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carriesthewind · 1 year

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Part 5*, AKA Don’t Write Legal Threat Letters Alleging Defamation If You Want to Pretend Later That You Haven’t Read the Allegedly Defamatory Claims

This entry is going to be a bit different from the previous ones. I am going to look at a response to an ask that Flamethrower posted on her tumblr, which is not (directly) related to AO3. Rather, I want to focus on the rhetoric and persuasive strategies she is using, and analyze her response as an example of (attempted) manipulation and disinformation.

Before we begin, however: this question and response deals with accusations of antisemitism by Flamethrower. I am not Jewish myself, and am not qualified to comment on whether her fic is antisemitic, although I can and do condemn the responses she gave to people who attempted to raise their concerns with her. You can read about the accusations against her here, including following the citation links to see what her accusers have to say in their own words and the documentation they provide.

*If you are just joining us: Flamethrower is a relatively BNF in several fandoms who was briefly suspended from AO3 this summer for repeatedly monetizing her fanfiction on the site. She threw a social media fit about her suspension, in the midst of which several old and new accusations of bigotry against her circulated, and her former roommate posted accusations of extremely serious interpersonal abuse against her. This December, Flamethrower posted a hilariously bad attempt at a legal threat letter that was explicitly against the OTW and indirectly against the former roommate. You can read my previous write-ups on the AO3 situation and legal threats here and here, and a link to the interpersonal abuse accusations against her here and here.

Before we get into Flamethrower’s response: this is a terrible question. I am going to move forward under the assumption that this is a genuine question from a sincere person (referred to as “discord anon” from here on out), but regardless of who asked it or why, it is a bad question.

This question essentially says, “hey, people are saying bad things against you. I’m not going to give you any specifics, but respond to the accusation that you have done Bad Thing.”

Don’t go into someone’s inbox and do this. Even if you mean well, this is a shitty thing to do. To see why, let’s run through some possibilities:

The person you are asking had no idea people were saying they had done Bad Thing. Now, you have informed them that people are talking about them behind their back (always feels bad) and not given them the opportunity to actually meaningfully respond, or even told them what the accusation was about. If Flamethrower had no idea people were saying her fic was antisemitic (she does; more on that below), this gives her no opportunity to actually meaningfully respond to the accusation, either to rebut it or to acknowledge her error, because it doesn’t say WHAT people are saying is antisemitic in her fic.

The person you are asking has not done Bad Thing, and this is part of a harassment campaign against them. Now, that is absolutely not the case here (again, more on that below), but it does happen and is something to watch out for. In a case where there was a harassment campaign against a writer, a question like this would inadvertently contribute to that campaign; even if it means well and is genuine, it is one more thing to deal with, one more reminder of the rumors people are spreading.

The person actually has done Bad Thing, and is running a disinformation DARVO campaign accusing her accusers of harassment. Because the question asker fails to give specifics, Flamethrower can use this question as an opportunity to (1) preempt and prime her followers who might otherwise encounter accusations of antisemitism (or other accusations of bigotry and abuse) against her and 2) make herself look like victim of harassment campaign as suggested in the scenario above.

With that necessary aside out of the way, let’s analyze Flamethrower’s response. There are two target audiences for a text like this: 1) new or relatively distant readers and fans who are unaware of all of the background I linked above, like discord anon, and 2) current friends and followers who are aware of (at least some of) the background context.

I don’t know what might have happened to Flamethrower’s post here, but just in case it happens to you: as someone who write way-too-long essays on tumblr, I’ve had the site crash, freeze, and fail in various ways while drafting posts. At least recently, however, tumblr has been really great about automatically saving drafts as I go, and so I rarely lose more than a paragraph when it does. If this happens to you, try heading over to your drafts page, and see if your post (or most of your post) is still in there.

Now, that said…I don’t want to accuse Flamethrower of lying here. Like I said, I’ve had tumblr crash on me a bunch, and I’ve lost posts (or thought I’ve lost posts), and tumblr is notorious for acting up in various ways. So I normally would have no problem believing it had eaten her post. But I’m struggling with her explanation that she had copied what’s below as part of a longer post. Because to me, and you can judge for yourself, it doesn’t read like a section of a longer post. And to the extent that there is missing information that one might expect - for example, direct responses to the specific allegations of antisemitism that she knows about - it’s really weird to post a response without a least a line directly addressing those accusations, even if that line is just a brief refutation.

In practice, beginning her response with this paragraph (even if it is true), serves the purpose of manipulating the audience to allow her to maintain a useful illusion of ignorance of the claims against her, preempt criticism, and suggest that she has more evidence and knowledge than she really does. By stating that she had a longer post that contained more information, she can decline to address the specific allegations of antisemitism against her, thereby maintaining the illusion that she does not know about them/they don’t exist. However, if that illusion ceases to be useful to her - for example, if a follower questions why she didn’t specifically address the allegations in the fanlore page - she can assert that she *did* address those allegations, it was just eaten by tumblr. Likewise, any criticism about gaps in her response, or even the framing of her response, can be explained away after the fact by asserting that she did include any missing information, or that the person critiquing her response is just missing context that she originally included. And it allows her to maintain both an air of being very well informed and a source of education (“a nice long and informative response”) without demonstrating or imparting actual knowledge, and the suggestion that she has Secret Documentation to back up all of her claims of abuse and harassment.

The defense to these manipulations is to recognize that she did not have to post anything in response to this ask, and she choose to post the response that she did. For example, as I already noted, if she knows about specific allegations of antisemitism against her, she deliberately choose not to respond to those specifics, even if only with a brief sentence.

And she DOES know the specifics of those allegations. Her previously posted legal threat letter, which she wrote herself, specifically alleged that her fanlore page was defamatory. In order to make that claim, she must have read her fanlore page and the sources it cited - included the allegations of antisemitic content and behavior linked above. So unless she wants to try to claim that she sent a legal threat letter alleging defamation without knowing what the alleged defamatory content said,* she is deliberately avoiding addressing any of those specifics. This includes the fact that she is pretending the antisemitism allegations are solely about the content of her fics, when even a quick glance at the allegations shows that the much more serious claims are not about what she wrote, but how she responded to the people who tried to correct her or raise concerns.

*legal note: you don’t want to try to make this claim

So this starts with an outright lie. Flamethrower has absolutely deleted posts before. This is a manipulation tactic that hits differently depending on which audience category a person falls into. If you are a new reader like discord anon, it is designed to build trust and suggest transparency. If you are a current follower, it serves to either (ironically) gaslight you into distrusting your own memory/other people who show you she has deleted posts, or to put you in a position where you either challenge the lie (and thus risk alienation from her/her friends & fans) or accept the lie, thereby potentially helping establish a pattern where you get used to mentally accepting and excusing her lies and misinformation.

Second, the idea of her tumblr existing “to stand as a public record” is just bizarre. Even just scrolling down a few posts, it’s clear that she’s not using it as some sort of record - she’s using like a personal tumblr blog: posting responses to asks, posting and reblogging fandom material, and reblogging other posts and pictures she (presumably) likes. And the invitation to “peruse the whole of [her] Tumblr” is ludicrous. While I am sympathetic in principle to the difficulty of trying to respond to an accusation without specifics, “just read everything I’ve every posted and reblogged for the last nine years” is not a reasonable response.

It is a response that is designed to sound to readers such as discord anon like she is being open and transparent, but it is worse than useless as a practical response. Meanwhile, for her established followers, it serves to suggest that they don’t need to consider new perspectives or accusations because surely they would have noticed any antisemitic behavior by her in the past.

Third, I have to note the insertion of her medical issues into the discussion. This isn’t necessarily a sign of malice or deliberate manipulation - I talk about being autistic a lot, because it is part of my constant daily life - but there is no need to mention it here, as it is irrelevant to the ask and adds no relevant context to the answer. But from the perspective of either a new reader or an old follower, the effect could be to gain sympathy for her and make her seem more vulnerable to harassment.

There are aspects of this part of her post that seem reasonable on the surface, as a response to the question asked. Since discord anon didn’t give specifics, under normal circumstances, a response directing the asker to discuss the issue with Jewish folks seems appropriate and sensitive.

Unfortunately, here’s where we need to address some of the specifics of the accusations against Flamethrower. One of claims, backed up by screenshots, is that when a Jewish fan attempted to correct a transliteration error in her fic, Flamethrower responded in part by claiming that a Jewish friend told her she was right and referred to that person as her “Jewish sidekick.” And in response to further asks about a different issue that bothered at least a few Jewish fans, she included a long non-sequitur about how the “only family I have left who will claim me with love and without judgement is Jewish.” Together, these responses indicate a pattern of using the fact that she has Jewish friends and followers as a distraction, a defense, and a weapon against people, especially other Jewish people, who have concerns about how she depicts Jewish people in her work.

I would give her the benefit of the doubt in this case, again, because of the vagueness of the accusation, if she had just listed people that discord anon could reach out to. But the fact that she thought it was important to include a sentence about her “Jewish bestie,” who is currently unavailable, makes it clear that this paragraph is actually an attempt to claim that she can’t have antisemitic elements in her work because some of her best friends and fans are Jewish!!! This is gross, and I shouldn’t have to explain how and why this is a shitty manipulation tactic.

What is a little more pernicious in this section is her reference to these fans as “Actual Jewish People.” The emphasis she places on this suggests that anyone who might be claiming there is antisemitism in her work isn’t actually Jewish.

The other bit of manipulation going on in this section is that although she frames her response as giving permission for her Jewish followers to comment, by doing so explicitly and publicly, she is indirectly putting pressure on them to comment and affirm their belief that there is nothing antisemitic in her work. This is worth noting in part due to the nature of the abuse allegations against her, because publicly commenting in defense of her like this can help create a sense of connection and entanglement with her, that could make it harder for someone to leave her sphere of influence.

And here’s where the subtle attempts at manipulation become explicit. I struggled to write this section because this passage from Flamethrower’s response made me so angry.

Ok. So, here’s what’s going on here. Discord anon has written in with a question about potential antisemitism in Flamethrower’s works. Even through she knows what the specific allegations against her are, Flamethrower has answered the question in a way that allows her to pretend that she doesn’t, and that all the allegations are just about the content of her fic, not about her response to Jewish critics. At the same time, she is hiding behind Jewish friends and fans in a way that lets her pretend she is only elevating Jewish voices, while she implies that anyone who disagrees with her isn’t actually Jewish. She then links to a write up about gaslighting and implies to discord anon, and to anyone else reading this post - new fans and current followers alike - that the people telling them that there are issues with her or her work are potentially abusers who are gaslighting them, who they need protection from (so come speak to her friends instead! They are safe!).

This is cult shit.

This is pure manipulation, designed to try to funnel vulnerable fans and followers away from people who might criticize her, and toward people (and into spaces*) where she is in control of the narrative.

*EDITED TO ADD: To drive this point home: Between my drafting this analysis and posting it, Flamethrower has publicly posted her fan discord and advertised it as a "fan-safe space" where "anyone is welcome."

The first two sentences are a common (and highly effective) manipulation tactic. The response applies pressure and fear by suggesting that people are lying about Flamethrower and trying to manipulate folks like discord anon against her, that these people are a danger to discord anon and are trying to abuse them, and then appears to offer a release valve from that pressure, a place of safety. Flamethrower won’t force them to make a decision! Flamethrower recognizes their autonomy and their intelligence! Flamethrower is someone safe!

…ignore, of course, that until Flamethrower raised it, no one was suggesting that discord anon was being forced to make a decision. This is a clear example of someone trying to build other people’s trust and reliance on them by creating an external threat, and then offering themselves as a solution to the threat they themselves created.

Then, in the rest of the paragraph, Flamethrower begins to explicitly create the external threat that she had previously implied existed. She starts by asserting that she has a bunch of facts and evidence about something that she has been “kind enough” not to post. This creates the sense that she has proof of the claims that she is about to make, while building in an explanation of why she never actually provides that proof. It isn’t that she can’t prove her claims, it's that she is such a good person that she refuses to. (Incidentally, this also works as manipulation toward current followers who might want to criticize her or try to leave her orbit. First, it creates a sense of sympathy for her - she’s a good person, so why would you treat her badly and criticize her? - and second, it carries the implicit threat that she might have Secret Evidence that she can use to hurt you.

And here’s where she completes her manipulation and disinformation. In the space of eight short paragraphs, she has moved the discussion from being about whether or not some of her fanfic might contain antisemitic elements, to a massive harassment campaign against her. These last two paragraphs are full of lies, but the previous paragraphs have built up a base to manipulate her audience into being more receptive to those lies.

(And just to be clear: this *is* all lies. The antisemitism allegations date back to at least 2017. There is no evidence of any kind of coordinated campaign against her - a bunch of people laughed at her tantrum over her AO3 suspension, in the midst of that her roommate decided to come out about her allegations of abuse in part because Flamethrower was blaming her for the suspension, and the old allegations of bigotry gained new circulation and audience in conjunction with the new allegations. And as far as any “ongoing multiple death threats” are concerned, the only evidence of this seems to be a trickle of “kys”-style anon messages, which is shitty, but also fairly typical of having a moderate platform on tumblr and refusing to turn anon off.)

She starts with the suggestion that she is transparent and open, and has always been transparent and open, and is also disabled and vulnerable (while attempting to leave herself wiggle room out of any critiques of this post by making sure her readers know that most of her original post was deleted by tumblr). She pretends that the accusations against her have nothing to do with her behavior, only with the content of her fic. She sets up the idea that accusations of antisemitism have “nothing to do” with actual concerns about antisemitism by listing a bunch of her Jewish friends and fans and hiding behind them, and suggesting that no real Jewish people have criticized her. She seeds the idea that other people are trying to gaslight discord anon, her fans, her followers, and herself, creating a sense of a threat, of people who are out to get her (and you!!!) .And she has stated she has evidence of who and what is behind all of this, but set up an excuse as to why she can’t actually show any of that evidence.

And she ties everything up by creating a conspiracy to preempt her audience - new fans and old followers - from believing or trusting the abuse allegations against her, by turning it all into one big coordinated campaign to harass her. She is twisting allegations of abuse against her to create an imaginary harassment campaign, and using that to attempt to discredit accusations of antisemitism.

Indeed, you can see in some of her followers’ responses to her post that she successfully managed to portray, to them, the allegations against her as only relating to the content of her fic, rather than her behavior, and downplay the allegations of abuse against her into “drama” in which she is the victim.

She claims at the start that tumblr deleted most of her response. I don’t know what could have possibly been in the rest of her planned response that would have excused this behavior.

Finally, to end on a humorous note, here’s her tags to this nonsense. As I’ve laid out above, this response does a lot to try to create a sense of threat and fear in the audience, and these tags are clearly part of an attempt to create fear in her accusers by suggesting that Something Scary will be done to them (in this case, criminal prosecution) and to create a veneer of authority in her follower’s minds by pretending she knows Legal Stuff.

However, as someone with distance from her, and who is actually familiar with the topic she is trying to claim authority on? I have been wandering around all day repeating “FEDERAL CRIMES” and collapsing into giggles. She doesn’t know what she is talking about, and the sense of fear she is creating is built on sand.

#little tin cults #hey #hey flamethrower #if you're reading this: what 'FEDERAL CRIMES' are you referring to huh?#c'mon #just give me a U.S. Code citation #that's all I'm asking for #do it #make my day

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