN CLOSING + BRIEF TIMELINE ==

i'm not a researcher and i don't know if any of this is enlightening at all, i just found it all pretty strange. toddanclare.com could just be a scam - i seriously doubt it's genuine, whatever it is - but it's pretty crazy to start making demands of the United Nations if all you want to do is fleece idiots. it seems to be a shady and dishonest organization at the least, and it looks like it could be a front for some political activity. it's all pretty bizarre given they appear to have been around for only one short year.

??/10/15  t&c appears on the Internet, claims a 4-year long history that doesn't seem to exist, proceeds to fuck around for a while
02/02/16  the Katia project is announced and launched
05/02/16  the UN determines Assange is being arbitrary detained
06/05/16  t&c becomes a member of the Global Compact
10/10/16  t&c uses their status as "a UN signatory" to submit a report to the UN regarding its position on Assange's arbitrary detention
12/10/16  t&c is delisted from the Global Compact


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