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Rita Goldberg Biography & Facts

Joshua Ryne Goldberg (born May 14, 1995) is an American internet troll, convicted of attempting a bombing on the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks while posing as an Islamic terrorist affiliated with ISIS. Goldberg first received law-enforcement and media attention under his Twitter handle "Australi Witness" following the Curtis Culwell Center attack, a terrorist attack on a Garland, Texas exhibit featuring images of Muhammad in May 2015, in which two assailants died in a shootout with police. The "Australi Witness" persona had, posing as a Perth jihadist, called for an attack on, and posted maps of, the center where the exhibit was taking place. "Australi Witness" was retweeted by one of the assailants before the attack, and praised the jihadist attackers in its aftermath. Goldberg claimed credit for the attack; he also allegedly planned terrorist attacks in Australia. Goldberg had many online identities and spent "huge amounts" of time on the internet. In addition to promoting terrorism, he made thousands of troll posts advocating for liberal feminism, neo-Nazism, and other ideologies. Initially charged with distributing information about bomb-making techniques in connection with a planned attack on a 2015 Kansas City 9/11 memorial event, Goldberg's trial was suspended pending efforts by doctors to return him to competence after it emerged that he had a history of mental illness. Goldberg was returned to competency and on December 20, 2017, pleaded guilty to federal charges of attempted malicious damage and destruction by an explosive of a building. On June 25, 2018, Goldberg was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and lifetime supervision. Early life Goldberg is Jewish. He lived with his parents in Orange Park, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville. Online activities Goldberg made online posts under many pseudonyms and spent 14 to 20 hours on the internet per day. After learning of his internet activities, the FBI attempted to place him under physical surveillance, but this was generally ineffective because for several weeks he did not leave his parents' house or open the front door. Islamist-related personas Australi Witness Australi Witness was an online persona claiming to be an ISIS-affiliated jihadist from Australia, who was described by Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, as holding a "prestigious position" in online jihadi circles. Australi Witness retweeted a call for an attack on the Draw Muhammad Contest being held at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, on May 3, 2015. The post that Australi Witness retweeted called on "brothers in Texas" to go there "with your weapons, bombs or with knifes [sic]" to "defend your Prophet". The Australi Witness persona also posted maps to the event. Subsequently, two men, identified as Phoenix, Arizona, residents Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were shot dead by police as they attempted to attack the contest. The FBI found that Simpson retweeted a message from the Australi Witness Twitter handle on the morning of the attack. Australi Witness claimed credit for having inspired the attack to multiple media outlets, praised Simpson and Soofi as martyrs, and expressed support for the attack in an interview with Fairfax Media. Australi Witness posted a 50-page guide online on how to join the terror group ISIS, and later posted a list of synagogues in Australia, ostensibly to encourage his supporters to attack them. He communicated that he was planning an attack in Melbourne to an FBI informant, who posed as a jihadist, and a 17-year-old who pleaded guilty to planning a Mother's Day 2015 bombing in Melbourne using pressure cooker and pipe bombs, which was never carried out, was found to have been in contact with Goldberg. According to the FBI, Australi Witness posted to an ISIS-related website that he had recruited two people (one in Los Angeles, the other in Melbourne) to, "using guns, shoot up local synagogues when the maximum amount of Jews are praying", stating that "the entire thing was my idea, and I helped them every step of the way". Australi Witness also claimed to have worked for Amnesty International, asked followers to target Australian cartoonist Larry Pickering, and repeatedly attempted to associate himself with anti-Islamophobia campaigner Mariam Veiszadeh. Junaid Thorne and fake jihadist personas Goldberg reportedly set up a fake account in the name of Australian Muslim preacher Junaid Thorne. Goldberg also created multiple fake jihadist accounts, which interacted with the fake Thorne account, and he then sent screengrabs of the fabricated interactions to journalists, at least one of whom published the fake interaction in an article of The West Australian in April 2015. The fake jihadist personas were also used to besmirch Amnesty International and the Human Rights Law Centre by claiming that the fake jihadists had employment ties, or donated money to, these organizations. This persona was linked to Goldberg on Facebook. Feminism-related personas Caitlin Roper Goldberg reportedly set up a fake Twitter account in the name of anti-sexual exploitation campaigner Caitlin Roper, who allegedly earned his ire because of her efforts to get the video game Grand Theft Auto V banned in Australia. The fake account sent Promoted Tweets that targeted the transgender community. Tanya Cohen Under this persona, Goldberg posed as a female left-wing Australian activist opposed to free speech. Goldberg's work under the persona was published in many places, including Thought Catalog, a Daily Kos diary; and Feministing, a feminist blog. Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto apologized for believing a hoax allegedly perpetrated by Goldberg under the name "Tanya Cohen" earlier in 2015. National Review's Charles Cooke described the article that Taranto responded to as "exquisite satire", while Mike Masnick of Techdirt called it "damn good satire, because it's just stupid enough at the beginning to drag you in and make you believe it, and then, slowly but surely, over the course of a very long writeup, it starts tossing out ever more ridiculous ideas -- drip... drip... drip -- that just, gently, turn up the outrage-o-meter, such that many people don't even realize that it's satire." This persona was linked to Goldberg on Facebook. White supremacist personas European88 and Reddit On Reddit, Goldberg made thousands of racist posts under the neo-Nazi persona "European88." Under this persona, Goldberg created and moderated many controversial Reddit communities that were racist in nature, including being a moderator for the "r/CoonTown" subreddit. Many subreddits he created or moderated, including "r/CoonTown", were banned during a period when Reddit's content policy was revised in August 2015. "Michael Slay" Goldberg posted on the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer as "Michael Slay". Upon his arrest and unveiling, the administrator of the site removed his posts. In 2022, while .... Discover the Rita Goldberg popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rita Goldberg books.