Thread by @MFWitches

A. Witches, this is a thread based on extensive criticism we’ve had this afternoon that we’re a “vigilante group” hell-bent on “taking down people for one mistake” becos of Pete Evans.

It’s been put to us that ppl are “scared to say anything” in case “the witches attack them”.

B. While in our opinion many of these comments vastly over-estimate our power, we’ll briefly address the main issues raised.

Firstly, here’s a list of people we witches believe we’ve had removed from positions of influence (or helped achieve this) in the past year or so:

C.

Alan Jones
Sam Newman
Pauline Hanson
Pete Evans

What do these people have in common? Well, they’re all constant, unrelenting and contemptible offenders. They all lie and/or engage in overt racism, sexism, climate-denial, #COVID19-denial or other forms of hate repeatedly.

D. We choose who we choose to civilly target carefully. We don’t target via our organised campaigns anyone who’s:
- made a single mistake;
- apologised for their mistakes; and/or
- has changed and tried to do better.

Yet every person on that list has offended over & over again.

E. None of them ever apologised and, in fact, all are still repeatedly offending on platforms other than those we’ve caused them to be removed from. None has ever shown any remorse or permanently changed behaviour.

In our opinion, all of them are dangerous individuals.

F. They’re dangerous because they encourage and incite violence via overt racism and misogyny, and put the health of others at high risk via denying the effects of COVID and/or the climate crisis (among some else).

Not only is campaigning against them reasonable: it’s essential.

G. In addition, our campaigns’d never work if we targeted a person unfairly. This is because it’s not us as a behind-the-scenes Admin group who do the work: it’s many thousands of witches who are outraged by these people.

It’s our tens of thousands of witches who cause change.

H. & unless all those witches were motivated to contact companies to express that outrage, nothing would change.

Further, companies which divest from using or paying those people would never respond to witchy requests unless they themselves felt the behaviour hurt their brand.

I. For those reasons, we completely reject any charge that we have ever damaged anyone unfairly or that we even have the power to do so.

The power (if there is power) comes only from justified fury. Such fury is impossible to manufacture unless it’s deserved.

In addition ...

J. ... all those on that list had and still have far more influence than MFW does. They have enormous reach, money, influential friends & power.

We have none of that but only an engaged collective of people who can’t be stopped when they furiously demand crucial change.

K. Our main campaign target now is Rupert Murdoch, who’s close to the most evil man on earth. Yes, there are other targets in our campaign lists, but he’s the main one.

We might post on a person for a single instance of disgraceful wrongdoing, but we never campaign against them.

L. Glad to have cleared that up.

It’s pretty simple:
- don’t behave repeatedly like a disgusting shithead;
- don’t hurt others & punch down;
- don’t threaten others’ lives & wellbeing.

This isn’t vigilantism: it’s powerful advocacy.

Why is it so hard to understand?

Ends.