Drake Bell came forward as a child sexual abuse victim in "Quiet on Set." He has also pleaded guilty to crimes against children. But Bell's supporters have attacked his victim and his other accusers, editing court footage for TikTok and sending vile DMs.
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/… It's the latest iteration of a gendered pattern in abuse cases that attract wide public interest: female victims and accusers are harassed, undermined, and abused online. Male victims like Bell who then perpetuate a cycle of abuse are excused and defended.
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…

Excellent piece from @linzasaur about how the UK hopes to combat Andrew Tate’s influence over young boys and men, and how their plan is doomed to fail unless US social media companies change the way their platforms incentivize Tate’s behavior.
businessinsider.com/plan-to-combat… I believe any plan to combat Tate is five years too late at least. We can still do something, and doing ANYTHING would be better than the nothing we typically encounter, but an entire generation of men and boys has already been influenced into violent anti-women extremism.

Amy Schumer opened Instagram comments today after her nearly 50 pro-Israel feed posts since Oct. 7. These are the most-liked comments so far.





This is the second half of Schumer's statement from today.

Russell Brand’s “mainstream media bias” angle is the opposite of what the allegations against him suggest — that mainstream media, which he was enormously successful in, was an enabler in the behavior described by at least five women. thetimes.co.uk/article/russel… During Brand’s early years on Channel 4, staff alleged Brand asked them to find young female audiences members for him to meet after filming. They allege concerns about this practice were dismissed with “Boys will be boys” rhetoric.

Three reporters and outlets, years of reporting, and hundreds of sources went into this Russell Brand investigation — one woman alleged he had a 3-month relationship with her when she was 16 and displayed increasingly abusive behavior.
thetimes.co.uk/article/russel… The woman said when she was 16 a taxi driver begged her not to go into Brand’s house after learning her age. The woman said Brand had her change his name to a woman’s name in her phone to deceive her parents. She said he sexually assaulted her.

“I could never be convinced to join a cult” and “I can spot a manipulator a mile away” and “I could never be abused” are all variations of the same wrong sentiment. Your false belief that you are above manipulation and abuse stems from victim-blaming culture. Part of the reason this sentiment irks me so much it that it’s based around the fallacy that life is predictive. Even the most psychologically well-adjusted and skeptical person is suspectible to life-altering events and changes that could leave them vulnerable to abuse.

A lot of people are defending their in-theater phone use by saying they get bored during long movies. I get that. But here's the thing — boredom is a part of life. Movie theaters are shared spaces. You aren't entitled to distract other people from the art because you're bored. There's a huge reluctance to be bored, which is staggering in this discussion, because in a movie theater you are constantly being entertained. Just because the entertainment isn't endlessly high-energy doesn't mean you can get on your phone.

Many of our modern woes seem like an extension of bad human behavior, but I’d argue (and research backs me up) that the toxicity on internet spaces is a direct result of bad platform design. These spaces are made by humans, they can be changed by humans. We are not powerless

https://twitter.com/kattenbarge/status/1673342324649197570

One of the biggest reasons platforms refuse to take accountability (and shift the burden of bad behaviors onto individuals and victims) is because they make money off the human despair on their platforms. They could change it but they would lose profit. They won’t do that

Five days ago, Jonathan Majors’ lawyer asked for his domestic violence misdemeanor charges to be dropped. Although other mens’ DV charges were dropped in court that day, Majors’ weren’t, and a trial was set. And yet, the news has been misconstrued & weaponized against DV victims. First, this is an AP article about the court appearance. The AP isn’t perfect, but it’s a wire service, so it’s ideally the most neutral, bare bones reporting out there. apnews.com/article/jonath…

Something I’ve noticed as “internet drama” becomes more niche, incremental, and involves private figures is that people get upset when the stranger they’re gossiping about and/or lying about online joins the conversation to rebuke them. It’s a kind of very online victim-blaming. The mindset of the antagonizer usually starts from a place of “this is the internet, I can say what I want without consequences,” which is a mindset of lunacy in 2023 when the internet determines a significant chunk of real-life success and reputation for many if not most people.

Imagine living through the Depp/Heard trial and NOT REALIZING that the entire internet culture of virality and popular opinion is dominated by misogyny

https://twitter.com/pronounced_ing/status/1669354352308535301

The most popular, profitable thing you can do online is hate women. It dominates every platform, every community, every trending topic, every algorithm

Victims are judged more harshly than abusers. First victims are judged on their “credibility” rather than the allegations they made. Even if they’re believed (most aren’t), then they’re judged on how they came forward, how long it took, and how they sought accountability. Keep in mind, people who are viewed as “not credible” are more likely to be abused. Disabled people, children, people with mental illness, unhoused people, gender non-conforming people, and people of color are all more likely to be abused and less likely to be taken seriously.

In trans-exclusionary radfem (TERF) spaces — also called gender critical spaces — there's a term called "peak trans" which refers to the moment someone "sees through" the trans rights movement and adopts anti-trans views. The opposite also exists. There are "peak TERF" moments. For me, seeing JK Rowling send Marilyn Manson a bouquet of flowers was a "peak TERF" moment. Why would someone who claims to be committed to feminism align herself with admitted domestic abusers? And he's not the only admitted abuser she's aligned with since.

A man beat, tortured, and nearly killed an 86 year old woman — literally destroyed what remains of her life — and his justification is that he thought she was a pedophile. Transphobia at its core is about justifying male violence toward women. They’ll tell you it’s the opposite.

https://twitter.com/esqueer_/status/1661294377325453312

Transphobia as it is practiced is all about justifying male violence. It’s men looking at children’s genitals. It’s men patrolling who goes into what locker room or bathroom. It’s men making and enforcing laws about what you can wear and what health care you can have.

Personally I think the way we talk about sex work should be informed by people who are actually affected by those conversations — sex workers. It’s very easy to let your entire worldview of porn/sex be dominated by religious conservative narratives because they’re everywhere. My opinions around porn and sex work were very different before I actually started talking to sex workers and allowing myself to think critically about how even non-sex workers are hurt by anti-porn policies. And the status quo right now is horrific for everyone because of those.

The Idol is anti-feminist spectacle. It’s a bastardization of the original artistic concept that was created by a woman. Her perspective as an artist was dismissed and excluded from the end product by The Weeknd. Levinson was brought on to re-center the male POV as dominant. I think we should critique The Idol both on the artistic merits of the final product AND the production. I understand why people get frustrated when those elements are conflated but there’s also an argument to be made about the portrayal of real celebrities through fiction.

It’s surreal to watch commentary YouTubers — people whose careers revolve around media meta-analysis — argue that media doesn’t impact worldview. You’re degrading your entire career! Also, that’s completely backward — media theory day 1 is that media shapes our worldview! I’ve seen multiple white cishet male YouTube commentators express this perspective over the years and it’s very clearly coming from a place of privilege and intentional detachment from one’s own responsibilities and impact as a creator

You have to remember, when people talk about “false” rape allegations, they’re talking about real ones too. The standard for proving a rape allegation is impossibly high on purpose, and falling below it makes an allegation “false” in many eyes — even if it’s true. So when they say “put people who make false rape allegations in jail,” they’re advocating to put real victims in jail, too. Which actually happens. Regularly. They don’t care. The crime to them is identifying yourself as a victim in the first place.

Me Too does not mean “believe all women” and never has. Me Too’s purpose is in the name; it’s a way to say “I am a survivor, too.” It’s a way to show solidarity with other victims and say they’re not alone and never were. In that way, Me Too never ends and never loses. The backlash to Me Too has tried to rewrite history and claim that survivors got the upper hand in justice. But that’s not true. Me Too put a spotlight on how many survivors there are but it didn’t create systemic change in the court system OR public opinion toward survivors.

Part of why I get so frustrated with anti-sex work rhetoric is because whorephobia hurts women whether they’re sex workers or not. Having an OnlyFans shouldn’t lead to discrimination against you, but it does. If you don’t have an OnlyFans, they’ll make a fake to use against you.

https://twitter.com/atrachelgilmore/status/1653055906643410949

The solution isn’t “OnlyFans shouldn’t exist.” The idea behind OnlyFans has financially empowered many women and sex workers, allowing them to take control. The company itself is deeply flawed and bad actors have taken advantage of it, like all platforms.

Here’s a scary method of social media sabotage I’ve been hearing about more and more: most of us are familiar with bot followers. You can buy them relatively inexpensively en masse for most platforms. They look like mostly blank accounts with lots of numbers in their usernames. Well, platforms have figured this out somewhat and may de-rank accounts that receive large numbers of these kinds of followers as inauthentic. But what if you buy the bot followers for someone ELSE? It’s a relatively inexpensive way to at least attempt to sabotage a competitor.