Thread by @Ayjchan

Today, karma finally kicked in. After spending the last year "just asking questions" and trying to fish out information relevant to the #OriginsOfCovid, I finally became a target of a conspiracy theory and an anonymous twitter mob.

I had been warned about this situation by well-intentioned colleagues, journalists, and even other anonymous twitter users. That a day would come when I would get attacked by anonymous users.

There was always a stream of online harassment, but it definitely peaked this week.

It definitely made me feel more empathy for other scientists who are in a similar situation. I had already been expressing empathy for them and actively asked people on twitter please not to attack because it just makes the conversation immediately adversarial and non-productive.

I also tried to practice what I preach by trying to explain the science, even if it is work from years ago, and share as much information as is appropriate to clarify the situation.

But it's definitely trying and I did the rare thing of blocking some very rude people today.

These situations slow me down but will not stop me from continuing to look into the #OriginsOfCovid

But I figured it might be a good opportunity for scientists who have suffered, due to my actions, to relish the karmic justice unfolding now.

Also a good time to revisit this old thread.

And I can't believe this needs to be said:
I don't need to be associated with Jeffrey Epstein to disagree with people about banning gain-of-function research.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1378758441880150016

This world doesn't consist of you and your friends versus all the evil people.

Yes, some very good and some very bad people exist. But mostly people are in the middle. You might also be in the middle, but are just unaware of it.

I’m getting asked for my opinions on the personal values of a co-organizer of a conference I was invited to speak for 7 minutes at in 2016 when I wasn’t working at my current institute.

Seriously.

I have a newsflash for non-scientists. Scientists in the same field who speak at the same conferences don’t often have warm and fuzzy feelings for each other. More often than not, they’re direct competitors who fight over the same sources of funding.

Not wanting to comment on someone else’s personal values on twitter doesn’t mean you endorse them. It just means you’re keeping it civilized.

If you need to bash someone, use your own account. No need to involve me. Thanks.