Bernie supporters going full alt-right: the sick smear campaign against Bravenak.
Bravenak, a well known black activist who happens to be very critical of Bernie Sanders has been banned off Twitter after a smear campaign in the tradition of Cernovich, Milo and the alt-right.
I’ll just report the facts here:
On 7–12–17 a Twitter user called @gabyfane made an incredibly disgusting tweet stating:
“So who’s ready to be an Anonymous caller to say Bernie grabbed my waist during a selfie. All we need is 8 and we can push him out”.
I can’t show the tweet because the user is gone from Twitter.
Next and completely unrelated: on 11 and 12 December a few Twitter users engaged in a lengthy thread about whether or not Al Franken’s accusers were false/ part of a rightwing smear campaign.
The entire thread can be found here:
https://twitter.com/BhanLiz/status/940538126073724928
(You can scroll up and down the thread, its pretty long)
As you can see each and every tweet in this lengthy thread was about the Al Franken situation.
Bernie’s name didn’t come up once.
One of the participants in this thread was Bravenak. Since her account has been suspended, her tweets cannot be read in the thread.
But go to this tweet to see where Bravenak’s tweets, which are now subject of much debate, belong:
https://twitter.com/Danofran/status/940539528116183040
Then read this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Defend_Reality/status/940540027867672576
Now look at this screenshot:
You can see where Bravenak’s tweets belong in the thread: between these two tweets:
https://twitter.com/Defend_Reality/status/940540027867672576
https://twitter.com/Defend_Reality/status/940541920874508288
Okay, so far so good. The subject was that: yes it is very possible to find women willing to falsely accuse Al Franken.
A debate about Franken, about whether or not women will make false accusations.
However, some Bernie supporters decided to use these tweets by Bravenak to smear her.
@AmiraminiMD a notorious Berner, first posted this fabricated screenshot:
The screenshot combined the disgusting original tweet from @gabyfane with the totally unrelated tweets from Bravenak, made 5 days later.
Tweets that had nothing to do with Bernie.
From there it got ugly.
Soon these tweets started appearing:
https://twitter.com/AmirAminiMD/status/943540089380048896
“You publicly stated you would find/pay women to make false accusations of sexual harassment and rape by Senator Sanders.”
Basically, hundreds of Bernie supporters started to blindly copy each other and suggest that Bravenak had said she would pay 50 women to accuse…Bernie.
https://twitter.com/damnpamfromnamm/status/942285623271895040
The problem is that they didn’t read the thread Bravenak’s tweets belonged to, they just saw the fabricated screenshot and thought Bravenak had threatened…Bernie.
From there on a massive intimidation/ harassment campaign by Bernie supporters against Bravenak started.
Eventually, they mass reported her and she got suspended (for good?) from Twitter.
Whoever created the screenshot is some alt right or alt left hack with incredibly bad intentions.
Bernie’s supporters did not look at the facts first but immediately jumped on this opportunity to harass and silence a black activist.
This smear campaign is part of a long series of smear campaigns against black activists by Bernie supporters. The structural problem with Twitter is that it does not protect POC against harassment, but when the user is harassed for days and finally replies in anger, he or she gets mass reported…and then Twitter bans the victim.
This episode is just one example how Bernie’s supporters mass harass and intimidate women and POC on Twitter and get them suspended, to silence them.
They fabricate screenshots, lie about the people in question and harass them. Sounds familair? That’s what the alt-right is known for.
Alt left doesn’t seem such a strange name anymore, does it?