1. So one of my friends was smeared by a Twitter zealot this week. I considered responding directly but it wouldn’t accomplish anything except to add me to the enemies list (I don’t seem to be on their radar), so instead you’re getting this thread.

2. I grew up in a moderately strict evangelical Christian home in the Northeast US.

I thought my life was pretty normal because I had cousins in Hawaii whose parents were much stricter and...

3. ...I also heard about some of the churches that didn’t allow things like dancing. And pantsfor women.

4. I don’t like to talk about it much both because most of my family are still evangelicals and because compared to other women who grew up in evangelical Christianity or other fundamentalist religions, cults, or extremist families, I had it easy.

5. I had access to:
- pants (though I hated them as a kid)
- dance classes
- some network TV (no evil cable)
- some movies
- some secular music
- media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines)
- my local library
- public school
- enrichment education (for gifted kids)
- college!

6. But while I was never held hostage in my own home as women like Rahaf Mohammed are, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without my parents until I was much older than most kids my age.

7. I was rarely allowed to ride my bike anywhere but my street.

I didn’t ride a train with a friend until high school.

I didn’t ride public transit alone until I was in college.

8. Why? Because evil and danger were lurking everywhere! I might be kidnapped. Or molested. Or spoken to by Satan through his minions.

9. I was raised to be afraid of pretty much everyone who wasn’t like us—the non-believers aka heathens—those who hadn’t accepted Jesus as their Lord & Savior. For many years I thought the world was a very scary place and that we were all just waiting to be taken Home by the Lord.

10. Jews may have been the Chosen People but they were going to hell with everyone else unless they repented so they must be bad people.

11. Even Catholics weren’t “real Christians” as we were, because they worship idols (Mary & the saints).

12. Let’s not get started on those heathen Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus or those evil cultists—Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists & Scientologists.

13. Definitely stay away far far away from the pagans aka devil worshippers (I didn’t learn until college that pagans aren’t Satanists) and the kids who play Dungeons & Dragons (also not Satanists).

14. But the atheists who fought against our “right” to prayer in school and in the government and with their “War on Christmas”—they were the worst.

Non-believers should be avoided at all costs, except to proselytize to.

15. There were no evangelical children on our street so exceptions were made for me to play with the neighborhood kids.

16. Exceptions were also made for other Japanese, Japanese American, and Asian American kids. Since we were in a predominantly white area so the chance to befriend “my own kind” was rare.

17. But strangers were dangerous. I wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers or go to sleepovers. I wasn’t allowed to be babysat until I was fairly old nor to babysit after the one disastrous time I babysat for the white neighbors and their young daughter showed me her vagina.

18. I was told I couldn’t trust non-believers and white partners. They would let me down someday and the only people who would be there for me would be the born again and my family.

19. I never knew where the Devil might be lurking. I once dragged my mom out of an independently-owned shoe store because I felt a sense of impending doom and something wrong in the store.

20. She determined that I must have the Gift of discerning good & evil and that the Holy Spirit must have moved me. For years after that I wondered if I really was specially chosen by God to KNOW THINGS that no one else could see.

21. It wasn’t until I read Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” that I understood what had likely happened in that store.
https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Fear-Survival-Signals-Violence/dp/0440226198

On the other hand, it might just have been my first panic attack.

22. So, why am I telling you all of this and what does it have to do with my friend getting smeared?

I’m not looking to catastrophize my childhood but to draw parallels, because the fear that I grew up being instilled with is something I see online everywhere these days.

23. It’s taken me years to not be so afraid of the world and of people and now I have to fight being dragged into the same thing all over again.

24. The account that smeared my friend is one of those anonymous high follower count accounts that tweets fear into the phones & computers of their tens of thousands of followers every day.

25. Their political leanings are irrelevant—I’ve seen accounts all over the political spectrum and in multiple countries, of various races, ethniticies, genders & sexualities engage in this sort of tweeting.

26. These types of accounts may be run by individuals, organizations, media outlets, or as we’re learning from cyberwarfare experts possibly even foreign governments.

27. Day in and day out they ragetweet about the Other—

28.

The Other who looks different from you.

The Other who believes things you don’t.

The Other who is coming to take away your rights.

The Other who is collaborating with people coming to take away your rights.

The Other who TALKS to people with different opinions.

29. The tweets are all the same. They engage in a mixture of:
- dehumanization
- guilt by association
- emotional appeals
- outright fabrications
- victimhood culture and
- straight harassment

30. Other red flags:

They claim to be powerless and bullied while they turn their thousands of followers loose on others by tagging or retweeting lower follower accounts to criticize them.

31. They regularly pick fights with other accounts (low & high profile).

32. They tweet more about what they are against than for. Or if they tweet about what they are for, it’s always framed against the backdrop of what they oppose.

33. They block people for asking questions and for making reasoned arguments.

If dissent will not be tolerated even when it’s framed politely then it’s an authoritarian fiefdom.

34. (While I fully support people using the block feature liberally to get rid of abusers and trolls, there are many accounts who are well known for blocking people for saying anything at all that counters their worldview. This is not the same as blocking harassers. …

35. Although I will acknowledge that it can be tiring to be asked the same things often or to have annoying accounts bothering you and wasting your time. I’ve done of few of these blocks myself.)

36. I’m sure that most of you follow at least a few accounts like this. Most of us do. I’ve been culling as many of these accounts from my follows as I can.

37. I actually keep a list of accounts I’m following who I think have gone too far that I may want to unfollow. I don’t like to make rash decisions and there’s always some content from them that I want to see so I usually wait several months and do this a few times a year.

38. Unfortunately, sometimes previously more reasonable people get radicalized and become increasingly partisan. People who used to be good follows no longer are.

39. At a certain point, they’ve gone too far. I think that this past week has been that point for a lot of people.

40. Also consider how much you contribute to this problem. Do you sometimes/often engage in this kind of tweeting to self-soothe? Retweet these accounts? Reply?

41. I’ve seen some people I follow taking time to reflect on their own contributions to this negative ecosphere. @SarahTheHaider and @kittypurrzog come to mind. I applaud their attempts to take stock & make changes.

42. While I understand that some people use humor and snark as a coping mechanism it may be especially important to unfollow these accounts because it’s a lot easier to write off dehumanization as “it was a joke”.

43. I think humor is necessary but it can also be a powerful weapon. If you follow accounts that are weaponizing snark to target only specific groups or individuals on a regular basis ask yourself if it changes how you view those being attacked.

44. If you see a account teetering on the edge of hyperpartisanship, consider talking to them privately if you know them well enough. If not, think about a non-shaming way to talk to them publicly. Even if they won’t listen, someone who is reading might.

45. Support accounts that apologize for past tweets or other poor content.

Encourage accounts if they ruminate about how to be better.

But for those whose brand is fearmongering, ask yourself — how much time do you waste reading their patter?

46. Does it leave you in a state of perpetual anger or sadness or are you able to laugh at the ridiculousness of their tweets? Does it teach you anything useful or is it just for entertainment?

47. When I was a kid, the dangerousness of the Other was not so much that they would kidnap me but that they would expose me to ideas that were different from what I was supposed to believe and that I would see these non-believers as no different from myself.

48. The fear I grew up with wasn’t based in reality, it was based in mythology.

The same tends to be true for the fear that is promoted online. The cast of Saved and Non-Believers is different but the script is basically the same.

49. So here’s my ask:

Please stop rewarding the accounts that fearmonger.
Don’t follow them.
Don’t give them likes.
Don’t give them retweets (even hate-retweets).
Don’t tag them.
Heck, don’t even talk about them publicly. It’s what they want.

50. If you do need to follow these accounts to keep tabs for professional reasons, my suggestion is don’t follow, but make a private List that you check.

If list is private, they won’t know they’re on it and you won’t be drawing more attention to them.
https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-lists

51. Most of these are people are successful in one way or another whether in real life or online. Fearmongering has become their brand or their hobby. Some may be paid to do it.

So let’s not allow them to control the conversation.

52. We need to stop being afraid of the Other and stop rewarding the people who tell us that it is our job to be afraid. We need to get out of the house (bubble) more.

53. The only way we’re going to get to this…
https://www.buzzfeed.com/smbc/internet-fighting

54. …is if we turn down the volume on these people.

Thanks for your time!