I complained vigorously about the acquisition to freenode staff at the time, due to rumors that Lee and Falkvinge had acquired freenode in order to attempt to surveil private security issue discussions between Bitcoin developers in order to further the high profile cryptocurrency scams they were participating in.

I was consistently gaslit by freenode staff. The current story that this sale is all a surprise is a direct lie. At the time I got nothing but platitudes about how PIA just had freenode's best interest at heart, etc.

I'm sure not every staff member was in on it but the claim that it was Christel is just not true. I don't see how anyone regards freenode staff as trustworthy at this point.

The time for long time freenoders to defend freenode was in 2017.