It's been 4 days since the announcement of Byuu's confirmed death and Josh has yet to answer why he hid the knowledge of the FOIA he received last year confirming Byuu's death while this year claiming he was innocent of such accusations and promoting the unfounded claim that Keffals bullied someone to suicide. He's not seriously going to run with lie that he didn't believe the autopsy reports he got last year... right ?
He claims he's skeptical of the autopsy. What knowledge he has on the subject, I don't know.
I was wondering about the one year wait too. I guess Null is gonna say it took him that long to post the FOIA documents, because he had to redact all the documents himself, but I personally suspect he waited that long because, even a year ago, #DropKiwiFarms was still fresh on the mind of journalists, and if he had come out and said, yeah, not only did I allow my forum to be used to spread rumours about this guy being
蒸発, I myself actively participated in the spreading of those rumours on my own podcast... he knows journalists would've been all over it. Hell, it's even possible that Byuu's estate might have pulled an Alex Jones on Null and sued him for claiming the suicide was just a front for Byuu going 蒸発.
As I posted in the Byuu thread here on OF, more and more Western journalists have begun researching the phenomenon of 蒸発, making documentaries about the phenomenon, and reaching out to Japanese organizations that specialize in actually finding those people who attempt to 蒸発. Given the increase in Western interest on this topic, It was only a matter of time before a serious journalist - and by that I mean someone not from Kotaku - would have learned that there was an ongoing online rumour about an American programmer going 蒸発 in Japan, and would've looked into it. Given this future prospect, I suspect Null preferred to come with the FOIA information himself, and then have his forum spin it to a narrative that absolves him and them for having spread such falsehoods.