Far-right activist seeks information from Telstra to unmask PRGuy

A far-right activist has vowed to return to court in his fight to unmask a pro-Labor Twitter account after the first attempt led to a dead end.

Far-right activist Avi Yemini has vowed to return to court in his fight to unmask PRGuy after the first attempt to uncover the account’s identity led to a dead end.

Early this month, Yemini obtained a Federal Court order that directed Twitter to handover personal details linked to the anonymous account @PRGuy17.

Yemini plans to sue PRGuy for defamation, but asked the Federal Court to help him determine the identity of the user in order to lodge the claim in court.

The social media giant complied with the order and supplied Yemini with about 500 IP addresses but the information provided was not enough to pinpoint the owner of the account.

Yemini, a correspondent for Canadian website Rebel News, now needs Telstra to identify the holder of the addresses.

Due to privacy reasons, Telstra only discloses the holder of IP addresses when compelled by a court order.

A Telstra spokesman said no formal request had been made.

“Any such request needs to be made by the appropriate authorities under a lawful request,” he said.

Yemini told the Herald Sun he legally had to give Telstra the option to comply without the court order.

“Due to privacy, we expect them to require the court order which is a much faster process than with Twitter as they are an Australian company with a dedicated team for these kinds of requests,” he said.

“The time-consuming part of our litigation with Twitter was filing and service to both their US and Irish head offices.”

Yemini said he would file the court order next week and claimed he was “weeks away” from unmasking the account.

PRGuy, who hides behind The Simpsons character Troy McClure, has gained more than 89,000 followers after joining Twitter in March 2020 as the country was plunged into its first Covid lockdown.

The high-profile account has been a staunch supporter of Premier Daniel Andrews and Melbourne’s lockdown rules.

The identity of the individual has remained a mystery but rumours have continued to swirl on social media on who could be behind the account.

PRGuy was contacted for comment.