Truth & Advocacy By Calvin-Lee Hardie – Inverness

For the longest time, I thought the way to fix what was said about me was to explain.

I thought if I just told my side calmly… if I pointed out the inaccuracies, the dates, the evidence — they’d see. I thought reason would win. I thought truth was obvious.

It wasn’t.

Because the internet doesn’t reward truth. It rewards volume.

It rewards outrage.

It rewards whatever gets the most clicks — and I was perfect for that. Not because I was guilty, but because I was visible.

So they dragged my name.

Pasted it onto every rumour.

Twisted it into every angle they could monetize.

And when I responded?

They ignored me. Or worse — they mocked me for speaking.

That’s when it clicked.

This isn’t a conversation. It’s a system.

And systems don’t respond to emotion.

They respond to pressure.

Legal pressure. Public pressure. Procedural pressure.

So I stopped explaining.

And I started applying pressure.

They say “stay quiet and it’ll go away.”

It won’t.

What goes away is your version — if you let theirs take over.

So I began the long, deliberate process of making them listen.

• Not with apologies.

• Not with emotional appeals.

• Not with vague “I just want to move on” statements.

I used policies.

Laws.

Screenshots.

Timelines.

Archived links.

Platform violations.

Procedural rights.

Because that’s how you speak a language systems can’t ignore.

And suddenly, I wasn’t “just angry” anymore.

I was a legal problem.

A compliance risk.

An official complaint reference number.

They weren’t laughing anymore.

The truth is: I stopped hoping they’d care.

I made them answer instead.

I made platforms acknowledge privacy breaches. I made editors confirm receipt of Article 17 requests. I made hosts forward complaints to registrants. I made the people behind the posts realise there is someone watching. Someone with receipts, a timeline, and the patience of someone who’s been burned but never beaten.

Because if they were going to keep talking, I was going to make it cost them — in admin hours, legal time, and public attention.

This is what no one tells you about reclaiming your name:

It’s not about shouting louder.

It’s about speaking strategically.

About learning how to turn harm into leverage.

About filing what others ignore.

About documenting what others delete.

It’s about using the same systems they used to erase you —

to restore yourself, word by word, filing by filing.

So no, I don’t explain myself anymore.

Because I don’t owe anyone a justification for protecting my dignity.

What I do owe myself — and every person they try to do this to — is action.

And that’s exactly what they’re getting.