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Comment by cdot2 | Hacker News Reader

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When the account "just reposted stuff" with inflammatory claims about children's hospitals, those hospitals were targeted by a deluge of online harassment and phoned-in threats. [1] If Twitter is the public square, then their account is on a massive soap box with over two million followers. What they say is going to have real-world consequences, and to pretend as if they have no blame is ridiculous.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/02/lgbtq-t...

Here's a couple of excerpts highlighting way many LGBTQ+ people see Libs of TikTok as a threat

"After gaining a large Twitter following in the spring as she baselessly accused LGBTQ teachers of being pedophiles and “groomers,” Raichik began criticizing children’s health facilities earlier this summer, targeting a hospital in Omaha in June and another in Pittsburgh in August. The attacks resulted in a flood of online harassment and phoned-in threats at both hospitals."

(From "Twitter account Libs of TikTok blamed for harassment of children’s hospitals" https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/02/lgbtq-t...)

...

"One former English teacher, Tyler Wrynn, told Lorenz for her piece that he had been harassed, sent death threats and eventually fired after one of his TikToks about supporting LGBT+ kids was posted by Raichik"

(From "How Libs of TikTok Became an Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Machine" https://www.them.us/story/libs-of-tik-tok-twitter-facebook-i... )

"While the account doesn’t always explicitly encourage followers to do anything, its posts have sometimes led people to harass or physically threaten its subjects. In one instance, a group of five Proud Boys members disrupted a Drag Queen Story Hour at a public library, spewing homophobic and transphobic insults at attendees, which investigators believe was spurred by Libs of TikTok."

(from "Teacher targeted by Libs of TikTok sent death threats and lost his job" https://www.thepinknews.com/2022/04/20/libs-of-tiktok-teache... )

You're the only one making the absurd terrorist analogy. Reposting a person's content in another context with a whole crowd of people specifically there to mock and humiliate that person, many of whom will then go out of their way to personally harass that person, definitely counts as "targeting."

More than harassment, literal bomb threats https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/02/lgbtq-t...

> After Raichik falsely claimed on Aug. 11 that Boston Children’s Hospital performs hysterectomies on children, the hospital received a barrage of “hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff,” the hospital said in a statement. The hospital does provide hysterectomies to certain patients over 18.

> On Tuesday, police responded to an anonymous bomb threat at the hospital. No explosives were discovered, and hospital officials said they were cooperating with the police investigation of the incident. “We remain vigilant in our efforts to battle the spread of false information about the hospital and our caregivers,” the hospital said.

I’m starting to think there are lots of assholes using gender and gender isms as excuse to themselves consistently labeled assholes. Like there are people getting feet dragged by gender dysphoria, and there are people who’s got nothing else to shift their blame to than maybe their biological identities that catches onto it.

Some people think they are above everyone else and that others should not be able to scorn their behaviour.

what an ignorant take. Social media promotion of "hated" groups can be plausibly blamed for mass murder, including a literal genocide for which Facebook is now being sued for £150bn right now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management_co...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

That's completely different. Libs of TikTok only reposts very far-left takes to expose their absurdity.

They provide commentary too. They certainly have an agenda. They have targeted specific people and organizations, and also groups of people generally. The article writer needed an example of a well-known social media account that fit this description, and accounts that are worse in terms of explicitly encouraging harassment have already been banned.

Their only "agenda" is "exposing" and making fun of far-left excesses by simply reposting them. I don't think they have targeted anyone in particular. If the things they repost are damning, they were damning in themselves.

> I don't think they have targeted anyone in particular.

Then maybe research before commenting? They do this regularly.

> If the things they repost are damning, they were damning in themselves.

The whole context of the account is to "damn" the things they are posting. Sure, if you pick one of their posts at random it'll probably be something that 99% of people agree is wacky, but come on. They have inflammatory commentary, they target specific people, organizations, and groups, they know they influence politics and society and are proud of it. If you need me to, I can spend the time to prove all that, but it's all to say that yes, they are a good example of a social media account to use in OP's article.

The OP article makes it sound as if they are immorally harassing people, not what they are actually doing, at least mainly: exposing things which are damning in themselves.

An analogy: They raise awareness about far-left excesses in a similar way in which the media likes to raise awareness about far-right excesses.

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