Thread by @Gurdur

1/n If you watch the story unfolding of the meltdown of @tage_rai, social/behavioral sciences editor for the AAAS' Science Magazine, no less, & his repeated false claims about @jessesingal, a lot of issues become very obvious. None of these issues are new, but are now pressing

2/n Tage Rai has been given the help of several very big accounts, run by those with higher professional positions. This is a witch-hunt at the top of the foodc-hain; the perps don't give a stuff about little folks, nonetheless their social-putsch tactics will affect us all.

3/n The tactics include: swear blind to the most amazing claims (Rai is explicitly claiming harassers have been actively sent by Jesse Singal, & some of those harassers are actually ringing up Rai on his phone, doing heavy breathing & hoarsely voicing the name Jesse to him).

4/n If you're at all sane & normal, you'd laugh. Rai's claims about the phonecalls *may* be true, though I doubt it (it's also exactly the kind of claim that would bring copycat trolls out in masses); what is certainly untrue is that any harassers were sent or directed by Singal

5/n But you ask, where is the hammer? The hammer is the pressure on companies. One CEO of a MTurk-associated company often used by social-scientists was put under heavy flaming & pressure by top-level accounts until she kowtowed and went along with the insane Rai claims.

6/n One aim is to drive Jesse Singal out of any journalistic opportunity at all, i.e. to destroy his livelihood. Another aim is to further purge the US scientific establishment; no dissent will be allowed.

https://twitter.com/krklement/status/1379895574439325696

7/n I specify the US science establishment(s) here, because this kind of crap wouldn't fly one tiny nanosecond in the UK. The merest hint that legal action for defamation was being undertaken would have Rai & the others suddenly retracting like crazy.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1380258600610885633

8/n Ironically, *successful* defamation suits cost roughly the same base, around at least $250,000 or so, in both the USA and UK, but you have one heck of a better chance, & a far faster one, in the UK (no fiddle-faddle about state & federal jurisdiction, for a start).

9/n Since legal action for defamation in the UK is much faster on the whole than in the USA, & since there's less tolerance for sheer lying, the mere credible threat of legal action is often enough to make perps buckle pronto. Tage Rai's lies wouldn't fly.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1380260390290997249

10/10 So in the UK, someone like Jesse Singal wouldn't have to shell out $250,000; since it's an iron-cast case of baseless defamation, the mere letter from a solicitor would have the UK equivalents of Tage Rai et al running to retract.
New thread:

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1380268081738616832