1/5. There are a lot of people not in VIC passing a shedload of commentary ATM about how people in VIC do (or, more to the point) should feel & behave.
They mostly forget that VICs, more than any other Aussies, are in “fight or flight” mode RN, & most are under immense stress.
2/5. If you’re not in VIC, perhaps think back to how you felt in Mar/Apr this year.
If you’re honest, it was a helluva time but you’ve forgotten what most of it felt like.
Well, VICs are still in the middle of that, but worse.
Way worse.
We HAVE to beat this wave.
3/5. VICs genuinely feel we’re fighting for our lives.
We all know #NewsCorpse media act in bad faith, but forget that for us VICs, the lies & bias is intensely personal.
This is NOT a theoretical exercise.
If Murdoch has his way, our parents are at risk, & even ourselves.
In past few weeks, MFW have been deliberately targeted for abuse by several different men, all claiming to be progressive.
All but 1 we’d never interacted with AFAWK, & that 1 got ragey after we gently pulled him up on a sexist comment.
2/6. We wouldn’t raise this again as we’d rather focus on our campaign work, but in nearly all of these cases we were contacted by DM after by women who’d also faced abuse from the same men. In one case, we received DMs from EIGHT women saying the man in question had stalked ...
3/6. ... or threatened or otherwise hurt either them or a woman they knew. The lengths women went to to let us know to be extra careful & to have our backs on this was extraordinary, as they didn’t know we’d keep this information confidential so it was a risk to get in touch.
A. We’ve now established, witches, this account is being actively limited by @Twitter. They seem to be doing it on the basis of increasing troll attacks involving multiple, organised reports becos of our increasing success with the anti-Murdoch #NewsCorpse campaign. Short thread.
B. For us to be limited by @Twitter in this way is disgraceful. It means that for trying to improve public discourse in AUS & limit the negative effects of media monopolies, trolls & RW groups can de-rail this just by reporting our account & having Twitter impose sanctions.
C. It also means the more we succeed, the worse these attacks on us will get. Ultimately, it’ll make our campaign untenable & ineffective.
We’re unsure whether this targeting of us is paid, but it could well be: just as the poll results highlighted by @MediaWatch were paid for.
So, today while I was having my first socially-distanced coffee for 2 months at an outdoor table in a small Victorian country town, something happened.
Short thread.
A. I was having a great time NOT locked down, then I heard a loud bang. Turned around just in time to see ..
B. .. a large dark grey twin-cab ute smashing into the side of the car next to it as it tried to park in the parking bays down the middle of the road. The crash shook both cars.
I waited for the person in the ute to get out, but they didn’t. I assumed they were writing a note ..
C. .. maybe to leave their contact details, so I just waited. And waited. After some minutes, the person in the ute started up their car again, and pulled out of the parking bay & drove off.
I was so shocked at this, I forgot to get the rego number. So my companion said ..