Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

(I’ve kept a therapist for about 5 years. It’s helped me get through a lot, and is strongly recommended as general maintenance. I cannot stress how much it helps if you can find one.)

Fourth, remember that not all disinfo is designed with a target in mind. Several campaigns are designed to mentally or emotionally paralyze you by bombarding you with too much info, making the truth hard to find, or trying to convince you to stop trying.

Ignore those outright.

Third, stay calm. It’s really easy to panic if you or a friend gets targeted. Step back, go offline for awhile if you need to, and make a plan to get through it. It’s going to be okay.

Some people, even people you care about, will fall for it. Reach out to people that haven’t and set up a support network for yourself. It’s often really easy to feel like everything is falling apart, but it isn’t.

Also, get yourself a therapist if you can. Seriously. It helps.

Second, don’t try to publicly refute the attackers or any online mobs they send your way. Protect yourself first. http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com provides actionable info that you can use to audit your online presence and handle being targeted.

Especially good here: get yourself a security key for your personal email. If you use Gmail, you can also set up Google Advanced Protection on your accounts: https://landing.google.com/advancedprotection/

Hey, so, a few words about disinfo campaigns, because I’m seeing a lot of people I know targeted as they flee birdsite or end up in the crosshairs of Internet hate groups:

First, trust but verify. If you can’t source a claim to a credible source, distrust it or at least remain skeptical. Quite a few hate groups launder fake info through seemingly credible websites and whisper campaigns, and it’s worth not trusting those until credible evidence comes forward.

I flag this “-“ because it’s been difficult to even follow along with. I know too many people who have suffered what she has — being seen as nothing more than an object by powerful men. And watching those same powerful men try to control the narrative in any way they can to discredit her _now_ has been the hardest part of watching this.

Fuck anyone that tries to sweep abuse under the rug to retain power. I know this won’t stop that from happening, but I hope her words send a powerful message.

I’ve had to mostly disengage from the daily horrible for my own emotional well-being, but some notes on Dr. Ford’s testimony today:

I cannot fathom how hard it must be to relive her trauma in front of the whole world, through a process engineered in extremely bad faith against her. I cannot imagine the resolve and poise that she must have, even when she knows that her detractors are doing everything they can to put her on trial, to tell her story.

Bless her for what she is doing.

As someone that also works in infosec for the past decade, I especially appreciate how it models computer viruses as tiny nanotech machines that physically interact with each network. It’s a good blend between how self-replicating code actually works and how it’s imagined.

Also, the puzzles are really good, especially when you go out of bounds to investigate the rest of what’s inside each network?

I’m about a month behind on picking up Exapunks (Zachtronics’ latest puzzle game), but it is really good.

Its reimagined 90s cyberpunk dystopian fantasy invokes all the right nostalgia for me. I also really like how its “manuals” are sourced from 2600 magazine and other zines that are still around today.

The only thing I wish it had (maybe later?) is a shout-out to old Winamp visualizers like Whitecap, sitting adjacent to its IRC window and puzzle interface, to set the tone.

Omg, Animal Crossing Switch in 2019! Aaaaaaaa

That’s all I’ve got. Thank you for reading. 💜

I believe that defenders have an advantage in terms of online trolling, and that a reckoning is coming for the gatekeepers that allowed this to happen (social media orgs, etc). The technical means to block trolls are not new. Powerful people allowed this to happen that you can help remove from power.

In the US, if you can, please vote this November. In the UK, please vote when you’re next given the opportunity in MP elections. And elsewhere, do what you can to keep authoritarians out of power.

Thank you for tolerating my bullshit while I got the anxiety out of my system. I know much of what I’ve put behind CW has been hard to process; I needed to have it somewhere out of my own head.

Current events are hard for me as someone that values truth. I’m not great at articulating that. And having been on the receiving end of mob behavior and unsubstantiated rumors before, it strikes a nerve.

For my emotional health, I need to disengage from the topic further. With one note as postscript.

Also, support your local fediverse admins if you can. This isn’t easy to work through, given how invested larger platforms and troll farms are in lies right now that seem credible.

I guess I’m thankful Awoo and a good % of the fediverse have figured this out. I’m an optimist, and I think the defenders against disinfo have a strong advantage here compared to Twitter, etc. Mostly, because that weakness isn’t built into the platform to monetize it.

But that doesn’t make this any easier to deal with, until enough people make the jump. Maybe now is a good time to convince more of your friends to move to Masto?