To a specific audience that they have cultivated, though. And almost universally with a highly specific framing. What they are doing is finding posts from queer children, teachers, or parents, adding a line that frames it as inherently pedophilic or something, and then posting it to their extremely large follower base of explicitly bigoted people that would not probably have been aware of the post otherwise. Those people are obviously going to get really angry at the people the original posts were from and a portion of them will do something about it, you're essentially vastly increasing the size of the audience that's aware of their posts and the proportion of that audience that is hostile. It's essentially the online equivalent of having a big mob behind you that's really angry about some group of people existing, and happening to see one of that group and pointing at them, and then the mob goes after them. Sure, that person was existing out in the open for anyone to see before you pointed at them, but you are explicitly directing a very specific group of people to be aware of them, within a very specific context and framing that wouldn't have been added to that person otherwise, and that has consequences. Additionally, they will often choose clips from things that are pulled completely out of context. Reposting content that was already online is not necessarily an inherently neutral behavior, because you are always reposting it to somewhere; in this case, taking a post from a person and boosting and broadcasting it to a huge group of people that hate that person.
I mean, the assumption I was operating under was that someone would see that something in the context of the previous part of that conjunction and assume I meant something in the same vein, or at the same level of seriousness. In the same way that someone could say "I think I got stabbed or something" and you wouldn't assume that the something to which they referred might be a hangnail. But this is The Playbook people who don't want to acknowledge what the right is doing use all the time: play dumb, like you can't understand basic language or logic that you would otherwise completely understand in any other context, and require everyone to do every ounce of the research and work for you in finding you evidence for every statement made, in order to raise the barrier of effort until the other person gives up, while maintaining the appearance of neutrality.
> Is being pedantic about this adding anything to the conversation?
Asking for specific examples to substantiate serious allegations is not "being pedantic." This is a divisive topic, passing around potentially untrue or exaggerated claims only muddies the water.
> Libs of TikTok’s post said it happened “in front of children.” Anthony said no children were present. He was clothed and laughing in the video.
I suppose if your point is that “if they don’t say the word pedophile they are not insinuating anything to that effect” then you are correct. If insinuation is not something that exists, the argument that there is no connection between the libsoftiktok posts and the bomb threats makes sense.
> Stop being obtuse (pretending to be naive) and just do your own research.
I have, and what I've found does not support the claims that people are making. Granted, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are quite difficult to browse without an account/app, so I acknowledge it's possible that things exist I haven't been able to find.
I find it bizarre how aggressive people are getting in response to me asking for concrete examples.
> Granted, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are quite difficult to browse without an account/app, so I acknowledge it's possible that things exist I haven't been able to find.
What have you found without accounts on these platforms and how are you confident in what you’ve concluded given that limitation?
You’re responding to a type of comedy bit. Rich doesn’t want to post “I think the complaints about libsoftiktok are made up” because explaining why that is isn’t as entertaining as simply making disagreeing with that position as tedious as possible. Rather than trying to convince other people of this position, it is more fun to flat out refuse to do any research at all — and then move the goalposts once somebody falls for the bait.
For example, I actually answered Rich’s last question but didn’t get a reply because it didn’t fit into the bit.
Well, I was trying to figure out which category he fit into: sealioning, trolling, intensionally obtuse, emotionless pedant, naive internet sleuth, lazy internet sleuth, and even "completely serious fact-finder with no agenda". I think your "comedy" falls under "trolling" but I'd also be prepared for him being a completely serious fact-finder who truly believes that people are just lying. I've kind of lost interest because he's not contributing anything to the discussion.
I’ve never heard the term sealioning, that’s super useful! Yeah I would file this bit under that umbrella, as serious fact-finders would (in this case) do a 10 second search themselves, whereas “prove libsoftiktok is malignant here on this page, the comments section of a hacker news post” isn’t a hallmark of good faith engagement.
> For example, I actually answered Rich’s last question but didn’t get a reply because it didn’t fit into the bit.
You didn't get a reply because I haven't been on the site.
You also didn't answer my question. You posted a blog post alleging that specific claims had been made. I acknowledged that the allegations seemed serious and asked if the video in question was available to be viewed, to which you simply responded "no."
Saying "you can easily find examples" is disingenuous when many of the examples are making or repeating claims that are either unsourced or with dubious evidence. For example, the linked article seems to omit context that took me "10 seconds" to find.
I love this bit. Have you posted a write up of what you’ve found that indicates that the complaints about libsoftiktok are made up? I’m guessing you have even more links to post in the two days between your posting this on this site:
>I have, and what I've found does not support the claims that people are making.
Sure. Her main bread and butter is taking video clips out of context to try to prove that trans kids are the victims of "parents with munchausen's by proxy" and "doctors who want to experiment on innocent children", and that queer people just existing in the world around kids is somehow inherently "grooming" them, as well as that queer teachers are grooming kids, that suicide prevention hotlines for trans kids are grooming them, that lgbtq aid organizations for kids are grooming them, etc. This article covers the basics but it is so much more extensive: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/chaya-raichik-li.... Just go look at her substack.
It's actually like well-known internet etiquette in many places that if you're going to share a post from a person you vehemently disagree with to a different Community or fan base or audience or whatever that also disagrees with them, that you block out their username and any other identifying info for precisely this reason, to prevent them from getting harassed. Chaya Raichik doesn't respect that.
That's a lot of words. They repost without editing material submitted to the most popular social media sites in the world. The original posters are literally getting wider exposure: exactly what they wanted.
I'm sorry you struggle to read more than a few sentences of words, but I'm trying to be very clear and precise in my explanations in order to help the people playing dumb in this comments section.
The clips she shares are very often not edited by her, but out of context clips edited by someone else to serve a narrative. Even when they aren't, how you frame a clip when you present it to someone and the prior expectations and beliefs of the audience that is viewing the clip can very strongly influence the perceived import of the clip itself, even if it's the exact same footage. And she is explicitly sharing clips of queer people to an audience that is already pre-convinced that queer people are evil and groomers, with that explicit framing added on to the clip. Even if we ignored that for the moment, my comment, which you clearly did not read, outlined exactly why even ignoring all the interpretive effects, sharing a clip of someone to a very large audience of people who hate one of the groups that person is a part of is a really bad thing. When someone posts something online that doesn't mean they automatically have to want a gigantic audience of people who explicitly hate them to become aware of the clip, that's nonsensical, and what l o t t is doing is essentially directing the eye of Sauron that is the awareness of her mob towards people that they are already primed to hate, when otherwise those people's posts would have gone completely unnoticed and under the radar to that mob, thereby directing a lot of hate that would not have otherwise happened at those people. Do you not understand how this works? Maybe I should put it in terms of cancel culture and that would help you understand it. Imagine some small time conservative business owner says something on his personal Facebook page that's kind of stupid, but would have completely flown under the radar otherwise. However, some big Twitter leftist account finds that post, and boosts it to their large following, with a comment about how evil and bigoted this person is, obviously that huge base of fans it is going to go after that person and just make their life hell, when without the influence of that post it would have flown under the radar. Can you see how that would be bad now?
This is increasingly the far-right playbook. Get a big audience all worked up about something via a steady stream of lies and outrage, and then pretend like you had nothing to do with it when one of your followers does something illegal.
We have such groups around me which have resulted in vandalism of businesses and multiple bomb threats sent to multiple libraries. These assholes for a while were monopolizing the citizen comments section of city council meetings at any city which was allowing any kind of drag show or drag themed event (think drag queen story hour) in town.
The notable case of vandalism was a coffee shop not only with broken windows, but they also keep finding feces in corners of the place.
It's sad, because I think a lot of the conservative rage thats being misdirected into the culture war actually ultimately comes from a pretty fair place, which is the economic gutting out that they've been facing, and the complete and utter lack of care or efficacy of the Democratic party in trying to help working people (and the Dem's classist disdain for them), and I'd like to team up with them to help with that, but it's not really possible when they would want me dead instead. If they could simply put aside their bigotry and work with people it would be a lot easier.
It's democracy, but also they are acting like assholes.
> Vandalism, is hardly exclusive to "the far-right".
Getting your followers to call in bomb threats over trans-friendly content and events, however, is exclusive to the far right. Which is what this article is about.
> There are plenty of self described "anti-fascists" publicly smashing things they don't like.
To be more pointed than logicprog, Raichik just lies a lot. Example from the article: Libs of TikTok’s post said it happened “in front of children.” Anthony said no children were present.
Yeah because she has an extensive history of taking things completely out of context, distorting them, and outright lying about them, as well as a stated belief that clear people and organizations are inherently groomers regardless of the context or evidence, like when she accused the Trevor Project of Grooming kids. So even by her own admission she would call things grooming that no reasonable person would, so if we are presented with a case where she is calling something grooming and other people are saying that it isn't, it would be directly in line with everything she's said in the past for it to not be.
It should be noted that this refers to a mayor being spanked by a drag queen at a public event.
To many, myself included, the absence of children does not erase the absurdity and degeneracy of this stunt. It's still unacceptable. If children were present, it ought to have been criminal.
She has 2.8 million followers. There were 2.4 million Nazi volunteers. The scale of what is possible has changed. It's not an inn with 28 farmers. It's not a statehouse with 280 citizens. It's not a gathering around a microphone of 2800 people. It's not a stadium of 28,000. It's not a gigantic congregation of 280,000. It's 2.8 million that listen to her every time she posts. Night or day. Around the clock. She's Always In Their Heads. Both axis of this graph have changed. Any law based around some mid 1900's pre-internet context of how people gathered and how the police might keep an eye on it, are bunk. Pure and utter bunk. In 2.8 million people there will be someone who will act. And as the article states, many times they get away with it. She's inciting hate crimes. That we won't do anything about it is insane. She sits on a buffer of "well, it wasn't me". Crime bosses do that too. Why do we allow it? It seems insane that any civil society would allow that.
There are already laws against defamation, incitement to violence, and hate speech.
What is being proposed in the article is that Libs of tiktok is inciting terrorism (or terroristic threats). This isn't a new type of censorship.
So the question isn't "what type of new censorship do you propose?" but "does this behavior meet the threshold to be considered behavior we've already collectively deemed illegal?".
"There are already laws against...hate speech."
As this is a US context, I am curious what specific laws against "hate speech" you think are in existence?
422.7.
Except in the case of a person punished under Section 422.6, any hate crime that is not made punishable by imprisonment in the state prison shall be punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine, if the crime is committed against the person or property of another for the purpose of intimidating or interfering with that other person’s free exercise or enjoyment of any right secured to him or her by the Constitution or laws of this state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States under any of the following circumstances, which shall be charged in the accusatory pleading:
Florida recently passed HB 269 in which acts that are generally uncontroversially categorized as speech were criminalized. There are also anti-BDS laws, etc.
Not surprised this was flagged despite a civil discussion and how relevant it is to this late stage limbo social networks currently occupy. To be frank, it runs counter to the narrative that the dedicated cohort of "free speech" absolutists here whom don't want an example of why there absolutely need to be limits to what can be posted and disseminated.
I think people should have the absolute right to free speech so long as it doesn't harm another person, but in the same token, with free-speech, comes the ability for others to amplify that speech. Good, bad, agreeable, or not.
Censorship is too easy for others to use as a club against persons they disagree with. Let the sunlight of public scrutiny be the judge.
64 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 91.5 ms ] threadCan you provide some examples of this? "Pedophilic or something" is pretty open-ended.
>Raichik posted that the school offers a “pornographic” book in its library that “teaches kids about gay sex.”
But it wasn't. You just assumed it was because you weren't immediately provided evidence you could have just as easily found yourself.
What the site does is not innocuous; we already know that.
Asking for specific examples to substantiate serious allegations is not "being pedantic." This is a divisive topic, passing around potentially untrue or exaggerated claims only muddies the water.
> Libs of TikTok’s post said it happened “in front of children.” Anthony said no children were present. He was clothed and laughing in the video.
I suppose if your point is that “if they don’t say the word pedophile they are not insinuating anything to that effect” then you are correct. If insinuation is not something that exists, the argument that there is no connection between the libsoftiktok posts and the bomb threats makes sense.
From this article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lgbtq-book-bans-librarian-vir...
> Libs of TikTok claimed that I was a pedophile and a groomer for trying to get my students to read.
These examples are not hard to find
As far as children being present, see my comment elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39293774
These examples are not hard to find
Is there a copy of the inciting video available somewhere? The article didn't seem to include it.
That does seem damning, if true to how the article described it.
I have, and what I've found does not support the claims that people are making. Granted, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are quite difficult to browse without an account/app, so I acknowledge it's possible that things exist I haven't been able to find.
I find it bizarre how aggressive people are getting in response to me asking for concrete examples.
What have you found without accounts on these platforms and how are you confident in what you’ve concluded given that limitation?
For example, I actually answered Rich’s last question but didn’t get a reply because it didn’t fit into the bit.
You didn't get a reply because I haven't been on the site.
You also didn't answer my question. You posted a blog post alleging that specific claims had been made. I acknowledged that the allegations seemed serious and asked if the video in question was available to be viewed, to which you simply responded "no."
Saying "you can easily find examples" is disingenuous when many of the examples are making or repeating claims that are either unsourced or with dubious evidence. For example, the linked article seems to omit context that took me "10 seconds" to find.
>I have, and what I've found does not support the claims that people are making.
and your reply to me!
The clips she shares are very often not edited by her, but out of context clips edited by someone else to serve a narrative. Even when they aren't, how you frame a clip when you present it to someone and the prior expectations and beliefs of the audience that is viewing the clip can very strongly influence the perceived import of the clip itself, even if it's the exact same footage. And she is explicitly sharing clips of queer people to an audience that is already pre-convinced that queer people are evil and groomers, with that explicit framing added on to the clip. Even if we ignored that for the moment, my comment, which you clearly did not read, outlined exactly why even ignoring all the interpretive effects, sharing a clip of someone to a very large audience of people who hate one of the groups that person is a part of is a really bad thing. When someone posts something online that doesn't mean they automatically have to want a gigantic audience of people who explicitly hate them to become aware of the clip, that's nonsensical, and what l o t t is doing is essentially directing the eye of Sauron that is the awareness of her mob towards people that they are already primed to hate, when otherwise those people's posts would have gone completely unnoticed and under the radar to that mob, thereby directing a lot of hate that would not have otherwise happened at those people. Do you not understand how this works? Maybe I should put it in terms of cancel culture and that would help you understand it. Imagine some small time conservative business owner says something on his personal Facebook page that's kind of stupid, but would have completely flown under the radar otherwise. However, some big Twitter leftist account finds that post, and boosts it to their large following, with a comment about how evil and bigoted this person is, obviously that huge base of fans it is going to go after that person and just make their life hell, when without the influence of that post it would have flown under the radar. Can you see how that would be bad now?
We have such groups around me which have resulted in vandalism of businesses and multiple bomb threats sent to multiple libraries. These assholes for a while were monopolizing the citizen comments section of city council meetings at any city which was allowing any kind of drag show or drag themed event (think drag queen story hour) in town.
The notable case of vandalism was a coffee shop not only with broken windows, but they also keep finding feces in corners of the place.
That is democracy, giving feedback to elected officials, even if you don't like it.
Vandalism, is hardly exclusive to "the far-right". There are plenty of self described "anti-fascists" publicly smashing things they don't like.
Call out violence when it happens no matter who is doing it.
> Vandalism, is hardly exclusive to "the far-right".
Getting your followers to call in bomb threats over trans-friendly content and events, however, is exclusive to the far right. Which is what this article is about.
> There are plenty of self described "anti-fascists" publicly smashing things they don't like.
This is what-aboutism and threadjacking.
One person is lying, but we don’t know which.
Further down, there are pictures of the event with the caption:
> Feel free to take a look at other photos from the drag show fundraiser, where at least one child is pictured.
Based on this, I don't think it's a slam-dunk case of her lying. It's possible that a child was present at some point but not for the spanking.
To many, myself included, the absence of children does not erase the absurdity and degeneracy of this stunt. It's still unacceptable. If children were present, it ought to have been criminal.
Hasn't pretty much every republican been caught doing drag in high school?
Edit: it’s always either school spirit week or Halloween
The last time our people won an election was in the 30s. It's looking like the next time will be too.
What is being proposed in the article is that Libs of tiktok is inciting terrorism (or terroristic threats). This isn't a new type of censorship.
So the question isn't "what type of new censorship do you propose?" but "does this behavior meet the threshold to be considered behavior we've already collectively deemed illegal?".
422.7. Except in the case of a person punished under Section 422.6, any hate crime that is not made punishable by imprisonment in the state prison shall be punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine, if the crime is committed against the person or property of another for the purpose of intimidating or interfering with that other person’s free exercise or enjoyment of any right secured to him or her by the Constitution or laws of this state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States under any of the following circumstances, which shall be charged in the accusatory pleading:
Censorship is too easy for others to use as a club against persons they disagree with. Let the sunlight of public scrutiny be the judge.