Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: TechnoPathology A Victim Of Censorship
In July 2025 this Substack was suppressed and deindexed. This required a decision from a specific person. Today, I return to the question of who could have done this.
Censorship, while common, is not simply something we should allow to pass unchecked. In July last year, this Substack was suppressed in a variety of ways.
On one level sharing was quickly shut down by moderators on Reddit in all of the major Neil Gaiman boards.
More concerning, however, was that the entire Substack was deindexed on Google and Bing. Posts made on BlueSky didn’t show up in the results either.
It was not simply that it didn’t show up on Google. Nothing showed up. The search query ‘‘TechnoPathology Neil Gaiman’’ turned up zero results.
At the bottom you will see this small message.
‘‘Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.’’
This means that it was not a question of Google’s own algorithmic sorting process, which sometimes deindexes for a variety of reasons.
This notice is a very reliable sign that someone made a ‘‘Right To Be Forgotten’’ Request through Google’s portal.
To do this, you need to supply ID, and you need to be mentioned in the content. And you need to provide the URL or the search query you want to deindex, and your reasons for requesting it.
EU RTBF is not supposed to be just for taking down content you don’t like, or that points out your ethical breaches. It’s also not for public interest topics or when it regards public figures, as my work certainly does.
As I see it, two figures that I write about are prime suspects for who made that request which ultimately led to the suppression of this project in its infancy.
They are the two reporters on Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman, Paul Curuana Galizia, and Rachel Johnson.
My Request To The European Data Protection Board
Dear Sir/Madam,
In July 2025 I went live with a series of articles which highlighted discrepancies in the reporting of a high-profile scandal involving the author Neil Gaiman.
Within a few hours, to my surprise, the articles had been delisted from Google, Bing, and even the platform’s own internal search engine.
Not only that but a search query on Google for ‘’Technopathology Neil Gaiman’‘ (Technopathology being the name of my substack) came up with 0 results. That is to say the deindexing appeared to be broad and query-wide, and excluded any combination of those terms.
I’m currently conducting a review to test the legitimacy and the legality of this deindexing, which according to a notice, was due to ‘’removal under European Data protection law’‘ which I’m presuming means a specific Right To Be Forgotten request was made at the time, by a named living individual who would have had to provide identification at the time.
One of those mentioned in the article, who would be in a position to make a RTBF request, is Rachel Johnson, sister of former UK PM Boris Johnson and one of the reporters whose conduct and ethics I was investigating.
After reviewing the articles that went public at the time, all content would appear to concern public interest topics, and individuals who are already in the public eye.
A few days later the deindexed pages were restored one by one, suggesting Google was reviewing manually and finding no justification for the deindexing. Nevertheless given the initial interest, this did act to suppress the articles in question and prevent the level of exposure they appeared to have been garnering.
As such, I am concerned that the requester may have submitted false information in their request, which may be unlawful depending on the exact claims. Given that my investigation is in part about journalistic ethics, and lapses of transparency, this would be concerning.
As an NUJ accredited journalist, the misuse of EU RTBF law and any obstacle to legitimate inquiry and freedom of expression is of the utmost concern.
I am also not an EU citizen, but based in the UK. I was not accessing through European servers. The only figure mentioned in the articles who would qualify as an EU citizen is Paul Curuana Galizia, who co-reported with Rachel Johnson. So, the additional question of whether it was appropriate and lawful to invoke EU law outside of its proper jurisdiction is also raised.
I’m formally requesting your aid in investigating how this transpired, and whether standards of legality, jurisdiction, journalistic ethics and transparency were indeed breached.
False Or Exaggerated Claims
It sometimes happens that a requester may claim defamation, false allegations, privacy harm, even when the content is public interest and their particular claims do not match reality.
Search engines sometimes accept these without full verification, or just use automated processes scanning for keywords. Then later they may do a manual review and reverse the decision.
Either way, the idea that someone can just concoct a pretend grievance about your entirely legitimate activity, suppress your activity, and avoid all accountability, facing no consequences even when it is shown to be invalid, is pretty wild.
There may be some valid uses of RTBF law, however, it’s undoubtedly a tool whereby the powerful suppress information they find inconvenient. It’s very rare for an ordinary person to make a successful request, so it would seem to be in effect, more a privilege than a right - and one that attacks our rights of expression.
If it is the case that Galizia or Johnson submitted the request, it would particularly embarrassing for them, given that in Master, they make exaggerated claims about NDA use on the part of Neil Gaiman.
I welcome constructive feedback to strengthen this work:
Please keep comments under 200 words so I can feature as many as possible.
If wording is unclear or could be misinterpreted, I’ll revise for clarity.
If you spot a factual or logical inconsistency, I’ll gladly correct or refine it.
Abuse or bad-faith commentary will not be tolerated.
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