At a conference this week discussing tech’s effect on democracy. Among other topics, today I noted how coming to bsky made me realize how many self-censorship behaviors I’ve adopted over the past year as a result of the harassment and threats I’ve endured and now have to unlearn.
Such an important point.
The thing we don't say is how online harassment breaks people down over time. Prolonged, targeted harassment can be soul crushing without mental health & emotional support, and even then, makes you second guess everything you do/say. I'm so sorry. No one has the right to make you feel unsafe.
Do you think you will need to relearn them? Nothing gold can stay.
It’s really been blowing my mind just to watch my own behavior loosen up so much here due to shedding the protective crouch stuff (which really is where the Alf stuff came from - I feel free enough to get weird again!) https://faineg.substack.com/p/how-i-accidentally-ruined-bluesky
Yeah, it was me. And I haven't had this much fun on the Internet in years.
i hella relate to all of this. spending time on bluesky has made me realize just how absurdly toxic twitter has become.
Gone are any cute posts about my day to day. Too many details can be deduced about my pattern of life that bad actors can use to track me. Also, these jerks have said horrible things about my baby (eg “wut no abortion?!”) and pets.
Imagine when we are even more free to be ourselves.
100%! I was just asked to be on a panel discussing online harassment of gender affirming care providers and the masking/adapting/coding/online is real.