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The Toronto social media bubble’s best-kept secret has spilled into the open this week, and the revelation is laying bare some bald-faced hypocrisy.

Months ago, I was tipped off to a rumour about Andray Domise, an activist and emerging voice in Canadian media whom I deeply respect. I dismissed it as the kind of character assassination too often aimed at public figures.

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Toronto police say I was wrong — and perhaps many others in this city were wilfully silent for the wrong reasons as well.

Photo by Dave Abel / Postmedia Network

Domise was charged in February for three alleged domestic assaults throughout 2015. He vigorously maintains his innocence and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

The National Post broke the story online on Monday evening, and the Toronto Star was quick to follow with its own story. But the chatter that usually pours from the Toronto twitterati after any allegation of gendered violence against a high-profile figure failed to follow.

The silence has been awkward, to say the least. I too have been more quiet than usual. I’ve met Domise a handful of times, have chatted with him on the record and off and respect his work with Techsdale, a group he started in a northwest Toronto neighbourhood to teach vulnerable kids how to code.

And the usual suspects, those who create hashtags and protest the mainstream media’s middle-of-the-road coverage of sexual assault trials, have mostly been silent. Some even reminded everyone of the principle that an accused is “innocent until proven guilty” — a reminder that, had it been issued about other recent high-profile gendered violence and harassment cases, would have elicited an overwhelming backlash.

Some weren’t so shy. Scaachi Koul over at BuzzFeed was one of the first, admirably, to speak out, tweeting that the situation makes her “deeply, deeply, deeply sad” and that “I know it’s hard and it hurts but you have to hold your allies to the same standard you would anyone else. Particularly your allies.”