#Facebook Rapist

[newsbites]

A South African fugitive who faked his own death in a prison break that embarrassed the authorities has been extradited from Tanzania and returned to prison, the government said on Thursday.

Thabo Bester, convicted of rape and murder, escaped from a privately run prison in Bloemfontein in May last year – but South African police only found out last month and launched a manhunt.

Bester was believed to have died after setting himself on fire behind bars, but in late March, police said an autopsy revealed that the person found dead in his cell had died from blunt force trauma to the head before being set ablaze.

A murder investigation has been opened.

[thedreadvampy]

HMMMMM apparently. One of my friends from school is now dating my sixth form ex. (who I THINK. drugged me at a party a year or two after we broke up and tried to do me quite a lot of harm, but I'm not 100% on that one.)

mostly what I'm picking at is like. she (the friend) had some of the worst times of all of us in adolescence, she was really badly harmed by this town and the people in it. and I cannot imagine, regardless of how the ex is now (bc people do change between 21 and 30 for sure). why anyone from my friendship group would, as an adult who successfully moved out to a city and thus has thousands of New Non-Trauma-Associated People at their disposal, willingly choose to date anyone they knew in their teens.

literally man like I know this from talking to my two very very beloved besties from school who I'm still very close to. and when they told me this I was like friends you know I love you and want you in my life forever but Jesus Christ I would never date you you know too much. very valuable to have friends who understand The Fuckery but imagine choosing to build a romantic relationship on that.

[kittyit]

One thing I don't like about trans critical spaces is how they are focused on trans women being unattractive and 'cringe.' this is just my personal experience, but I have been sexually victimized by multiple trans women, most of whom passed, many of whom were skinny and beautiful and most of which had high brow tastes and no interest in anime or other cringe topics. one of these TIMs was a serial sexual assailant and I think probably attracted to underage boys, and she was also beautiful and charismatic. Meanwhile, I also know multiple trans women who are good people and don't infringe on female spaces but who are conventionally "ugly", broad-shouldered, and have masculine interests. It also seems like the only thing TIMs criticize about each other publically is being "ugly", large, or fat.

my position has consistently been for about 15 years that mocking someone's appearance is not a feminist act. it simply isn't.

mocking appearance is essentially a cruel hobby, it's primate social aggression we're using our huge brains for. it's really fun, and that's why almost everyone does it. i sometimes do it too, in private, in intimate company, and it's enjoyable. i say this to clarify that despite my position, i don't set myself apart or above from women who do it. i do it too. and it's constant in basically every subculture online. julie bindel actually posted on her facebook recently troubled about this same thing. as you said, it's so common in queer/trans circles too, the long-forgotten 2013 values of tenderqueerism fallen to the wayside. stan culture, politics, just basically everything...i really can't stress enough that in my opinion, it is a hobby

mocking appearances is not feminist or activism. it quite often is anti-feminist. it's kindergarten stuff to not judge a book by its cover. it doesn't matter what a male person looks like - he is still male and all considerations that apply to male people apply to him. i don't need to think a male person has a hideous appearance to criticize him for any of the oppressive acts he's doing. focus on appearance (or other unrelated personal attacks) often takes the sting out of a criticism of someone's character, morals or actions and makes your argument easier to dismiss. and of course the now mocked & dismissed concept that when you rip into someone's appearance, you do friendly fire to anyone around who shares those features. but of course this doesn't matter to anyone because it's 1. so fun 2. we're so used to it 3. everyone is doing it 4. so who cares? (I do. However)

i also just can't really scrape up that much finger wagging anymore at women who do spend a huge amount of time blowing off steam mocking the insane parodies that trans women present as. it's basically evil imaginative play. it's just not activism and acting like it is, as you said, is really detrimental to radical feminism being understood as a feminist way of thought that deeply affects women's lives.

as for the rest of this, have you read pronouns are rohypnol? you do not have to call a serial rapist pedophile you knew she. there is no one here but us, he cannot hear you. i encourage you to free up processing power in your mind, especially if you've survived trans male violence. calling the men who harmed you he can be a turning point in reclaiming your own sense of reality, it was for me

[faggy--butch]

Me traversing that most terf infested vile place on earth (facebook) to post my little post about how maybe we shouldn't treat cis men like villains, and then disappearing again before the group "the audacity is stored in the penis" can find me and call me a rapist or something.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not knowing which friend to pick? TW: violence and sexual assault

This happened a little while ago. Two of my friends (F and M, mid 20s) were married. A few years in they start having problems.

Both of them are claiming that they did nothing wrong, and the other one is abusive. (F claimed M raped her and sexually assaulted her, M claimed F hit him and damaged his house unprovoked several times and described the situations. I didn't see any physical damage, but it might have been healed/fixed between times I saw M.)

Both these people are making claims that, knowing the other, seemed hard to believe, but our whole friend group agreed that SOMETHING was going on. We just didn't know what the truth was, we only had one's word against the other, no hard evidence, and no stories were adding up. All we had was M claiming their couples' counsellor believed him, and F said nothing about counselling.

F started asking people in the friend group to decide between her or M, splitting the group in half. Being neutral was not an option since she would take that as choosing M, and F's friends were being asked to ghost M's friends. M was making no requests like this, just that he and F to be kept separate, that we were all our own people, and he thought F should be safe to be friends with.

The group was in flux for a bit. Everyone sort of agreed that since there was no clear bad guy and we don't know what happened, we would remain friends with each separately, and they could take turns coming to social events.

During this time, F did something to me specifically that everyone agreed made her TA - but this was totally unrelated to the divorce, we still didn't know who was TA on that.

I explained to F why what she had done upset me, plus that I felt the difficult choice she had given me and expectation to ghost my friends was a hard thing to ask. F began jumping to conclusions, saying I had unfriended her on Facebook (I haven't been on in years and never added her in the first place), assumed my reluctance to ghost my friends meant I was refusing to be hers - in her words, "choosing my rapist over me." She blocked all of us and moved to fuck knows where interstate, before the divorce had even finished. M now cannot find her or contact her and is trying to find legal ways to separate from her anyway.

I've seen the AITA where someone was voted YTA for remaining friends with someone who was a known abuser, and I know how important it is to be on the victim's side and get the abuser out as fast as possible. I just didn't know which one it was, and I didn't want to make the wrong choice.

How she behaved afterwards to me was definitely wrong, she's definitely TA there, but we still don't know about during her marriage - her behaviour afterwards could be chalked up to someone who was abused until she forgot how to act and became scared and desperate for people firmly on her side and to get away from her abuser at all costs, but it could also be revealing her true colours as an abuser the whole time.

So, AITA for not knowing who to choose?

What are these acronyms?

[theeggoman]

I am genuinely scared that once AI starts officially and somehow legally stealing art from artists on Twitter to feed into Elon Musk's AI company that there will be no more spaces for LGBT people to exist online. I'm talking about NSFW art, NSFW writing, discussions about kink and BDSM and leather, advice about transitioning and surgery and STD testing, resources for homeless LGBT youth, comics and animations and stories about queer love. The internet loves to hate gay sex. They demonize us, humiliate us, infantilize our bodily autonomy and choice and the moment you bring up anything relating to your own sexual experiences you're now a target for ridicule and shame. We are not profitable. We are not family friendly. We are "inappropriate" for normal people, and across every single social media platform we are banned. Our discussions about the basic human experience of sex expressed in ANY WAY are eventually banned. Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, Tik Tok, Deviant art, the restrictions and requirements and borderline threats from Patreon. As much as we've all hated it, Twitter has been a final stand. It's a place for furry art and gay porn and weird kinky fanfiction and BDSM. There's a community of people who exist together online and nowhere else. And people don't care that we're losing it, yet again, because they want people to like us. They want people to approve of us, to accept us. They want to be palatable for a straight audience, for a heterosexual society that has only barely begun to tolerate us out of necessity and the turn of deemed popular opinion. It's the internet mob mentality that crucified trans youth as "transtrenders" out of fear that they themselves would be targeted next. It's the accusations against drag queens being inappropriate for children. It's the LGB without the T because they fear they will be next. If they could just package us into something respectable, maybe the rest of the world wouldn't hate them so much, right? Get rid of the "bad" gays and suddenly our parents will love us again. Show them they're wrong, we're not pedophiles and rapists and groomers like they've been accusing us of being for centuries, we're NORMAL and GOOD and PURE, we like Heartstopper, not Yaoi! We don't fetishize gay men, we don't sexualize our trauma! We don't even LIKE sex! See, we think sex is immoral and shameful and wrong just like you. Will you love us now?

The truth is they will never love us. They will never want us. They will never accept us. The more we fight for our rights, they more they will try to take them way. The more we fight amongst ourselves, the more they will try to divide us.

I probably sound insane talking about niche queer Fandom spaces like some kind of gay revolution, but the ability to be unapologetically gay and trans and gross and weird and find a community of people you can be with who are all like you, who are working through that trauma together, who you meet online and fly out to visit in real life, who you love: It matters. It matters so much that they keep trying to take it away from us. I don't really know what the future holds here, I'm just rambling my anger onto the only platform that actuslly gives a shit about the artists on it. I just want the young people in the community to understand that this IS a community. And it matters.

[nicollekidman]

the thing about following the current court is just. ajdjdnjsjsjf establishment democrats in power will talk about how we can’t reform the court bc we’ve got to be Respectful of The Judiciary and we cannot Politicize It(tm), meanwhile the cases being heard in front of the court are like if the dumbest most reactionary person on your second cousin’s facebook wall decided to take up his personal (sometimes made-up) grievance in front of the highest court in the land and then the rapists and republican shills wearing the robes were like oh yeah no we’ve gotta address the unfathomable travesty of the civil rights era by saying “no actually you do not have this right” but we can do that bc it’s uhhhh about loving the constitution of this great nation… and the liberals on the court who can’t be effective in any way go to their journals to enumerate exactly why this sucks and then everyone on twitter is like “look at this SEXY clap back!!! look how incredible this argument is!! she’s so smart you go girl once again we have the moral high ground” and in the real world things the general public take for granted as unassailable rights get whittled away. but like yeah let’s keep letting this happen bc we’ve got to keep politics out of law ❤️ we’ve got to respect our foundational judicial branch ❤️

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

one of my best friends from teenage years and i had this big talk about our friend group back then and its like…

we had a guy nicknamed the vulture because he would always prey on the drunkest girl at the party. he was always invited even after he had sex with the hosts younger sister at a houseparty, filmed it without her consent and then showed it around at the party, sending it to everyone. of course she was called a slut.

someone‘s older brother (literally an adult) would always come late to the party when everyone was already drunk bringing his best friend along and bottles of vodka, hitting on the girls, even trying to talk us into a threesome with his homeboy. one time he pushed me into the bathroom and groped my ass. he had a girlfriend.

we had ties to the emo scene and oh my god. there were always at least 2,3 adult men hanging around the teens, buying alcohol, offering drugs and host parties, and invite girls to sleep over. one of them was a known rapist but he was still around nonetheless.

little bit different story but we had one very sweet guy in our group who was relentlessly bullied and humiliated for being a virgin (at 16!) - by the other boys. even worse he was the only black kid in our group which leaves a very bitter taste. i always told them to stop but he would say he doesnt mind to fit in with the other guys… (sidenote: i tried to stand up for boys being bullied by their friends many times and except this guy they would resort to start bullying me to impress the other boys).

there would always be some older guy. we had this one guy at school who was infamous for preying on younger girl students. he hit me up on facebook too. he later trashed his parents house at his own party and threw the tv out of the window but not before pushing his ex girlfriend (who was my age) to the floor and slapping several girls.

these are just some stories but i sadly have so much more where that came from. and listen. i was friends with some terrible girls during my youth. liars, manipulators, one was downright sociopathic (her schemes were something hollywood could not even dream of, putting mean girls to shame). but nothing they did comes close to what was just normality for the boys (and adult men 👍) around us. like the evil some girls and women do doesnt even come close to the scale of normalised evil that are boys and men, even to each other.

[bbygirl-aemond]

no shot this just came up on my facebook, the absolute whiplash i got from this

why viserys did alicent and aemma both dirty

oh wow haha. i mean i guess i've been wanting to talk about this for a while. here is the link to my original post, and here is the link to the facebook post shown above. i made the mistake of checking the comments on this post and there are two frequent responses that really worry me. the first is that alicent was not raped because viserys only had sex with her out of "duty". the second is that aemma was not slaughtered because viserys had "no other choice." so let's go through why these takes are straight-up horrifying. massive cw going forward for detailed discussion of rape of a minor and graphic death during childbirth.

viserys did not marry alicent out of duty, but out of selfishness. if he was marrying purely out of duty, he would have married someone from a powerful house whose allyship would have been politically useful. he would have married someone the small council would have approved of. he did not do this. he married alicent, at his political expense, because he wanted to fuck her. he chose her specifically, because he wanted to fuck her. even though she was a child. even though she was his daughter's best friend. even though he'd likely watched her grow up.

he wanted to fuck her, and so he married her.

now, let's give viserys the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't realize alicent didn't want him. this still doesn't change that he raped her. if a person is forced into having sex against their will, it is rape. the rapist's intentions do not factor into this. if the rapist does not get consent, that is on them. viserys is the grown man in this situation. he is the king of an entire continent with a thousand times more power than alicent will ever have. he has been king for over a decade at this point, and he knows the power he wields. it is his responsibility as the person in power to not abuse it. if he is ignorant to the power dynamic between him and alicent, it is willfully so, and for his own benefit. so he can feel less conflicted about raping her.

lastly, let's talk about what viserys does even after he realizes he's been raping alicent. this takes place in episode four, right before he fires otto. he admits he realizes alicent was placed by his side by otto, and not because she genuinely cared for him. aemond and daeron have not been born yet.

viserys had this realization, and he had two children already, including a son who fulfilled his duty to be spares, and he still raped her enough times over multiple years to force two more children on her.

i really pray that any survivors of rape who encountered these types of comments about viserys find healing and peace. and i hope that the people who made those comments never find themselves the victim of a man who insists he didn't know what he was doing but who absolutely should have.

next, let's talk about aemma, and the argument that viserys didn't slaughter her because she was "going to die anyways." i do acknowledge that aemma was beyond saving at that point, but let's list the facts of the situation. i'm drawing directly from the script here.

the maester told viserys that the technique he was proposing would involve "cutting directly into the womb." viserys knew the agony and sheer body horror of what the maester was proposing, and he did it anyways. aemma asks "what is happening?" and is clearly afraid. when viserys tells her they're going to get the baby out, she asks "how are they…" showing that she wants more information about what is about to happen to her, and that she is not giving informed consent (or any consent at all). he does not give it to her. and she dies screaming, in absolute agony, literally split in two with strangers' hands inside the wound tearing her further open, screaming "no" over and over. begging her husband to stop them.

he does not stop them.

viserys did not give aemma the chance to even give informed consent about what was happening. he ignored her pleas to be spared this horrible fate because he did not care about what she wanted. and he let the maesters keep her alive and conscious throughout the procedure so that she suffered every last agonizing second of it.

"but he had to save the baby-" if he knew aemma was a dead woman walking, why didn't he give her a quick, merciful death before letting them cut into her? the whole thing happened in seconds, so you can't try to tell me it would've hurt the chances for the baby. was aemma arryn always going to die? yes. did she have to die afraid, and in literally unimaginable pain, while begging those killing her to stop? did she have to die being butchered like an animal? no.

viserys did that to her, and that was his choice. i stand by what i said.

i hope that none of the people justifying viserys's decision are ever allowed to make a decision about another woman's body. i hope that they take a long, hard look at their willingness to justify causing unnecessary agony and terror to women. both for their sake, and for the sake of the women in their lives who deserve their respect and understanding.

paddy considine is a wonderful actor, and made his portrayal of viserys as compelling as possible. but "he's got charisma" should simply never trump the very real harm his character chose to cause these poor women. it genuinely terrifies me that to so many people, it does.

if anyone ever encounters comments like the ones i mentioned, please link them to this post. this sort of mentality has helped to justify the harm of countless women and will continue to do so if we don't challenge every form it takes. there is a real world impact here and i cannot stress this enough.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

#15yrsago Britain will subject everyone who works with kids to multiple, repeated police-checkshttps://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/false_positives.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/false_positives.html

#10yrsago Australian bill will put journos in prison for 10 years for reporting leaks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/journalists-face-jail-leaks-security-laws

#10yrsago NY DA says he won’t prosecute minor drug possession; NYPD officers ordered to go on arresting https://www.techdirt.com/2014/07/16/nypd-tells-brooklyn-officers-to-continue-making-low-level-drug-arrests-da-has-stated-he-wont-prosecute/

#10yrsago Fake TSA screener infiltrates SFO checkpoint, gropes women https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Fake-screener-probes-passengers-at-SFO-5626732.php

#10yrsago Google Plus drops “Real Names” policy https://web.archive.org/web/20140717024719/https://plus.google.com/+googleplus/posts/V5XkYQYYJqy

#10yrsago New Mexico threatens inmate with 90 days’ solitary because his family made him a Facebook page https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/new-mexico-inmate-faces-90-days-solitary-over-facebook-profile

#10yrsago Yet another TSA screener doesn’t know that DC is part of America https://web.archive.org/web/20140715200126/https://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/orlando-tsa-agents-getting-geography-refresher/ngfmH/

#5yrsago How F Scott Fitzgerald conjugated the verb “To cocktail” https://www.openculture.com/2015/06/f-scott-fitzgerald-conjugates-to-cocktail.html

#5yrsago When Trump’s #TaxScam meant that affluent people no longer had to use the paid version of Turbotax, Turbotax started charging poor people, disabled people, students and elderly people https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-tax-law-threatened-turbotax-profits-started-charging-disabled-unemployed-and-students#164493

#5yrsago Tennessee police to drug users: don’t flush your dope or you’ll create “meth gators” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-police-warn-locals-not-flush-drugs-fear-meth-gators-n1030291

#5yrsago Read: Trump’s grandfather’s letter, in which he begs not to be deported https://harpers.org/archive/2017/03/the-emigrants/

#5yrsago Lessons from testing decades of forgotten rape kits: serial rapists are common, they don’t follow a pattern, they’re not very bright, and they’re often the same men who commit acquaintance rape https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/an-epidemic-of-disbelief/592807/

#5yrsago In 1943, the chairman of the NY Fed backed Modern Monetary Theory: “Taxes for Revenue Are Obsolete” https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/16/in-1943-the-chairman-of-the-ny-fed-backed-modern-monetary-theory-taxes-for-revenue-are-obsolete/

#5yrsago How To: play Vlad Taltos in an RPG https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg220.pdf#[{"num"%3A197%2C"gen"%3A0}%2C{"name"%3A"Fit"}]

#5yrsago Podcast: Occupy Gotham https://ia903008.us.archive.org/30/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_303/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_303_-_Occupy_Gotham.mp3

#5yrsago Many of the key Googler Uprising organizers have quit, citing retaliation from senior management https://googlewalkout.medium.com/onward-another-googlewalkout-goodbye-b733fa134a7d

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

[thewebcomicsreview]

I really cut back on the Sinfest content because Sinfest is boring now, but the "radical feminist" Tatsuya Ishida who'd previously depicted Trump as gloating to battered women that he got an accused rapist on the Supreme Court (the top comics are from when Kavanaugh got confirmed) has now officially become a Trump stan. It's not really a surprising turn of events, Tats has basically never had issues with conservatives at any point in his career, but I still think it's a notable milestone.

Also, a return of "What the fuck is this comic even about?", because Trump's never known a consequence? I thought it was about Trump saying he was imminently about to be arrested and then that never (yet?) happened, but given how terminally online Tats is it might actually be about Trump's 2-year Facebook ban recently expiring.

Regardless, Tats endorsing Trump is another item to cross off the list. I'll let you know if he attacks Jews explicitly, which is kind of the only thing left.

And he's getting real close

[traumatizeddfox]

Someone I knew outed her rapist to every single family member and friend of his on Facebook and we should applaud her for it:

👏 👏

And THE RAPIST THINKS ITS A SMEAR CAMPAIGN 😂 🤣 even though he admitted he raped girls multiple times

i’m so proud of her for that! i hope his down fall is NOW

[argyrocratie]

Hein:(...)By the way, I remember you had a direct confrontation with far-right ultranationalist political Buddhist organisation called “Patriotic Association of Myanmar” which we call “Ma Ba Tha”. You were modelling with Buddhist monk uniform with punk fashion. That triggered them. Can you please share us more about it since it was never recorded properly by the mainstream media locally and internationally?     Kyaw Kyaw: That’s a long story. I will have to explain since their existence as a grassroot movement called 969 movement around 2012. As you know, an Arakanese Buddhist woman called Ms. Thidar Htwe was raped by three youth rapists who happened to be from Muslim Rohingya community. They somehow dragged the whole identity instead of focusing on the individuals and the whole Arakan-Rohingya riot happened in Arakan. We produced a song called “Fuck Religious War” and stayed against this fear mongering politics of both Buddhist nationalists and Islamists. However, the riot spread to the whole nation. The whole Buddhist community stood in solidarity with the Buddhist Arakanese population against Rohingya people and in broader Muslim population. A lot of racism, xenophobia and fear mongering politics happened on both sides. That later escalate into broader anti-Muslim bigotry racist politics with 969 movement. As soon as we notice the grassroot involvement and influential status of 969 movement, we, Rebel Riot, created a new song called “Stop Racism, against 969, Fuck Fascist Monks” against the 969 movement solely.

(...)

But that incident you mentioned was around 2017. The 969 movement reached its peak at 2014-2015 until they decided to go after NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi. After that, they sort out become weaker. Our Rebel Riot band was invited to Thailand for a tour around 2017. We were requested by an alternative photographer for a blasphemous but yet interfaith photo. It was called “Sons of Anarchy”. We dressed as Buddha (a monk), Jesus and Shiva in Punk outfits. The main message of the photo we intended to offer was that “the religious leaders are having fun together and get along with each other, but yet the followers are killing each other”. We posted the photos on our official page and even mentioned Venerable Wirathu and assaulted him on Facebook. That backfired us. The next day, our post was shared by tens of thousands of people. Win Ko Ko Latt, an ultranationalist grassroot organiser of 969 movement reposted the photos and started to organise a movement against us. Even his post was shared by thousands of people. I had to edit the post to look more appropriated. We received a lot of death threats again. They targeted against me specifically since I was the one who dressed as Buddha (a monk). DVB reached out to me amidst the whole controversary. 

(...)

969 movement somehow managed to propagate me as an enemy of the whole Buddhism to all the people. For all of our social movements, Food not Bombs Yangon, Books not Bombs, and Free Shop, we are dealing day to day basis with the grassroot people which includes religious people, I got worried that they might also attack the social movement for my involvement of the photo shooting. I reached out to Win Ko Ko Latt, surprisingly he was humble and deleted his post as per my request. We mutually agreed to meet and discuss the details to solve the controversy. When I arrive to their headquarters of Patriotic Association of Myanmar at Insein, there were a lot of monks in the room, just like how we used to sit in the internet café. Seems like they’ve some sort IT related operations going on. I told them that I want to solve the conflict mutually as I didn’t really want the grassroot especially the working-class people to hate us. Since they are the people, we always encounter and organise at our social movements. Win Ko Ko Latt on behalf of the Patriotic Association of Myanmar promised us that they will meet with us peacefully and solve it properly in front of the media, etc. 

At first, I was thinking of how I would dispute their points and so on as if I’m Socrates or Castro or something. I was hoping of a civic debate and even planned to justify my actions with my understanding of Buddhism. In reality, once we arrived at their place, there are hundreds of 969 supporters waiting for us at the monastery. They surrounded us while we’re talking to their leaders. Since before we started, they demanded us to apologise in front of all their supporters and they were no media except the right-leaned pro-969 media. We tried to push back but since we were outnumbered as a few of us from Rebel Riot went there. One of the monks from the Patriotic Association of Myanmar told us that their Theravada Buddhism is currently challenged by internal threats like us (those who were born as Buddhists) and external threats like Muslims and Christians. I response back that in my understanding of Buddhism, the internal threats are not people, but greed, anger, and ignorance. They started shouting at us, demanding us to sign of apology letter, and so on. Those friends who came along with me, also insisted me to sign the apology letter since we were outnumbered and some of them even had weapons with them. They never gave me a chance to speak anymore after my response. Finally, I had to sign for an apology letter, just to survive there. I cried like a kid after all the incident as I felt ashamed becoming a tool for their propaganda machinery. They put those photos across all their media and celebrated as if they have won a battle against us, the progressive social movements.  Hein: So, they demanded apology from you not to sue you under blasphemy law? Given their influence around that time, that would be a terrible experience for you. Being targeted by the nation-wide influential far-right ultranationalist political organisation is apparently not favourable. But I think it was a milestone of your activism. The more important question is that did you find leftists in general and anarchists from Burma showing solidarity with you? I’m pretty sure global punk scene will show unconditional solidarity with you. However, what about local anarchists and leftists in general? Did they show solidarity with you in face of the nation-wide influential far-right ultranationalist political organisation targeting you?   Kyaw Kyaw: Local punk anarchist bands and those from Rebel Riot, Food not Bombs Yangon, Free Shop, and Books not Bombs showed solidarity with me, some even reached out frequently to me after the incident. However, there were a lot of anarchists, so called anti-fascists, and student activists who were making fun of me, for being forced to apologise. I was already depressed, seeing them making fun of me, instead of showing solidarity, made it worse. Some international punk anarchist bands issued statement of solidarity for us, some bands from UK even organised events for us. That was a big relief. However, there were a lot of local anarchists who called themselves anti-fascists as well as a lot of students and activists, making fun of my situation instead of showing solidarity. I was hoping for them to show solidarity at least in public and criticise us privately for our tactical error. It never happened, yet they publicly shamed us for signing the apology letter. I know we were wrong; they were not wrong to criticise us. However, we didn’t expect such level of public ashaming as if we were some idiots. They even told us that “Pussy Riot” from Moscow were better and braver than us. I felt as if we got attacked from behind within the left during a death match with the far-right groups.

If I were them, I would start a social movement called “Saffron movement” and do series of photo shooting along with monk robes. So, all progressives across the country can participate, with a hope of mass involvement. They never did that. Even now in 2024, there are some leftists who are still making fun of us for being forced to apologise. Of course, we will never get over those traumas too. Looking back, I learned a lot out of that experience. Some of those from the left accused us of betraying our own values for signing the apology letter. I admit that we were naïve and ignorant of the traps set by the far-right fascists, but we never betrayed our values. We were outnumbered and no mass movement or digital social movement showed up in solidarity for us locally except some closed comrades of us. I can take the experience as something we were naïve, but I would like to deny those accusations of us betraying our own values from here. We, Rebel Riot, never betrayed our values of punk subculture, individualist anarchism and anti-fascism.  

-"Interview with Kyaw Kyaw from The Rebel Riot Band"

[mariacallous]

In 2017, Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair cofounded the fact-checking website AltNews in India. Almost immediately, the pair were targeted with persistent and vicious attacks from the far-right news website OpIndia. Many of the attacks claimed that Zubair was a Rohingya Muslim who illegally migrated to India and that his cousin was a rapist. In several headlines, the site described Zubair as an “Islamist” spreading fake news.

This wasn’t far off from OpIndia’s other coverage: In addition to routinely attacking journalists and news sites critical of the government, OpIndia spreads conspiracies and, at times, outright disinformation, particularly about the country’s minority Muslim population. Founded in 2014, OpIndia is regularly name-checked by leading lawmakers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the site admits it is funded in part by ads run by the BJP. As hundreds of millions of Indians vote in elections across the country, critics fear that OpIndia’s election-related disinformation and overt support of the Modi government could further undermine trust in the democratic process. Already, the website has echoed Modi’s widely criticized description of the Muslim vote as “vote jihad.”

Yet despite this, US tech companies, which have rules against hate speech and disinformation, continue to platform OpIndia and, in some cases, allow it to continue to make money through advertising. OpIndia has a robust presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Additionally, a new report, shared exclusively with WIRED, has found that Google’s ad platform is being used to partially fund OpIndia’s operation.

“In an increasingly polarized space, they create a vicious narrative against you,” Sinha tells WIRED. “All of this is narrative building. Their job is to defame anyone who's critical of the government, and that's what they do.”

Despite repeated efforts by activists to defund the site—and the fact that publications that have partnered with a Google-supported election fact-checking initiative, Shakti, have fact-checked OpIndia’s articles and found it routinely publishes fake news—OpIndia continues to operate thanks in part to ads that Google’s ad exchange platform places next to its content. In 2019, Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network, which accredits publications as trustworthy arbiters of information, rejected OpIndia’s application.

“Google’s own publisher policies prohibit the monetization of content that incites hatred, incitement of racism, promoting discrimination of an individual or group,” says Sarah Kay Wiley, director of policy and partnerships at Check My Ads, a nonprofit digital advertising watchdog organization and author of the new report. “Google also says that they don't monetize or work with publishers that make claims that are false and could significantly undermine trust in an election or democratic process.”

Ad exchanges allow publishers to sell ad space and advertisers to buy it through an entirely automated process that happens in the split seconds before a website loads. Ad sellers and buyers set limits for price and spending, with Google taking a cut of all transactions. Because of the automated nature of the process, advertisers likely don’t realize that their products are showing up next to hateful and misleading content.

Other ad exchanges such as Magnite have discontinued working with OpIndia. If Google were to stop working with OpIndia, says Wiley, that “would definitely have a material impact.”

On Facebook, OpIndia runs pages in English and Hindi, with 310,000 followers and 431,000 followers in each language, respectively. Both pages list their administrator as Aadhyaasi Media and Content Services Private Limited, which owns OpIndia.

On its Hindi page, OpIndia has shared stories promoting the “love jihad” conspiracy theory, which asserts that Muslim men are trying to marry, seduce, or kidnap Hindus in order to force them to convert and create a demographic shift in Hindu-majority India, and has promoted false claims, including that a new inheritance law would reallocate wealth from Hindus to Muslims. Meta spokesperson Erin McPike did not comment on whether this content violated Meta’s policies, nor on whether Meta takes into account the violations of the Hindi page when assessing the English page.

These narratives then get picked up and spread on other platforms, like X and Telegram, says Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “In some of these places there’s even more explicit calls for violence against Muslims or for the removal of Muslims,” he says. The site has international appeal as well: WIRED was able to find OpIndia articles shared in non-Indian, right-wing channels on Telegram, including a pro-Kremlin channel with over 1.3 million subscribers and numerous conspiracy channels with hundreds of thousands of followers.

The site is also highly active on the social media platform X with the official OpIndia account, which has 688,000 subscribers. OpIndia appears to pay for X Premium, giving it a blue checkmark, but did not respond to whether it subscribes to the service. WIRED has identified at least half a dozen OpIndia writers, columnists, and editors, including editor in chief Nupur Sharma, who has more than 680,000 followers, who appear to be subscribed to X Premium.

Sharma did not respond to a question about OpIndia monetizing its content via X Premium, and the company itself also failed to respond.

“It’s a hyper-partisan, right-wing outlet that set themselves up by saying that mainstream news media in India have a liberal bias, very similar to what American right-wing outlets say about professional journalism in America,” says Kalyani Chadha, an associate professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University who published an in-depth report in 2020 on India’s right-wing media ecosystem that included OpIndia. “They bill themselves as a news outlet, but there's not a lot of original reporting. A lot of it is commentary and opinion.”

In addition to Sinha and Zubair, OpIndia has regularly targeted journalists and outlets it sees as “far left.” In one piece, the site’s staff listed the Indian journalists and publications supposedly associated with billionaire George Soros, who has long been the target of conspiracies from the global far right. In another, they attacked veteran journalist Ravish Kumar, falsely accusing him of harboring sympathies for the perpetrators of a 2019 rape case. OpIndia has also spent years attacking Raqib Hameed Naik, an Indian journalist and the founder of India Hate Lab, which documents instances of hate speech and conspiracies that target India’s minority communities. This, he says, was made all the harder by government officials sharing the articles.

“The goal is to amplify this disinformation, and you have BJP leaders sharing this, so people think it’s authentic,” says Naik. “In the long term, this kind of builds the case against a critic, a journalist, that this person is bad, because there is reporting against them.”

When WIRED contacted OpIndia for comment, Sharma responded to our emailed questions by posting her responses on X.

When asked about hate speech and disinformation on her site, Sharma wrote: “Our critics are mostly Islamists, Jihadis, Terrorists, Leftists and their sympathizers—like yourself. We don't particularly care about any of them.” She then added that “Islamophobia does not exist” and pointed to an OpIndia article that outlines her position. Sharma added that it was “none of your concern” when asked if OpIndia was funded by the BJP. Sharma’s post also tagged one of the authors of this story, who then faced a torrent of abuse from Sharma’s followers.

For years, activists and researchers have tried to highlight the problematic content published by OpIndia. A 2020 campaign from UK-based advocacy group Stop Funding Hate led to a number of advertisers removing their ads from the site. Google, however, says the content published on the site does not appear to breach its own rules.

"All sites in our network, including Opindia, must adhere to our publisher policies, which explicitly prohibit ads from appearing alongside content promoting hate speech, violence, or demonstrably false claims that could undermine trust or participation in an election,” Google spokesperson Michael Aciman says. “Publishers are also subject to regular reviews, and we actively block or remove ads from any violating content."

Despite this, users can find ads for Temu or the Palm Beach Post next to many OpIndia articles promoting conspiracies and Islamophobia, placed with the help of ad-exchange platforms like Google’s Ad Manager, which is the market leader.

Facebook, meanwhile, says Wiley, is more of a “walled garden.” Once a publisher meets the company’s criteria for monetization, including having more than 1,000 followers, it can earn money from ads that run on the page.

While researchers that spoke to WIRED were unable to tell exactly how much the site has made from Google Ads and Facebook monetization, they said it’s likely that OpIndia is not solely reliant on the ad exchange for its revenue. It appears that, as with many news outlets in India, part of that funding comes in the form of more traditional advertising from a major client: the government.

“A large section of India's mainstream press depends on the government ads for their survival,” says Prashanth Bhat, professor of media studies at the University of Houston. “That revenue is critical for the mainstream media survival in a hypercompetitive media environment like in India. We have about 400 round-the-clock television news channels in India in different languages, and we have over 10,000 registered newspapers. For them to survive, they definitely need government patronage.”

Sharma confirmed that OpIndia is reliant in part on ads from the government. “Literally every media house gets advertising from various political parties,” said Sharma. “In fact, a part of your salary could also be funded by such parties and/or their sympathizers. Do get down from your high horse.”

The BJP has, however, also sought to help OpIndia in other ways. In 2019, the BJP reached out to Meta directly, asking the company to allow OpIndia to monetize on Facebook. Meta spokesperson McPike told WIRED that OpIndia’s English page is still able to monetize but that monetization on its Hindi page is currently not allowed “due to violations of our policies.”

“In order to monetize on Facebook, Pages must comply with our community standards, our partner monetization policies, and our content monetization policies,” McPike says.

Google did not respond to questions from WIRED about whether it had ever received a similar request from the Indian government. Google’s Aciman says, “As we do with all publishers, we’ve taken prior page-level enforcement action on this site when we’ve found policy violations. We will of course continue to enforce our policies on violating content across our publisher network.”

X did not respond to questions about whether OpIndia and its staff are able to monetize through X Premium or whether the company has ever received requests from the government to restore content from OpIndia or its staff. The company has complied with several takedown requests from the Indian government to ban accounts or tweets critical of the government.

But Wiley says that without transparency on the part of tech companies as to how they’re deciding which organizations are able to earn money through ads—and how much—outlets like OpIndia will continue to fall through the cracks.

“The business model of the internet at the end of the day is advertising, and what we're seeing over and over again is, that business model is broken,” she says. “Advertisers don't know where their money is going. And the biggest issue is that a lot of that is being funneled to mis- and disinformation online.”

[psychic-refugee]

@hibernatingwithgrizzlies has a great post on the accuser’s suspicious back and forth of her claims to have gone to the police or that she has “evidence.”

In general, I think this collection is good at showing her to be unreliable and possibly deranged. I won’t speak further on mental health issues, as I am not a mental health expert. But as a layperson in regard to mental health, I think she looks troubled and cannot be described as a reasonable person.

Supposedly, this woman has gone to court before against alleged rapists. She doesn’t make clear if she won, but she does say that she felt “healed.”

My question is, what’s the caption (e.g. Brunelle v. Accused for civil, or R. v. Accused for criminal) and court number (e.g. 4813998227000658599)? What’s the name of the courthouse or its address? Who was the judge? Was it a bench or jury trial?

If these things actually happened, there is some documented proof somewhere, and she should be able to answer these questions.

I would very much like to read the outcome of that case, if it happened.

She wants to air all this stuff on SocMed EXCEPT anything that would lend her some credibility.

The same with going to the police. What’s the police report number? What’s the name of the officer she spoke with? Which station did she report to?

She doesn’t have to have ALL of this information, but I find it suspicious that she has NONE of it.

She goes back and forth on whether she has proof at all or if she has “proper” proof. She’s very fast and loose with her language and expects us to just guess or psychically know what she meant at any given time. She’s ok with giving SS and other suspect proof but is apparently holding onto some other unnamed proof which she considers proper.

She uses the qualifier of “now” to describe the proof she has…like how did you get proof of something happening years ago to manifest when you didn’t have it before?

And despite having this proof, still isn’t initiating criminal or civil proceedings. She is waiting for PHW to initiate them…for reasons I cannot fathom or indulge. (see what I did there? lol)

Like…police aren’t going to take their direction from rando tweets on SocMed. If she refuses to give her proof to the police and press charges, then he’s not going to be arrested if her supposed proof is “proper” enough. That’s just how it works.

Despite her claims, I doubt his attorneys will suggest PHW spend thousands upon thousands of his own money to try to claim or get a lien against assets she claims she has on Facebook. A civil suit is unlikely coming from his end IMO.

The Crown may sue her for the CSAM/Revenge Porn images if they were made aware of it. Again, the police are not trolling SocMed for leads on crime. They deal with enough actual crime and reports coming in daily. Just look at the daily docket for Ontario: https://www.ontariocourtdates.ca/default.aspx

It is possible that PHW had reported that nude photos of himself have been leaked and passed it onto the police. We might not have heard anything because criminal cases tend to work in stealth so that the criminal doesn’t have the awareness to try to destroy evidence ahead of time.

The fact that the photos were taken down, makes me think the website was compelled to. It may be because it was reported and they have a Standard Procedure to take down any reported CSAM, or it’s possible the police got involved. There’s no way to tell at this junction.

PHW might not waste time and money on a civil suit, but he could be willing to seek justice through pressing charges and letting the Crown take the case. He would have to be available for a statement and going to court, I don’t know him well enough to say if he’d do that. I also don’t know his schedule if he thinks it’s worth pursuing.

I’m just saying this is a possibility.

The government works slow as hell, so I wouldn’t be surprised if PHW had reported his nudes leaked, that it’d be several months before anything happened and the public was made aware. We’re also talking about warrants and digital forensics. All of that takes time and money.

We’re definitely talking more than a year between the crime and someone going to prison. That’s how slow the system is.  

If I were the accusers, that’d be the thing I’d be worried about the most. PHW knows who he gave those photos to. If the police speak with them, then any lawyer would tell them to cooperate and rat out whom they might have shared those photos and then went on to post them online. The government does not like HAVING to go to court, and will cut deals if you save them time and money by cooperating with them.

Just look at the Josh Dugger case. Digital forensics had proof of where he got the CSAM, the computer he used, and the modem the information traveled through. They'll be able to trace who posted those photos.

Whatever evidence the accuser thinks she has, it’s not going to matter in a criminal Revenge Porn or CSAM case. There is no allowance for motive or any exemption for spreading CSAM/Revenge Porn.

“The motives of the accused are irrelevant.” R.S.C., 1986, C-46, § 162(7)(b).

If she’s on trial for Revenge Porn or CSAM, the only evidence she’ll be allowed for her defense is only going to be related to trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt SHE DIDN’T upload those photos.

If criminal cases take so long, then why do I think she hasn’t gone while PHW might have?

Because she’s specifically said that she’s waiting on PHW.

Because he’s remained silent and is smart enough to shut his mouth. The accusers have run their mouth and are still active in the shenanigans of SocMed. That alone would sink any criminal case because she’s basically interfering with a police investigation at that point. She’d be hella dinged for that. Because nothing has happened, it makes me think she's just spouting hot air.

[jaysficarchive]

Villain's Wife Support Group

Chapter 1: Initiation

Synopsis: The wives of some of the most infamous villains in the world meet every Wednesday to share stories, give updates, and talk about love on the wrong side of the law.

Relationship(s): Various

Warning(s): Mention of SA, mention of child murder

Tag list: @floof-ghostie @calciumcryptid @mayameanderings

"Hello, ladies, and thank you all for coming."

A group of women exchanged "Hello"s either taking or adjusting their seats. Most of them were older, a few young faces in the crowd. One could tell a bit of their personalities just from looking at the choices in decor.

People from all different parts of the country gathered in front of their computers for one purpose: a common type of spouse.

"Welcome, everyone," a small, round woman with dark brown skin and short black hair spoke. Dressed in a silky robe lined with fur, it was easily to tell she was relaxing after a long day at work. "My name is Christine. I'm the founder of this group."

Some of the others waved at her while others said hellos. The positive reception pleased Christine.

"This is initiation day where we basically introduce ourselves, talk about what we do for a living, maybe a little bit about ourselves then introduce costumed criminal we're married to."

A simple enough task. These people were just getting to know each other, after all. Making a good first impression was highly encouraged to most, critical to some.

"I'll go first. My name is Christine Chapel. I work as a cabaret performer under the name Belle Holiday, my favorite gemstones are amethysts and pearls, and my husband is the Music Meister."

Another woman with copper brown skin and the same jet black hair spoke next. "I'm Brandice Bivolo. I'm an elementary school teacher and my husband is the Rainbow Raider. A few of my hobbies are metalworking, playing instruments, and calligraphy."

Both her style and the background behind her could easily be described as bohemian, hipster. With all the crystal necklaces and bright, earthy colors of her clothes, it wasn't hard to see why someone like him fell for her.

The other members took turns introducing themselves. A notable face was Marina Lulit, a prominent Floridian socialite and wife of one K'an of Tenochtitlan. If what she said about him being the ruler of an underwater kingdom was true, she probably had lots of stories to tell.

Eve, an older Black woman from the Deep South, was the wife of Hollow, phantom of the railroads. Christine was a big fan of the ostrich feather lamp behind her; and of the overall vibes of her room in general. She must've had some truly wild stories--probably even moreso than her own with Music Meister.

Who could forget the ever gracious Mona Lisa Beauvais. It was for the better she be in this group since her fiance Riddler was still in Arkham. Her room was another's Christine admired--with its mix of old Hollywood and urban aesthetics.

Christine clapped her hands together. "Now that that's done, I'm gonna cut to the chase. This is a support group for all women and femmes who are either married or engaged to villains."

"Let's go over a few ground rules. First, when I say all women and femmes, I mean it. I will not tolerate any bullshit. Second, no child murderers or rapists. Made that very clear in the rules on Facebook. Lastly, be respectful about each other's tastes. We already deal with enough shaming from the media."

The other members nodded along in agreement, some even mumbling their support of Christine's ground rules.

"Anymore questions?" Christine looked around.

"When do we meet?" Brandice asked.

"We meet every Wednesday," Christine replied. "Make sure to let me know if you can't make it to a meeting ahead of time."

"What are we gonna do in this group?" Marina asked. "I mean, I know this ain't a club but we gotta do something fun every once in a while."

She's right, Christine said to herself. No one would want to spend the whole time moping and telling stories. "I do plan on having some events including a girls trip. Nothing concrete yet, of course."

After a few more questions and another run down of things, the members all exchanged goodbyes before going their separate ways.

Alone, Christine gently closed the computer. It was just her in a large, luxurious house. Sighing, she headed to the kitchen for a drink. Usually the house would be filled with the sounds of Music Meister playing his piano or singing to his favorite songs. Christine would join in, maybe even dance along to his voice.

Today, only silence. Just a few hours ago, Christine went through the worst moment of her life since the car accident--the trial of her husband. It wasn't being alone that distressed her; rather the amount of attention she got. In the span of a few hours, she went from a private citizen to having cameras and microphones in her face as she left the Gotham City Courthouse.

Heaven knows what they'd say about her and her relationship. All the wrongful insinuations, false narratives, invasive questions.

These were about to be the longest three years ever.