Christopher Bouzy
Born (1975-05-22) May 22, 1975
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

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

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]

In the mid-2010s, Bouzy was active under the handle "IconicExpert" on Bitcointalk, a forum for crypto traders. During this period, he was accused by several users of using bots and sock puppet accounts to "pump up the value of coins he'd stockpiled". According to Joshua Bouw, co-founder of a digital currency known as BlackCoin, Bouzy developed a special wallet for the currency, but people who purchased the $20 "BlackCoin Card" never received it, and Bouzy allegedly kept a number of coins he had promised to hand out at a canceled promotional event. In 2023, Bouzy characterized the allegations as "misinformation and disinformation" promoted by people with ulterior motives.[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]

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

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.[6] 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]

As of June 2023, Bouzy is a co-defendant in a defamation lawsuit by a conspiracy theorist for allegedly insinuating that they might be guilty of rape.[2]

Personal life

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]

Bouzy appeared in the 2022 documentary series Harry & Meghan.[7]

References

  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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 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. 1 2 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 24, 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. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ 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.
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