Thread by @sarahjeong

can we stop pretending this is a brave battle against white supremacy

Yes, I used to work at Motherboard so I've been reticent to wade into this. I don't work there anymore, I don't have any special knowledge into what happened, but read the profile that supposedly "doxed" Naomi: motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

The author is a woman of color. The profile is incredibly sympathetic and continues to cast the subject in a positive light despite acknowledging the angry Twitterstorm.

Naomi got a pretty sensitive follow-up email giving her an opportunity to talk about her detractors and then routine fact-checking from the print magazine side. Her response was to yell people on Twitter for months, call for stalking and doxing, and then actually dox someone

I'm seeing some people I thought were pretty sensible swallow this BS whole. Go look at the magazine piece for yourself and think about whether it reflects unethical journalism.

The author doesn't mention her husband's name or really get at the substance of the online conspiracy theory about her relationship, in fact if you've been following any of her very public reaction, the piece limits itself to a necessary acknowledgment of what's happening online

What was agreed to prior? She claims she was promised her relationship wouldn't be mentioned. The timeline in the piece is this +

there was a follow-up email, she responded online very publicly with anger, at which point it would be weird not to mention that, there was a fact-check because of that mention. And then, after publication, she doxed an editor

It's the height of gullibility to keep defending her.

I worked with these people, including the profile-writer and editor she doxed, they're decent and sensitive people with ethical backbone. The email excerpted in the piece reflects what they're like.

Did you even read the follow-up email I screencapped?

Here it is again with the link. I'm not trying to say "I like Motherboard ergo they're right," there's some r e a d i n g to be done here motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

You don't talk about it b/c it seems like punching down and you hope that the profile speaks to what you're actually trying to do (which is to put a pretty positive profile of her out there, again, you should actually read it). And then she doxed someone.

I don't have special knowledge into the decision-making here. I just know it's what I would have done if I failed to de-escalate privately.

And with the buzz over the forthcoming piece it would have felt wrong not to mention what was happening on Twitter, especially with her Twitter account being a big part of her online persona. The way it is written is also how I would have handled it.

There's a ton of white men telling me that there's a cultural sensitivity issue here or that it's dangerous (lol) to have a white husband. I did a sanity check with a woman who's a Chinese national. It's not far off from Korean culture: this is a non-issue, y'all are gullible

And important note, the piece never specifies she has a white husband, you brought it up first, nice going

She has been talking about it for months and harassing journalists, inciting doxing, and then actual doxing. This is a nonsensical attitude.

Last words on this:

Journalists are not your personal PR lackeys.

If the people tweeting nonsense at me actually read more, they'd know what a profile is and how it works.

There's a difference between

(1) publishing something that briefly mentions the existence of a significant other after a months-long tweetstorm that also acknowledges it, and previous acknowledgments in other media

(2) emailing someone "is this your address and are there children in your home?" and then publishing said address

"Well if he didn't want to get doxed he should have responded to my email asking if there are kids in his home" IS NOT A DEFENSE and not even on the same PLANET as what Vice printed, which again, you should actually read, because reading is good

There's plenty of sensible people who have been sliding into my DMs because they're afraid to disagree with this person in public or feel like it's punching down. I think at this point what's been done is blatantly abusive and should be acknowledged as such.

This is an absolutely insane take and it's abusive thinking

There is nothing complicated about this internet kerfuffle. Someone here is in the wrong and it's not Vice.

"verify that there are children in the home" -- if you're focused on anything else you're buying into an abusive derail of what harm was actually caused here and what kind of accountability is called for.