Lindy West

is a feminist writer who works as a weekly columnist for the guardian and culture writer for GQ magazine. On January 23, 2015 she participated in an interview with a reformed troll who she claims harassed her using her dead fathers name. She first covered this troll on July 31st, 2013: "On the other hand, though, this week someone created a parody account of my dead father to harass me  because of my stance on rape jokes (still going on, because COOOMEDYYYYY)."

Relevance
On February 2nd, 2015 Lindy West published a column detailing the same harassment story but claiming that GamerGate had inspired her to get in contact with her troll with the help of This American Life. Her story about being trolled was published in numerous places, in addition to being broadcast as an episode of the NPR radio show "This American Life."

Inconsistencies
"PawWestDonezo" does not exist as a Twitter user, an alias, or even in use whatsoever on the entire Internet until after Lindy West began writing and interviewing about it. Lindy West has been confronted about a lack of available evidence supporting her story about being trolled, but she refuses to provide any evidence, cites the coverage by This American Life as more than sufficient to back her story, and accuses those who confront her of crafting ridiculous conspiracy theories. This American Life has assured people in contact with them that they have confirmed her story thoroughly, but immediately cease all contact when asked for examples of how her story was verified or any tangible evidence which supports it.

Other inconsistencies in her story include varied reports over the number of tweets and/or emails from "PawWestDonezo", as well as the claim that despite having his contact information in the emails he sent her ("West received a second e-mail days later, this time including the man's name and other contact information"); she was only able to contact him as a result of having saved his emails (or email, depending on the article), and yet waited through "months of grueling silence" for him to reply to an email request that he participate in This American Life's piece. ("We only had made that one, brief exchange, in the summer of 2013, but I still had his email address.")

This American Life staff were asked about how they fact-checked the PawWestDonezo story. The response indicated that the correct handle for the troll was actually "PaulWestDonezo" and that "This story was fact-checked extensively by verifying email records and online accounts, amongst other methods."

No record of the handle "PaulWestDonezo" seems to exist before Lindy's troll story was published.