to me demons are like cats just doing whatever they want causing problems on purpose, while angels are like hares theyre painfully aware of their place in this world theyve seen the end
The number of times I’ve seen strangers on tumblr receive an ANONYMOUS message about someone they reblogged from, often to as vague a tune as “just so you know xyz on that last post is a bad person”
And the secretive whisper campaign recipient responds “omg thank you I’m sorry please don’t hurt me I don’t know anything about that person of course I’ve deleted it”
Is so wild to me
And frustrating
And also there’s this tiny, evil little voice in the back of my brain going “wow, this is so exploitable, you could exploit this, you could spam so many random messages about literally everyone until everything fell to chaos and maybe someone would even learn something”
Except obviously you can’t and shouldn’t fight abuse by replicating its tactics and that would inevitably do harm even if it is really tempting and also I wonder what would happen if someone made a bunch of bots for even more chaos
the thing to do if you get a message like this (or at least what I do):
demand proof. and don’t publish the anon ask with your “proof pls” response - do it in a separate post which doesn’t mention the accused person by name.publishing the ask still spreads the potential misinformation even if your response challenges it.
(note: “My friend said they did something bad” isn’t proof. that’s still hearsay. proof means links or screenshots, and NOT screenshots of out-of-context quotes. if someone tries to give you “proof” in the form of a bunch of short disconnected bits of text, that is extremely suspicious and there’s a good chance they’re just out on a grudge campaign, though it is also possible that they just don’t have access to more extensive proof.)
if possible, request that the person come off anon. personally I don’t give much credit to accusations made by people who aren’t willing to put their names behind it. they can ask that you don’t make their identity public, but they should be willing to reveal it to you at least.
even after they’ve given you their receipts, don’t take their word for it. do your own research. look into the blog of the person being accused. see if they’ve said anything about it. essentially, give the accused person a chance to defend themself. the worse the accusation, the more research you should be doing.
if this seems like too much work for you to bother with (understandable tbh), then ignore it. don’t respond to the ask in any way. delete the post in question if it makes you feel more comfortable, but don’t acknowledge the accusations unless you’re willing to do the research to verify them.
I’ve seen many people’s careers and reputations get badly damaged because of baseless rumor campaigns started by an asshole with a grudge. don’t be part of that. don’t give into the pressure to metaphorically burn the witch. think critically.
listening to this American life today and there’s a member of the Republican legislator they’re interviewing who basically said “I mean yeah we passed this super restrictive anti abortion trigger law to win political points but we didn’t think it would actually go into effect! we didn’t think they’d overturn roe! ” and they’re going through all these consequences of the ban that pro choice advocates have been warning about for YEARS and he’s like no I didn’t foresee these consequences at all!“ and it’s just. as ghoulish as it is idiotic.
reading a romance novel where the protagonist feels the need to stop and inform that audience that it’s okay for her, a 27 year old, to hook up with a 31 year old because despite the age difference both of their brains are fully developed. the Discourse really has done incalculable damage.
that’s…they’re adults 4 years apart, who on Earth would think there’s any sort of meaningful age gap
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