There is little research on the political views of those behind the onslaught of abuse. Some surveys show that Republican officeholders are more likely to report being targeted, often from members of their own party. Research does show, however, that recent acts of political violence are more likely to be carried out by perpetrators aligned with right-wing causes and beliefs.
It’s a good thing Threatening Lawmakers is ILLEGAL and the Republicans doing are being thrown in Jail for an appropriate amount of time to further deter this behavior!
The laws around threats and harassment really need to be tightened up. If someone publicly harasses someone else, and they are charged with a crime, one shouldn’t need to get a protective order. The protective order should be automatic. A second incident should result in automatic incarceration until the charges from the initial incident are resolved. And it shouldn’t matter whether or not the victim is a public figure. We all deserve to be free from harassment and threats of violence.
There are too many people with unmanaged anger issues out there and too many of them are armed.
McCarthyism predated social media, and when we fought against rather than for it, it retreated into the shadows - for a time. Now it’s back, and it won’t take less effort to stop it again.
And imho, coming to the Fediverse is a great step towards that end - stepping out from the direct influence of Zuckerberg, Musk, and Huffman is an enormously crucial component. Thanks so much for the devs (backend, frontend, and apps), instance admins, community mods, and community builders/supporters that make that happen daily! And to the community members that promote kindness and acceptance even of newbie Fediverse converts who may require patience as they catch up.
Maybe with continued efforts - that will be labeled “subversive” by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene - we could vote such people out in local elections, and replace the trash with people willing to stand up for better laws that protect the People rather than enshrine protection for the police to crush moral people under their boot heels.
Someone needs to figure out how to make an open source tiktok. Probably would need to figure out a micro payment ecosystem, because otherwise no one will be able afford to store all that video.
@dansup is working on loops, a federated tiktok. According to THIS POST it looks he’s going for optimizing the uploaded video format over microtransactions for reducing overhead.
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