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Quicklink: Fake Twitter Accounts, Misogynoir and Gullibility #EndFathersDay

tigtog

@thetrudz has compiled a timeline of tweets that lay out what’s been happening with the pseudo-feminist troll hashtag #EndFathersDay and how it rapidly devolved from anti-feminist sockpuppeting to misogynoir sockpuppeting with very little pushback except from the targeted WoC and BW tweeters themselves.

Plants That Aren’t Green
Tweets about the effort from 4chan (or worse) re: FAKE WoC (esp BW) feminist accounts to infiltrate our spaces & cause/bring harm & deter others from feminism.

These plants/trolls are waging a slime campaign that needs more eyeballs recognising it, more voices raised in pushback against it, and more sunlight blazing down on it generally to disinfect it.

23 thoughts on Quicklink: Fake Twitter Accounts, Misogynoir and Gullibility #EndFathersDay

  1. Would it be possible for Twitter to verify all users’ identity the same way they do now for celebs? Or would that step drive down their all around popularity?

    1. TomSims, it’s certainly technically possible, but would require them to recruit many times more workers than they currently employ to do so. Currently they probably only have a handful of people in the verification department in order to verify just those accounts belonging to people who have a high public profile and who *request* verification in order to prevent impostors impugning their reputation. Pseudonymous accounts are so widely used on Twitter, mostly for non-nefarious purposes, that there would be a huge outcry against compulsory verification on privacy grounds.

  2. “These plants/trolls are waging a slime campaign that needs more eyeballs recognising it, more voices raised in pushback against it, and more sunlight blazing down on it generally to disinfect it.”

    If you want to know why people hate feminists its because of overblown statements like that. Why in the world would you want to draw more attention to a hashtag that you don’t like? That is such a stupid and pointless issue. It’s amazing that all you have to do to create controversy is come up with a stupid hashtag.

    Anyone interested in intelligent feminism should read feministing’s blog, this website has repeatedly shown its more interest in wallowing in pointless controversy than actually engaging real issues.

    Chances are no one will be able to read this though, this blog has censored my comments more than any other i’ve been on, and don’t give me some bs about misogynistic pigs flooding the comment section, what do you expect when you write articles about their hashtags!!!!!!

    #overreaction #realproblemsintheworld #twitterisnottheendoftheuniverse #smaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllminded

    1. Why in the world would you want to draw more attention to a hashtag that you don’t like?

      Because corporate media outlets have reported on the hashtag as if actual feminists started it and that abolishing Father’s Day is something actual feminists would support. Some debunking and pushback needs to happen to counter that.

      1. To be fair, this is my first time hearing about this… which is odd, since my job involves literally monitoring the news (for sexist stories).

        Who else here knows about this affair through your country’s respective media outlets?

    2. Chances are no one will be able to read this though, this blog has censored my comments more than any other i’ve been on

      Or, y’know, your IP number changes fairly often so you get caught in the automatic first-time-poster moderation queue every time it does.

    4. Shorter version- racism, not a Real Issue. Thanks discotech. You may refer to this if you ever wonder why woc here hate you. When you ignore racism, what do you expect? #dumbass

      1. Right? Adding a hashtag that doesn’t do shit to the end of your comment is strangely satisfying. It’s fun when you can summarize your view in a hashtag. I see why he did it.

    5. If you want to know why people hate feminists its because of overblown statements like that.

      Wouldn’t be at all because they’re misogynists and hate any idea of equality for women, oh no.

  4. Even more to the point. This HT was created to discredit feminism by attacking Black Feminists.

    1. Yes, that’s why I used the word misogynoir in the title, and linked to @thetrudz talking about exactly that. Summary for those who don’t already know: the fake twitter accounts used stock profile photos of PoC and especially BW with hyperbolic and nonsensical snips of misused social justice and identity jargon words to exploit the existing marginalisation of Black Feminists, so as to clickbait their way to being a trending topic and therefore getting lazy journalists to report on it in their own superficial clickbait way.

      Ignoring superficial churnalism about social media trends (as discotech thinks we ought) just because it comes and goes is cynical apathy. Each wave of harassment adds to and helps prolong the crud of existing oppression. Keeping quiet about it changes nothing. At least the pushback means that when readers click through to the troll hashtag timeline it is full of challengers to their message.

      1. The tragedy is that they’re not necessarily misusing the jargon alot of the time. The nomenclature within social justice and identity circles is beyond absurd at this point. To most intelligent and rational people of the liberal persuasion outside of blogosphere “activism”, it’s downright comical.

        1. I’m really not seeing how pretending to be a fictional member of a marginalised ethnicity, and using several of the most widely mocked non-mainstream identities in nonsensical juxtaposition to do so, is anything other than misusing the jargon.

        2. Point taken tigtog; my point was that they were oftentimes using the terminology in the same or similar context as it’s used in actual SJ circles. Thus, the absurdity of it is not unique to their tweets. However, the overall usage is, as you said, an obvious misuse of the jargon for nefarious purposes.

          1. I’m mildly curious as to why you find some (which?) SJ/identity labels so “beyond absurd”, but it would be a derail to explore on this thread. Shall we take it to spillover?

      2. Yes, thank you for using misogynoir, because that’s precisely what this is. I also thank you for bringing up this issue, however as history has shown, White feminists have been silent about these attacks. It’s still unfolding and several more trolls have been outed.

    2. By the time it got to the public sphere (through reporting and re-reporting) it appeared to be decoupled from POCfeminists per se. It was just thrown out there as a generic “here is what some stupid feminists say” kind of thing. I had to dig through a lot of tweet history before I could find the link between the not-obviously-racist “end father’s day” tag and the actual history of these folks.

  5. In no way is this a ‘liberals do it too!!!!’ response, and I’m not excusing the stupidity of the MRA parodies. but there are some really great fake twitter accounts parodying racist/sexist/tea party views. The significant difference is that conservatives actually get fooled by both and end up agreeing with the right wing parodies and getting apoplectic by the left wing parodies.

    My favorite at the moment is https://twitter.com/britainfurst

    1. I love a good parody/performance-art twitter account too, but parody often falls over the line into malice, and besides I don’t how these fake accounts can be validly described as parodies, even though Parody! Satire! is their fallback line of defense of their actions. Impersonating a fictional someone who holds opinions you don’t share is quite different from impersonating a fictional someone who belongs to identity groups you don’t share i.e. if they were just parodying “feminists” they might be simply an irritation, but “parodying” already-marginalised groups is punching-down rather than punching-up, and creepily appropriative as well.

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