We're about to describe a very common problem, but it's particularly relevant to plural communities right now. #pluralpride #pluralgang #pluraltalk

It's this: With online harassment, it can be next to impossible to figure out what's motivating the people who send hateful stuff.

It's generally clear what they SAY, but is that what they BELIEVE, or are they trying to get you to be angry at the people who do believe things adjacent to it?

The answer, nearly all of the time, is that you will never know.

The key thing to remember is YOU DON'T KNOW. You don't know that it's genuine, and you don't know that it isn't.

Don't jump to conclusions and throw around accusations that something is a false-flag. That's just going to come off as invalidating the experience of the people being harassed. Besides, it feeds fear-driven reasoning, and we really advise not letting fear rule you.

At the same time, don't jump to the conclusion that stuff is definitely coming from the group it appears to be from.

Reserve your judgement. Don't forget what happened; the one thing that's definitely true is that IT HAPPENED. Hold on to it on the off chance that remembering will be useful someday, but for now, focus on dealing with the immediate consequences, not on jumping to conclusions.

We know we're repeating ourselves a bunch in this thread but it's honestly just such a common thing, we are saying it a lot of ways in the hope that it reaches more people that way. Thank you for reading. We're all in this together.