I find it difficult to believe you looked very hard, as it was easily available. More importantly, why did you think it was appropriate to say anything at all without having engaged with the primary source that you knew existed? It’s easy to wait.
Just because it’s available doesn’t mean it’s accessible. Yesterday morning was the first time I had available to sit down and listen to even one hour of audio, and I still haven’t had the opportunity to listen to the other three. That’s why I had been asking for the details of the accusers’ claims.
I also didn’t have the energy to listen to it until yesterday. But even in my personal life I didn’t say anything but the bare minimum until I had because I am not going to say shit about sexual violence when all I have is hearsay and wild speculation!
The only thing I saw people saying was “what are the actual statements from the actual people involved?” I still don’t understand why seeking out the victims’ stories is somehow troublesome.
You and I agree that seeking out victims stories is important. I think you did good work making a transcript available. Where we may disagree is whether it’s appropriate to spend A LOT of time sharing skepticism without first engaging with a source.
I think it’s inappropriate to make SO MANY posts like this without getting information, and inappropriate to defend it. It’s fine to wait for more information, not fine to put a LOT of time into criticizing media you haven’t engaged with yet when doing so leads here.
Look, if you want to be mad at me, fine. However, as of that screenshot, I’d gone around for about the fifth time, having the exact same conversation with the exact same person yelling in all caps, until they finally got a screenshot they could gloat about.
I think the tacticsl mistake was letting them make you go round and round with them: one clarification (or 2)& then mute the conversation or block the person probably would serve you better.
At least it's been better for me since I started mostly doing that. & I think I regret it every time I forget
Oh, you’re broadly right, and I should be better about it. I just get hung up on “but there is an observable FACT and this person has that fact WRONG and I can fix this if I just explain…” which only works on people who actually care about getting things like primary vs secondary source right.
I found out this is one of my ADHD traits, i feel compelled to answer honest questions asked around me. And i instinctively try to update people’s information if i hear something wrong. 🙃 genetically induced mansplaining
Ugh, same. One of my most insufferable traits. I get so excited about the science and sharing new information! Forgetting most folks read it as “um, actually, you’re wrong.”
In all honesty, if these informations are right, I am very much going to be happy about learning stuff and be corrected! But..... Apparently that's a me thing most of the time LOL
I get that with SA, throwing shade at the source is often used as a way of discrediting the people coming forward, and I totally understand that as a concern.
I feel like you made it pretty clear you believed them *and* wanted a better source, though, but obviously your mentions disagree.
I think we all should respond to that, in a civil discourse. The shame here isn't on *you*.
I see the huge amount of grief you get from contentious randos, & think better moderation & filtering tools for public posts could help a lot. Setting commenting thresholds for public posts springs to mind.
I think we’re conditioned to do this having spent the last couple decades on social media where we are constantly encouraged to respond. Also, with so many news shows becoming entertainment and speculation, we’ve also been taught it’s our job to find facts and share that or we’re “bad” citizens.
and while I believe engagement and fact-checking and sharing is important, I think it also opens the door for emotional harm because we’ve been taught to prioritize adding to the feed over personal wellness and that stress is fertile land for trolls.
Yeah, even if you’re not a person where a wrong fact aches like a broken tooth, the whole drive of social media is POST POST POST RESPOND RESPOND RESPOND.
The thing is, sometimes people have an actual question they want a genuine answer to. I think it’s important to push back against people attacking others for genuine questions because we NEED space to ask questions! Not knowing all about a situation you’re not involved in is not actually a problem
I agree with you! i’ve learned a lot from being online from asking questions. But its not so urgent that people MUST answer, especially if they are experiencing stress and potential burnout. Somewhere it’s become an expectation that we must be available to contribute 24/7 and thats not sustainable.
Okay, I get this- I have definitely run up against people who don’t want their understanding of events challenged. Also Salty is a super bad actor who causes problems on purpose.
But.
Questioning the source of a story about sexual assault and publicly declaring you’re waiting for another source-
Is really triggering for survivors of sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, but the fact of the matter is that it’s probably not a super great idea to take this mental journey in full public view of survivors. It makes people think about their assaults and how they weren’t believed.
I admire your writing and your insight in general, but I admit this whole exchange really rubbed me the wrong way.
Salty is definitely wrong. But it also was really hard to see someone with such a wide platform casting aspersions until a satisfactory source was procured.
I’m sorry if it was upsetting. (I did not make any threads for just that reason.) But maybe also consider that some survivors may have rather different reactions.
as a survivor i would just kind of like the ability to mute things on bluesky since with this and the recent political news my feed is a mess. i feel like i heard of a third-party app that allows it. i don't remember it...
📢 1.70 is rolling out now (2/6)
Mute words! In the Moderation screen, you can now add mute words which target either hashtags or the full content of a post (text, alt text, and hashtags).
Obviously this is true. It’s just a widespread enough feeling that I have seen several people asking folks to maybe not air their conflicted feelings and doubts.
I am autistic and worked in media literacy, so I get it. I just feel for my fellow survivors who would rather not be subjected to this.
Unfortunately I think sometimes there are situations on social media where people’s various emotional needs are in conflict, even among people of goodwill. And this one hit so fast and hard that startled flailing was the order of the day for awhile.
There's also this thing where people tend to expect "popular accounts adjacent to the thing" to have a take on the event of note. This happens a lot in the TTRPG sphere, where if someone gets outed as a bad actor the general populace seems to expect creators to instantly know and comment on it.
I am also thinking about a case I was sort of adjacent to where the online accuser was actually the abuser. I didn’t expect that to be the situation here, but that case really highlighted the problems with internet people being super fast to react in extreme ways!
