You may be shocked to learn that a guy named “Defango” is an asshole.

I recorded an interview with him for my podcast today. He chose not to tell me he was live streaming it.

This is sadly a pretty typical story when trying to investigate disinformation and bad actors. Not just Manny Chavez III aka Defango aka Kang Pirate but everyone like him. They will take advantage of every possible thing to do what benefits themselves in the short term, without regard for anyone else, or the long term consequences.

Manny is a tragicomic figure in all of this. He knows a lot and is this close to being a real boy. He was there at the beginning of QAnon, knows all the players, and is pretty smart.

But he is unable to form normal relationships. He sabotages everything. It’s very sad.

I asked him to be on my podcast and recorded what I thought was a really interesting, largely sincere and mostly accurate 2-and-a-half hour conversation. He clarified some stuff that was murky and corrected a few things I had wrong. We covered CICADA, QAnon, and a lot of the historical context behind it all. And he gave his unvarnished if profane point of view on many things and many people.

I was going to post the interview for free with the caveat that I don’t endorse anything he says but people should hear his story. Sadly, now I can’t justify it.

The entire time, he was live-streaming it on his YouTube channel, including the pre-show chatter and the part where I went to the bathroom, not knowing I was on air. This is a breach of trust and a deep invasion of privacy. It also proves he doesn’t take any of it seriously.

I confronted him about it and he was unable to come up with anything but gaslighting. “Soon you will learn how to take it to the next level” is a thing he actually said.

No, Manny, it’s just a dick move by a bush-league player. All it does is prove you are incapable of being honest. It makes everything you said even more unreliable than you already are. And it explains the predicament you spent half the interview complaining about.

So, now Manny got a few hundred more views on his YouTube channel and he has broken my trust (again.)

If you’re interested, you can find the interview yourself on YouTube. Just don’t believe a word of it.