I've been reporting on these types of campaigns for years now as a fixture of the era of MeToo backlash. I'm grateful for my Spitfire News members whose generosity allows me to publish this kind of reporting unpaywalled. spitfirenews.com/upgrade
These types of campaigns are boosted by algorithms and biases that identify women who report sexual harassment as attention-seeking and overreacting. It's another form of DARVO, and it's increasingly affecting everyday women who speak up about sexual violence.
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After Rebecca got expelled following her Title IX complaint, she filed a complaint against her music school with the state division of human rights. She has a lot of evidence on her side. But now her top Google result is a Reddit comment calling her a "nightmare."
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Smear campaigns in Reddit comments have become a fixture of celebrity legal dramas, but they aren't just affecting public figures. For @spitfirenews.com, I investigated anonymous online attacks against a woman who reported a music professor for sexual harassment.
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I have been following the minutiae of these cases for years, even when people told me they didn't matter. I reviewed hundreds of Epstein Files for this piece. It's free to read & subscribe, but please consider supporting my journalism @spitfirenews.com if you can! spitfirenews.com/upgrade
These crisis PR strategies: building a pseudo-feminist narrative around an alleged predator, relying on access journalists, and turning to partisan influencer "news" sources over actual journalists when that fails, are consistent across each of these cases. spitfirenews.com/p/epstein-jo...
An excerpt from the aforementioned Spitfire News article: One of those publicists, Nathan, is mentioned in the Epstein Files regarding a May 5, 2017 meeting scheduled between Epstein and Hiltzik that Sosenko and Nathan were supposed to attend. Bryan Freedman, the lawyer representing Baldoni and Nathan against Lively, denied that this meeting took place in an exclusive statement he shared with Zack Peter, a militantly anti-Lively and pro-Baldoni podcast host who gained attention in recent days for spreading cruel, baseless conspiracies that broadcaster Savannah Guthrie is hiding information from the public about her mother’s highly-publicized kidnapping. This is reminiscent of when Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman testified that he had been in contact with three pro-Depp YouTubers, engaging with them like he would with journalists. In Nathan’s case, the people most likely to care that she’s in the Epstein Files is the audience most avidly following the case against her and Baldoni. By issuing a denial through such a partisan source, she and Freedman are speaking through and to their most sympathetic audience. The mainstream media has yet to pick up on this, shielding the denial from much scrutiny. Peter didn’t respond to my request for comment.
Melissa Nathan, through her lawyer Bryan Freedman, denies that said meeting ever took place or that she would ever meet with Epstein. But you won't hear about her denial from any mainstream media sources, because they exclusively shared it with a pro-Baldoni, anti-Lively podcaster.
Matthew Hiltzik was the main point of contact for Epstein. One of his then-associates, Melissa Nathan, was listed as attending a meeting with them. She later represented Justin Baldoni and is now being sued by Blake Lively for an alleged PR campaign of retaliation. spitfirenews.com/p/epstein-jo...
Publicists who represented Johnny Depp during his 2022 trial against Amber Heard charged Jeffrey Epstein five figures a month for representation during 2017, according to invoices in the Epstein Files. Their PR strategies for Epstein reflect the later MeToo backlash. spitfirenews.com/p/epstein-jo...
I wrote about how the women Epstein and co victimized have been minimized and ignored as individuals even in popular discourse about the very abuse they endured—and how the legal system has punished them and other women, not helped them, for daring to come forward.
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My plan was to write an influencer drama retrospective this week for members, which I did, but at the same time it didn't feel right to take my focus off combatting ICE. So I'm doing both. And if you want to make a donation directly, here's the org I'm supporting. ilapmaine.org
Today's @spitfirenews.com proceeds will go toward free and low-cost immigration legal services in Maine, where ICE has been detaining hundreds of people. I'll also be matching that total and donating it.
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You don’t need to care about celebrity news. But what you should know is that right-wing content creators have built a viral online pipeline that directs pop culture consumers—especially women—from celeb gossip to conservative news and commentary.
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Last week, in response to international pressure, X announced it was restricting Grok's ability to edit people into revealing clothes. That has not stopped the rampant trend of sexual harassment via Grok edits. The culture around GenAI is firmly rooted in abuse.
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I spoke to @jjfreyd.bsky.social, who developed the concept of DARVO, about the way the Trump admin is using it to smear Renee Good, other ICE victims, and Twin Cities residents at large. I also traced how viral DARVO campaigns against abuse victims led us here.
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A @spitfirenews.com subscription is free, and you can upgrade for just $5 to support my journalism and feminist analysis ❤️ spitfirenews.com
Previously, several of these companies, like Apple, IBM, and Disney, have paused advertising on X in response to antisemitic content. But antisemitism on X never slowed, sexual abuse imagery increased, and all of these companies quietly resumed advertising anyways.
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I reached out to the sponsors of the Take It Down Act and the Kids Online Safety Act, all of whom maintain a daily active presence on X. I noticed that most of them continue to post on X officially despite getting little to no engagement on their posts.
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I reached out to more than three dozen X advertisers, xAI investors, politicians, and government agencies about the growing library of sexualized deepfakes generated with Grok—now including Renee Good. I only heard back from four, with three declining to comment.
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I've been tracking the spread of nonconsensual deepfakes on X for more than two years. Here's a timeline of how Musk's leadership allowed the practice to flourish from a once-underground market to a viral trend, with little recourse for victims or legal enforcement.
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I’m beyond humbled to share that @spitfirenews.com just hit 10,000 subscribers 🥳 I started this little feminist internet culture newsletter this year after getting laid off and had no idea what to expect. You all showed up for me and I’m forever grateful.
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It has now been a year since I stopped posting on X. For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about watching the platform I loved become a conduit for the worst extremism I've ever witnessed. I don't regret leaving. In fact, I wish I'd left even earlier.
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Last week's election and last night's betrayal prove that the Democratic base has rightfully moved to the left of its establishment politicians and their status quo. Voters won't accept it anymore, so the party either follows them or fails. Me for @spitfirenews.com
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For @spitfirenews.com I wrote about "ChatGPT induced psychosis," how the chatbot distorts reality for all of its users, and why, despite what feels like growing pressure to conform to the hype, I still won't use it (and I'm not missing out)
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The types of viral DARVO rhetoric that have been leveraged against celebrity women like Amber Heard are now being weaponized against everyday, working-class women who report sexual violence. And AI is helping accelerate these narratives. My latest dispatch from hell:
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A bright spot of news I’m excited to share is that I was honored this past weekend by SPJ as a Fellow of the Society. I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported me and @spitfirenews.com and I got to talk to student journalists about the future of our profession!
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For @spitfirenews.com, I found that increasingly realistic AI-generated videos are being deployed to harass, smear, and create endless offensive content of influencers, whose likenesses are already readily available online. It’s happening to private figures, too.
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J.K. Rowling's anti-trans bigotry and the alt-right pipeline she's personified require her to undermine and perpetuate real misogyny, so she's browbeating a woman almost half her age who has already been subjected to plenty of sexual violence for playing Hermione
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State-sanctioned abuse and control of pregnant people is never acceptable, and Trump lying about pain relief and autism is another step toward eugenics as national policy. This is not, contrary to what Ezra Klein thinks, the time to capitulate
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Not enough people are paying attention to a major target for Brendan Carr and the Trump admin’s crackdown on free speech: social media. It’s under bipartisan attack, even though it’s a crucial forum for reaching the public and fighting back.
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