I want to publicly say that I strongly disagree with the removal of negative ratings against Lauda/TMAN.
In the case of Lauda, this is not the first time that he has been accused of extorting someone, and AFAICT, the claims that zeroaxl was evading taxes/engaging in illegal activity were baseless. What could be reasonably confirmed however was that zeroaxl has/had a large amount of BTC, and had the resources to pay an extortion payment in order to prevent an invasive police investigation.
The first "extortion attempt" didn't seem legitimate to me.
This thread is disturbing but I would have liked to see an actual transaction as more solid proof that Lauda wasn't just bluffing to bring a scammer out into the open. If it was a bluff for entrapment, it is not extortion, even though I don't agree with the behavior. For me it seems like speculation as to what would or could have happened and just having speculation doesn't make it easy marking a person negative for extortion who appears to put a good amount of time and effort into helping the community and people in general.
I agree with the Staff removal and would be fine leaving a negative feedback if I had better evidence of actual extortion but I don't see it.
Sorry for the severely delayed response.
It looks like you agreed that Lauda did in fact extort zeroaxl below, however I would point out that
findlaw.com describes extortion as "[...]gaining of [...]money[...] by [...] threat of [...] harm to reputation, or 4) unfavorable government action[...]" and also "[...]threat to expose the details of someone's private lives to the public unless money is exchanged[...]"
I would say that it is clear that Lauda's and TMAN's action meet the above criteria.
In regards to this potentially being a "bluff for entrapment" I would strongly disagree that is the case. I would point out that paying an extortion payment is not an admission of guilt. For example, if Lauda were to tell you that you needed to send him 2 BTC or he will tell your wife that you recently cheated on her, the fact that you (hypothetically) paid this extortion payment does not necessarily mean that you recently cheated on your wife. I presume that most people would not want their significant other receiving this kind of message -- the chances of you paying might be higher if you had cheated on her many years ago that she found out about (possibly in a similar manor), but remain loyal since then, or if your wife has trust issues, or if you are having marital problems, but remain loyal to her.
I also remember a few years ago that Roger Ver posted a video of him receiving a skype call in which someone threatened to "SWAT" his mother if he did not sent 20 BTC to a specific address. I suspect that there was no reason for a SWAT team to visit Ver's mother's house, however Ver might have paid if he didn't want his mother getting 'swated' -- IIRC Ver actually ended up offering a 20 BTC bounty for the guy's arrest.
This is not a case of extortion strictly speaking, rather it is a case of attempted extortion, which is just as much of a crime, and is just as bad.
In regards to your comments about my motives, I would say that I have a history of not being friendly to extortionists. I would refer you to my public interactions regarding puzzle.me and and candystripes/thoughtful to see my long history of my strong negative opinions regarding attempted extortion.
