Christopher Bouzy

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Christopher Bouzy
Born (1975-05-22) May 22, 1975 (age 48)
Known for
Children2

Christopher Bouzy (born May 22, 1975) is an American tech entrepreneur known for founding Bot Sentinel, a Twitter analytics service that tracks disinformation, inauthentic behavior and targeted harassment. In 2023, he launched Spoutible, a social media platform.

Early life[edit]

Christopher Bouzy was born on May 22, 1975.[1] He grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn,[2] in what he described as a lower-middle-class upbringing, with his mother, a single parent.[3] His mother was a Black immigrant from Panama, and worked for the New York Telephone Company.[2] Bouzy and his mother shared a residence with his grandmother, two aunts and two cousins.[3]

Bouzy started coding on a Mattel Aquarius computer his mother bought him when he was nine years old.[3][4] He graduated from high school in 1992.[2]

Career[edit]

Following his graduation from high school, Bouzy joined the IT department of the New York City Department of Education, using contract coding jobs to supplement his income.[2]

According to his LinkedIn page, Bouzy started out as a computer service technician and founded several firms prior to setting up Bot Sentinel.[4] In the 2000s, Bouzy developed the encryption software Cloak, which Avanquest Software acquired in 2006. Bouzy then developed Nexus Radio, a free platform for recording and playing back radio streams, which was later acquired by an investment group.[3] Bouzy also ran a dating website called IfSolo and a "peer-to-peer rewards network" known as Bytecent.[2]

Around 2016, Bouzy started teaching himself about machine learning algorithms.[3] He founded Bot Sentinel in 2018,[5] being inspired to do so by the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[3]

Bouzy gained significant public attention through his appearance in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which chronicles the lives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex.[4][6] In the docuseries, Bouzy discusses the findings of Bot Sentinel, which played a crucial role in uncovering coordinated online hate campaigns against Meghan Markle. His analysis revealed that a significant portion of the hateful and defamatory content directed at Meghan originated from a small number of highly active accounts. Bouzy's work highlighted the extent of the online abuse faced by Meghan, attributing much of it to organized troll networks and bot accounts.[7][6]

In February 2023, Bouzy launched Spoutible, a Twitter-like social media platform.[2]

Legal issues[edit]

In October 2022, attorney and anti-Amber Heard YouTuber[3][2] Nathaniel Broughty filed a lawsuit in Hudson County Superior Court in New Jersey, alleging that he had been incorrectly flagged by Bot Sentinel and defamed by Bouzy.[8] According to Broughty's complaint, Bouzy tweeted that Broughty "went from being the son of two crackheads, a drug dealer, a cop, and a prosecutor, to attacking journalists and me on social media", falsely asserted that he was not a real lawyer, derided him as a "Twitter troll and YouTube grifter", and alleged he had admitted to planting evidence on a suspect when he worked as a police officer. Bouzy filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.[2] The lawsuit was dismissed in August 2023, with the judge ruling that Broughty's complaint had failed to allege he had been intentionally lied about with the intention of harming him.[9]

In 2023, Bouzy was a co-defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by conspiracy theorist Jason Goodman. The lawsuit stemmed from Bouzy allegedly insinuating that Goodman might be guilty of sexual assault.[2][10] The allegation arose after Goodman admitted in a recorded phone call that someone had accused him of sexually assaulting a model. The case was dismissed with prejudice in 2024, and the judge imposed a filing injunction barring any future filings by Goodman against Bouzy in the district without first obtaining leave of court.[10]

Personal life[edit]

Bouzy lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, with his wife and son.[2] He also has a daughter.[3] Bouzy and his family have received harassment due to his work on Bot Sentinel.[3] In November 2022, an anonymous tipster emailed the North Bergen police, claiming that a child was screaming in Bouzy's home; the officers dispatched to investigate concluded that Bouzy was the victim of a false report.[2]

Bouzy's mother died in 2021 after being infected with COVID-19 while dealing with cancer. Bouzy said she was afraid to take the COVID-19 vaccine because "she had just heard so many different things [online]", and has cited her memory as part of the reason for being proactive with getting Twitter and other platforms to remove misinformation from their platforms.[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Christopher Bouzy [@cbouzy] (May 22, 2021). "BREAKING: I turned 46 today and Matt Gaetz is going through some things" (Tweet). Retrieved December 27, 2022 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Koerner, Brendan I. (June 6, 2023). "'Building a Platform Like Twitter Is Not Difficult'". Wired. Archived from the original on June 6, 2023. Retrieved June 6, 2023. This earned him the wrath of several pro-Depp partisans who were attracting big audiences by commenting on the trial. Among the enraged was a YouTuber named Nathaniel Broughty, a lawyer and former police officer who dismissed Bot Sentinel as "a paid propaganda" firm in Heard's employ.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lucas, Jessica (October 14, 2022). "'Sometimes You've Got to Fight Fire With Fire': A Vigilante Coder Goes to War Against Misinformation". The Information. Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2022. One anti-Heard YouTuber, NateTheLawyer...
  4. ^ a b c Wace, Charlotte (December 7, 2022). "Who is Christopher Bouzy in the Harry and Meghan Netflix trailer?". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  5. ^ Hays, Kali (August 22, 2022). "In the midst of its battle with Elon Musk, Twitter threatens to revoke Bot Sentinel's data access after founder suggests Twitter has more than 5% 'bots'". Business Insider. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  6. ^ a b Cockerell, Isobel (December 14, 2022). "Meghan never stood a chance against the internet". Coda Media. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  7. ^ "Christopher Bouzy appears in "Harry & Meghan" Netflix docuseries". Hello! Magazine. December 8, 2022. Archived from the original on May 25, 2023. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
  8. ^ Toutant, Charles (November 4, 2022). "An Attorney Who Was Labeled a 'Twitter Troll' Has Lawyered Up". New Jersey Law Journal. Archived from the original on January 3, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  9. ^ Maher, Jake (August 7, 2023). "'Nate The Lawyer' Loses NJ Defamation Suit Over Trolling". Law360. Archived from the original on May 16, 2024. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  10. ^ a b Analisa, Torres (February 8, 2024). "Case 1:21-cv-10878-AT-JLC" (PDF). Bot Sentinel. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 16, 2024. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
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