a phoenix rising from the ashes

*takes a deep breath* no but seriously a warning wouldve been good instead of passive aggressively complaining about me after removing my comments.

And they will do things like start you with premises you can easily agree with, such as “I respect anyone who respects me” and “you should be able to be proud of who you are” and slowly, half step by half step, lead you places like “people who don’t respect me deserve violence” and “there’s nothing wrong with white pride”. 

Or they’ll start infighting among groups... they might have an account pretending to be black and keep re-posting a couple of pictures of mexican business owners making sure their businesses don’t get damaged during BLM protests... trying to make it look like mexican americans are “on the other side” to drive a wedge and overshadow the reality that uncountable mexican american protesters stood in solidarity with the BLM movement.

They might get real sneaky and have an account pretending to be bi, and then use that account to advocate for the inclusion of pedophiles in the LGBTQ community, using false equivalencies specifically to create a backlash against bi people or make people associate bi folk with pedophilia. Some 37 year old cishet dude might pretend to be a 23 year old lesbian and start blogging untrue fear mongering about how ace people use up resources meant to protect lesbian and gay people... because if they can get real gay and lesbian people arguing about it, that fractures a group that should be strong together, and alienates people who should be adding their strength to that group.

These are all the kind of thing that happen every day here on social media. ALWAYS do your best to talk to real life members of a community in person to round out your world view, and lean toward inclusion, compassion, and support when faced with someone online presenting a point of view that is trying to convince you of negative things about specific kinds of people -- especially people you would naturally identify or ally with.

Be suspicious of accounts that seem to be saying your enemy is the person next to you. Even if that account is who they say they are, who is the account next to them, whispering propaganda and rhetoric into their DMs?