Imagine you’re a normal American woman in a typical profession, say, real estate. And in your spare time, you create a Twitter account entitled Libs of TikTok that, for fun, re-posts videos of what people with liberal worldviews are saying and doing on popular social media platforms such as TikTok.
And to re-phrase what the famous TV host Art Linkletter used to say about children, “people say the darndest things.”
Then imagine your Twitter account attracts the attention of conservatives – especially parents – who might not otherwise find out that teachers are sexualizing children as young as four years old by exposing them to transgender ideology, homosexuality and other ideas totally inappropriate for that age group. Or worse, attempting to normalize pedophilia. And all of them are bragging about it on social media.
Ultimately, you get spotted by media personalities such as Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, who promote your Twitter account to their audiences. And your Twitter account explodes in popularity, which means more people – including parents – are finding out what is going on behind their backs in the schools.
That’s bound to irritate more than a few radicals on the left, and their media allies. And prompt some sort of retaliation.
And sure enough, the entire world now knows that Chaya Raichik is the Brooklyn real estate agent behind the creative journalism of Libs of TikTok, thanks to The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos. The paper’s “technology and online culture” reporter, Taylor Lorenz, published an article on April 19 entitled “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine.”
The paper has a large readership, and just its digital reach in one month – May 2021 – was over 75 million users.
There’s no way to stay anonymous once WaPo tells the world who you are.
Ms. Raichik is now in hiding, but maintaining her sense of humor over the irony that Lorenz, who not long ago was interviewed herself on the subject of online harassment, had indeed targeted Raichik for the same type of abuse.
The folks at WaPo are difficult people to figure out sometimes. A billionaire – Elon Musk – who wants to purchase Twitter to restore free speech on the platform is called a dangerous menace to “our embattled democracy,” according to WaPo columnist Max Boot. But a billionaire whose newspaper doxxes a private individual for merely reposting what liberals actually say on social media “comports entirely with The Washington Post’s professional standards.”
Here’s WaPo defending the Lorenz piece:
Taylor Lorenz is an accomplished and diligent journalist whose reporting methods comport entirely with The Washington Post’s professional standards. Chaya Raichik, in her management of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account and in media interviews, has had significant impact on public discourse and her identity had become public knowledge on social media. We did not publish or link to any details about her personal life. – Cameron Barr, Senior Managing Editor, The Washington Post.
In WaPo’s misguided logic, Raichik highlighting liberals’ own speech means that she is “anti-trans,” and “aimed at inciting outrage among the right,” and therefore must be stopped. It is fair game to publish her name, city, and profession, knowing full well what happens when people are doxxed like that.
It’s not like Raichik is unused to the left attempting to silence her. Her account on the notoriously anti-conservative Twitter platform remains constantly in jeopardy, and she has been suspended twice for breaching Twitter’s favorite censorship trigger – “violating community standards.”
All for re-posting videos and content posted by the left. Go figure.
The upside to her sudden notoriety is that her Twitter account is growing by leaps and bounds, up over 200,000 followers in the two days since WaPo posted its article on her. That success will only last, of course, if Twitter doesn’t take WaPo’s 2,000-word hint and ban her account on a permanent basis.
But Raichik has suddenly gained some important supporters in the quest to defend her free speech rights. Seth Dillon, the CEO of everyone’s favorite Christian satire site, The Babylon Bee, announced on Twitter that he has reached an agreement with Raichik to “turn her heroic, high-risk work into a career.”
Concerning the WaPo article, Dillon tweeted: “The exposure of @libsoftiktok isn’t journalism; it’s pure intimidation. They’re threatened by her effectiveness, so they hope to silence her by making her too afraid to continue. They want to raise the cost of doing her work so high that she has no choice but to quit.
“But I think they’ll be surprised by her resolve. She’s afraid, as anyone would be in these circumstances, but she’s also determined to not be bullied, threatened, or harassed into silence. That takes remarkable courage that few people possess.
“I think they’ll also be surprised by the support she receives. I want them to know that she won’t be canceled from her job because this *is* her job now. I’ve worked out a deal with her that will turn her heroic, high-risk work into a career.
“They may have exposed her, but they’ll never stop her.”
Oh, and just in case Twitter does delete Raichik’s account, she’s already established a presence over at Substack. Free speech will find a way.
Photo from Shutterstock.
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