One thing I need to get out of the way about Tumblr’s social justice gone sour crowd.

These people are the perfect group of terrorists.

Hear me out on this.

They have taken a perfectly good thing - activism about social injustices and inequalities - and turned it into a witch hunt. And even will bully other people who are in a marginalized group into submission, hiding, self-censorship, or worse, suicide. And now they’re inticing people to actually go fight people they dislike.

They know a way they can get away with making people miserable. They have found a perfect place to strike. Even softer targets than what ISIS targets - individuals and groups on the internet.

And they can do so without direct violence. That’s the fucking shit about this - Unlike ISIS which resorts to blowing up people and shooting their enemies, all these people have to do is use their foul bile to actually attack their victims - some who are mentally and emotionally trying to recover from things, some young and impressionable, all over things ranging from wearing dreadlocks to a fucking stylized rose quartz drawing someone did to a simple hashtag movement to counter a hateful one.

And while there is no inherant ‘safe space’ on the internet, they take advantage of this, and on a site that’s staff is too busy putting their genitals into the power supplies on the server racks to really give a shit to stand up and go ‘hey, freedom of speech and all, but when you impersonate, antagonize, falsely accuse people of heinous crimes and otherwise bully people into submission, we won’t stand for that’. alas, they don’t

And they take advantage of this too. They know staff are slow to respond if at all. they’ll use redirect codes, ip loggers, and will even use these to aid in their doxxing of people - again to intice violence and direct aggression.

I am honestly surprised people haven’t tried swatting on this site because of how low people will go. They’ve done about everything else short of driving 2000 miles in a daiper to go whack the person who drew the thing they dislike or shipped the thing they shipped or disagreed with them over feminism… or over a fucking meme involving a certain loss.

You never know when they will strike too. These people exist on all corners of the site. By the inherant design of the site, it makes it VERY easy for people to sort of mesh into certain fandoms and movements.

And they prey on vulnerable youth - teens and young adults who are misguided, ignorant, like we all were at times - but they use them to make them feel wanted… and that makes them not dare question this shit. And it reinforces a cult-like mentality amongst everyone. And they don’t see their victims, as detached from their main goal they may be, as innocent. they’re corrupt and depraved. This is how cults like aum shinrikyo and jim jones work their magic.

And it’s decentralized. It’s a hydra at best - you chop off one head it’ll grow back, you have to cut off all three. Except it’s not that easy when there is no central body either. A very decentralized, yet organized terrorist sect. It’s actually from an efficiency standpoint very elegant.

I link to the warning signs of a cult below but I will do so here: http://culteducation.com/warningsigns.html, but there’s a ton of things that do corrolate to these people being terroristic AND cult-like. They’re always right, the cause is greater than the individual, everyone not part of the cause is bad, etc.

And they know exactly what to do to not only get them noticed, and not make their victims miserable, but to spread fear into people, and to make them change their routines to avoid angering them and causing the cycle to continue (even though it will, goalposts need to be moved to keep a movement relevant).

And isn’t that what terrorism is ultimately?

According to the FBI, it might be:

Domestic Terrorism

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;

Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and

Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

The dubious bit is the second one. But these people do definitely target the population in general, because they believe any people who don’t fit their bill are too ‘normal’. and they really hate the establishment too. And because they hide under their percieved oppression, they can be a bit more subtle. and then call out others as being terrorists. Anti-Gamergate people can do this quite a bit as an example. [LONG, image heavy]

And they found a way to use only aggression and hate speech to do so. Which sadly is a grey area and some aspects, as despicable as hate speech is, is protected under the first amendment to a point. However it doesn’t protect those from consequences.

And one can argue, by the site allowing this bullshit and toxic behavior to thrive, they are harbouring terrorists.

And that makes the site managment part of the problem.

And because many of these people claim to be part of a movement, or identify with social justice or are physically or mentally disabled or are part of a minority group in some way - that makes you the enemy if you call them out. As I found out last night, it’s an easy way to get people to call you a rape sympathizer and a racist just because you get tired of the bullshit that goes on. (And mine was a mild, although still absurd as fuck case that didn’t tread into this territory as much.)

And this doesn’t even include the traditional terrorist and hate movements like the white supremicists, nazis and that sort of guff.

How do we solve this?

I do not know.

It’s not something I can solve on my own, nor can I begin to think how to. But I am concerned things will turn physical at this rate. We have seen kids stab schools up and they’ve used this site. And it’s scary that it happened in Canada, a place with very low violence rates and hate crimes aren’t as common (but tensions do occur, but that’s not my point). The teen was alleged to use Tumblr and posted a threat about this incident right before hand.

Unfortunately the issue comes to the people using the site and doing this. As broken as the site is, the people doign these dreadful, goddamn awful things, are the ones ultimately responsible. They only have their fucking laptops and venom. No hobbies. No jobs. Probably no real friends outside their terrorist cult. So they lash out at others. They’re ultimately jealous, vile people.

And we need to remember that.

We also need to remember that we are not anyone’s shields, and we should not let these people hide behind our umbrellas of LGBT+, races, and other labels, for their soured view of justice and hatred.

I still advise people to seriously contact the authorities on these matters if it reaches a point of constant harassment, doxxing and threats being made. and absolutely do that if you get swatted - that is typing up valuable resources of the police, and putting people in harm’s way. Innocent people.

References/Further Reading:

Warning Signs of a Cult - http://culteducation.com/warningsigns.html

FBI’s definition of Terrorism - https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism-definition