Thread by @sf_boswell

A thread on the current SFF discourse:

Since Saturday (Dec. 4th), I have been researching the allegations against SFF author Neon Yang. This thread contains what I have found.

First, the background. According to hundreds of tweets/ twitter commentators, in January 2020, SFF author Neon Yang drove and/or spearheaded a harassment campaign against Isabel Fall, author of "Helicopter Story" (using Fall's current title).

A wide swath of tweets attributes Isabel Fall's hospitalization, decision to remain in the closet, and choice to remove her story from Clarksworld to Yang's actions.

So what's the evidence that Yang - and I quote - "led one of the most shameful harassment campaigns of the past decade"?

After three days of searching, here's what I've got:

First, let's establish the timeline. Fall's story went up on Jan 1, 2020. Through Jan. 9, coverage on twitter was largely positive.

The firestorm/harassment came between the 10th and 15th.

Fall decides to take the story down Jan. 13th; the story comes down Jan. 15th.

Between Jan. 10th and 15th - the height of the harassment - Yang tweets approximately 100 times (Web archive below).

How many times did Yang tweet about Fall?

Twice.

web.archive.org/web/*/https://…*

Here are Yang's tweets, both on January 14th. (screenshot edited to avoid deadnaming)

That's it.

There are a couple crucial things to note about these tweets. First, Yang mentions neither Fall's name, nor the name of the story.

When you're trying to lead a mob, you generally do more than subtweet.

Second, Yang's engagement is pretty low - 2 responses, 28 retweets. And 2 tweets (out of 100) over 5 days.

At a time when people were getting hundreds of RTs and replies for criticizing Fall, it's just not true that Yang was driving engagement.

Finally, Yang 1st tweeted about the story on Jan. 14th. By this point, Fall had already decided to pull the story from Clarkesworld (Jan 13th)

Yang couldn't have contributed to Fall's decision to pull the story, because they hadn't tweeted anything yet.

https://twitter.com/M_L_Clark/status/1216939839385407491

None of this means other trans people weren't hurt by Yang's Jan 14th tweets. And if you're upset by these tweets, that's reasonable.

But there's no contemporaneous evidence that Yang led a mob against Fall, caused her to pull the story, or to be hospitalized.

On January 16th, Yang tweets again, about cis people (not mentioning Fall/story by name).

This is the last time Yang will tweet about the story for several months.

Side note: one of the most serious accusations against Yang is that Yang claimed Fall was a (cis male) nazi troll.

I have read all 100 tweets from Jan 2020. There is absolutely no evidence of this.

See also:

https://twitter.com/AviTheNaftali/status/1468365449582854144

This accusation against Yang is particularly egregious because we *know* who claimed Fall was a nazi troll. Those people's tweets are screenshot/documented.

See this blog post, for example:
womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2020/01/copter…

Timejump! Let's move to June 2021, when "Helicopter Story" re-entered mainstream discourse. One of the reasons people see Yang as a ringleader of the harassment campaign is because of Emily VanDerWerff's incredible piece, "How Twitter Can Ruin A Life."

vox.com/the-highlight/…

Yang is the only person VanDerWerff quotes by name who she ID's as a "critic" of the story.

My suspicion is that a lot of people are like "well, why would VanDerWerff include Yang as Sole Critic unless they were a central player?"

But in the podcast "Cancel Me, Daddy" here's what VanDerWerff says:

🔘 Fall mentioned 3 people by name as particularly harmful. Yang was not one of them.
🔘 Yang *never came up* in convos between her and Fall.
🔘 Fall said the most hurtful comments were from cis women.

Not only does the January 2020 evidence disprove Yang's centrality in the harassment campaign, but Fall herself does not mention them as a key player (or at all).

If you don't want to listen to "Cancel Me, Daddy, see also:

https://twitter.com/emilyvdw/status/1410282227070476288

There's one more major place people point to as proof of Yang's actions: Yang's apology.

IMO, Yang's apology in July 2021 is bad. But it's also not proof that Yang spearheaded a campaign against Fall in Jan. 2020.

web.archive.org/web/2021070119…

This is just my personal theory, but I think Yang's role - or lack thereof - would have been forgotten if they hadn't spoken to Vox/attempted to apologize.

There are authors who wrote *much* more critical threads, to *much* more engagement, who have not faced criticism.

To sum up, here's what Yang actually did, per the evidence:
🔘 tweeted twice, without mentioning Fall/story by name, and after Fall had decided to take down the article
🔘 Spoke to VanDerWerff for the Vox article
🔘 Apologized badly

My goal in researching the accusations was simple. I wanted to see if there was evidence of Yang spearheading a harassment campaign against Fall.

There is not.

To be clear, there's room for a spectrum of responses to Yang's actions. You might find their initial tweets or apologies harmful.

But that's not why people *claim* they're angry at Yang.

And it does not help anyone to mischaracterize what Yang actually did.

For the record, I think what's happening to Yang is targeted harassment. I think it's pretty clearly a racist dogpile. I thought so before the research, and I think so even more now.

bit.ly/33aSs7W

Now, ppl are harassing a trans woman for appearing in the same anthology as Yang.

Does this make trans women authors safer?

Yang - a nonbinary author - is essentially deplatformed from twitter. For 2 tweets, a quote, and an apology.

Does this make trans authors safer?