Who cares if I'm pretty if I fail my finals?

You should look at sources. Always. Taking a moment to say “wait, who said that? what happened?” isn’t victim blaming, it isn’t siding with an abuser, its taking a step back to understand a whole picture, in its context. 

When you do this, 

you are actually a better ally than just knee-jerk, superficial, performative support.

you can approach with nuance.

you can avoid speaking over them, and learn how to be a better, more supportive ally.

you can avoid repeating old claims that have already been either addressed or disproven.

you can avoid propaganda and disinformation, which not only serves to undermine whoever its about, but it undermines everyone else. 

This post is about political disinformation, but when people get away with making false allegations about abuse or racism or homophobia or any other gross behavior it undermines the positions of actual victims because people who are prone to bad faith can say “ah, that was a scam, victims are scammers”. When you make false claims about politicians, you undermine the political process and allow people who are prone to bad faith to say “see I don’t need to participate”.

if you need to do something about it, you better fact check, you better keep records, you better use your science brain. otherwise you will just be someone else’s private army.

again, abusers make for more appealing victims than the people they wrong, because they practice it. they’re sweeter, nicer, sadder, their stories make more sense, their calls to action are easier and more satisfying.

‘real’ victims are left confused, upset, fumbling around to try and understand what happened to them, how they were wronged, who hurt them, how badly they’re hurt, what it all means, how much of it was their fault. real victims don’t have a slick and heart-rending story of woe right out of the starting gate. real victims are dealing with mood swings, anger, outrage, resentment, jealousy, confusion, denial, terror. they lash out. they contradict themselves. they blame themselves for being hurt, they blame people who are trying to help them for not doing it sooner or better. they’re angry and uncooperative, or they’re stiff-necked and emotive, or they’re Perfectly Fine Thank You because why should you get to see the damage? who made you the judge?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

We who are feminists are called immoral women. We who are gay are called sinners. We who are Black, Latino, Asian, or people of color are called Immoral because we live in singlefamily households, because we are sometimes poor, because we are different. Well, I want everyone here to understand one fact. Morality has no gender, morality has no race, and morality has no sexual orientation.

"Urvashi Vaid was a pioneering activist, a lawyer, author, and a leader in the LGBTQ movement, who spent over four decades fighting for equality and justice for all people. During the height of the AIDS crisis, she led the oldest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the United States and spoke out against the governernment's response to the AIDS crisis. In 1999, she famously disrupted former President George Bush's national address on AIDS by holding up a sign that read, “Talk Is Cheap, AIDS Funding Is Not” (pictured in first image). They kicked her out but it was able to steer the coversation on the administration's failed handling of the AIDS epidemic and added pressure on the government to increase funding for AIDS relief. The history of LGBTQ rights in America cannot be told without bringing up the name Urvashi Vaid. She also advocated for women's rights, anti-war efforts, prison reform, immigration and health care justice. Her impact is immeasurable. Sadly she passed away last month at the age of 63, after fighting cancer for several years."

I got radicalized into the far-right on TikTok.  Well, technically I didn’t, but an account that I made did, and this is a graph of what that looked like.  I just published this study, and I’ll link it in the comments, but I’ll also break it down right now, here.

So I wanted to examine whether or not transphobia is a gateway prejudice that leads to like, broader far-right radicalization.  It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the far-right is transphobic, but we wanted to see whether being transphobic alone was enough to lead you to the far right.

So I made a brand new TikTok account and followed 14 creators known to post transphobic content.  Then I started scrolling my ‘For You’ page, and I started exclusively engaging with transphobic content, and I documented the main narratives of the more than 400 videos recommended to me.  We also double-blind coded this, meaning that another researcher also watched every video and coded the narratives, and then if we ever disagreed, more researchers would come in and perform a tie-breaker.  Once we removed sponsored videos and videos that had been taken down before they could be double-coded, we were left with 360 videos.

Of the 360 total videos, 103 were homophobic or anti-trans, 42 were misogynistic, 29 contained racist narratives or white supremacist messaging, and 14 endorsed violence.  Obviously, TikTok didn’t just like give us neo-nazi content immediately.  I actually didn’t get my first Nazi symbol until video 141.  But the more I interacted with transphobic content, the more I was fed not only more transphobic content, but also homophobia and misogyny and racism and antisemitism.  So I didn’t actually have to interact with racist content to be fed white supremacist content, I just had to engage with transphobic content.

What you see in this graph is the TikTok algorithm starting off with a normal feed — memes, recipes, whatever — and then going “OHH, you’re transphobic!  Have you tried hating the gays?  What about women?”

So, it appears that transphobia can radicalize a TikTokker.

Around video 400, you’ll notice an interesting spike in far-right figures, hate symbols, antisemitism and calls to violence.  That’s when I reached fascist TikTok and set my phone on fire.  400 videos might sound like a lot, but if a user watches each video for an average of 20 seconds, they would end up watching 400 videos in just over 2 hours.  So, a user could basically download the app at breakfast and be fed the overtly white supremacist, neo-nazi content before lunch.

-pauses, purses lips-

That’s not good!

/ end transcription]

Link to the study:

There’s been studies looking into online radicalisation that have worked by engaging whatever the algorithm puts in front of you and seeing how quickly it falls into the deep end—this is not that.

This was a study where she only engaged with videos containing TERF ideas and transphobia, and TikTok started mixing in homophobia, misogyny, white supremacy and nazism on a “users who like A may enjoy X, Y and Z, also” basis, even as she continued to only engage with the content explicitly about transphobia.

Which is to say that if a person joins TikTok to connect with TERF activists and influencers, they’re going to find themselves surrounded by all of the aforementioned in the span of hours.

Israeli police tried to force a Palestinian Muslim woman to remove her headscarf because it “matched the colors of the Palestinian flag”

And in Hebron, busloads of settlers have taken over a building and run towards it with sleeping mats, all from just today. 

ID: Tweet one by Yara Alafandi @/ AfandiYara reads:  Israeli police forcing a Palestinian woman to take off her hijab because it’s the same colours as the Palestinian flag and you’re still arguing that Israel isn’t an apartheid state? #Shereen_Abu_Aqleh

Dr. Carmel Harrington, the lead researcher for the study, was one of these parents. Her son unexpectedly and suddenly died as an infant 29 years ago. (...) Harrington explained what she was told about the cause of her child’s death. 

"Nobody could tell me. They just said it's a tragedy. But it was a tragedy that didn't sit well with my scientific brain.” 

Since then, she’s worked to find the cause of SIDS, both for herself and for the medical community as a whole. She went on to explain why this discovery is so important for parents whose babies suffered from SIDS. 

"These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault," she said.

this is obviously just a start, more research will be needed, and the team behind this is entirely crowdfunded. if you would like to donate, the link is below, and donations are tax deductible for australian tax payers

The whole civilized world must see the conditions in which the wounded, crippled defenders of Mariupol are and act!

In complete unsanitary conditions, with open wounds bandaged with non-sterile remnants of bandages, without the necessary medication and even food.

We call on the UN and the Red Cross to show their humanity and reaffirm the basic principles on which you were created by rescuing wounded people who are no longer combatants.

The servicemen you see in the photo and hundreds more at the Azovstal plant defended Ukraine and the entire civilized world with serious injuries at the cost of their own health. Are Ukraine and the world community now unable to protect and take care of them?

We demand the immediate evacuation of wounded servicemen to Ukrainian-controlled territories, where they will be assisted and provided with proper care.

(Photo: @kztsky Instagram)

https://www.change.org/p/save-mariupol-192ea846-9fe1-476c-bb72-5474538c7c06

We are fighting against the return of dictatorship in the country. We are fighting against the continuation of corruption and injustice. We are fighting for a better future. We are fighting, so that we may finally know peace.

Today, multiple issues regarding the elections have come up. Vote-Counting Machines (VCMs) “malfunctioning”, SD cards missing, people getting PAID for voting for the dictator’s son and his party, and more. Even the commission in charge of ENSURING FAIR ELECTIONS is failing to fully understand the grasp said issues, wasting people’s time and votes.

If you do find this post and read it, all I ask is that you share the news about the Philippines. Anything about today (May 9, 2022), about Halalan 2022/PH Elections 2022, about BBM and the Marcos Family, about Leni Robredo, Kiko Pangilinan, Chel Diokno and the rest of Robredo’s senatorial slate (+ Neri Colmenares),

and if this inspires you to learn everything else, then please do.

We are asking for your help, not in votes, but in sharing what is happening here to the rest of the world. Whatever happens, whatever the results are, we want the whole world to see what is going on. (But thank you to the foreign news outlets who have been speaking on this).

All the Filipinos are asking for is a fair government, where lives are recognized and uplifted. We cannot be kept in the dark again, we have had enough.