So if I'm getting the story straight, someone shot a video of a 27-year-old woman tearing down posters of Hamas hostages and it went viral. Soon after, the woman began getting "hundreds of emails filled with death threats, threats of sexual violence and promises to get her fired from her job teaching at an after-school nature program called Wild Ferns with fewer than five people on staff."
NPR reports that most doxxing campaigns only last a few days, but the effects could be felt for months.
Thanks to NPR, we now have the woman's name — Olivia Lynch — her age, her photo, and her employer.
1/ Is there a difference between identifying by name someone belligerently acting out in a public space and "doxxing"?
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 11, 2024
The idea that there's a sort of right to complete anonymity for people publicly behaving like heartless asses seems, well, questionable.
2/ Anyhow, here's @npr making a hero out of a hater:
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 11, 2024
https://t.co/RDUcxLofpy
Mansee Khurana reports for NPR:
On Nov. 2, Olivia Lynch was walking home from dinner in Brooklyn, N.Y., when she saw a poster that she had seen a few times since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
"My first reaction was a twinge in my heart," Lynch said. "Wow, look at this cute kid. Look at these lovely looking people who are being used as pawns in a war. This is awful."
…
Some people, including the artists themselves, believe that tearing down these posters is an antisemitic act, and videos of people tearing down these posters have gone viral.
Lynch doesn't believe that taking down the posters is antisemitic.
"These posters don't exist in a vacuum," Lynch said. "I think they are serving to amplify the messaging that one was seeing, that Israel is completely justified in what they are doing in Gaza."
So, on Nov. 2, Lynch tore down a poster she saw on her walk home.
"What was going through my mind at this point was that this poster is justifying the destruction of Gaza because of these hostages," Lynch said. Someone filmed Lynch doing so, and by the morning, a video of her tearing down the poster was on the internet. Instagram pages like @JewsHateDatabase posted the video with the caption: "Help us find out who she is — Jew hater spotted in Williamsburg Brooklyn."
So someone caught her on video tearing down photos of kidnapped Israelis in a public place.
3/ And here's the subject of @NPR's advocacy, the one who's so keen on her name being kept quiet yet partnered with NPR to blast her name across the world. pic.twitter.com/ugJalKz6XI
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 11, 2024
4/ Anyhow, my personal view:
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 11, 2024
* Don't send a death threat to someone whose name was revealed. If you do, you deserve to be prosecuted.
* Don't send them a note saying "I hope you're harmed," etc. There are healthier and more productive ways to channel your anger.
Agreed. Also, don't tear down those posters.
6/
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 11, 2024
* If you're a childcare worker tearing down posters of child hostages, giving the finger and distributing Fuck Yous to all who question you—it's a net plus for parents of children in your care, especially but not only parents of Jewish children, to know you and your character
This is outrageous.
— DS (@LakeDaniel11) April 11, 2024
NPR insinuates that the graphic design of the posters is misleading "The poster is designed to look like a standard missing persons poster, but with the addition of the word "kidnapped" in bright red at the top and one of the faces of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas."
— Rebecca Japko (@RebeccaJapko) April 11, 2024
Hamas has held captives for over six months now and reportedly doesn't know where they are or if they're alive or dead. They kidnapped a 10-month-old baby who marked his first birthday as a hostage.
If she wanted to exercise free speech, she should have printed her own posters. Isn't ripping down someone else limit THEIR free speech expression? Sorry, @npr, that article is ridiculous. She deserved it, she can't be near children.
— IM 🇮🇱 (@girly_bits) April 11, 2024
Based on her statements in the article she hasn't learned anything.
— Great_Steak (@rojo_times) April 11, 2024
When people sign their names to a public statement, how could repeating it possibly be “doxxing”? What a joke.
— Raymond U. Sirius (@R_U_Sirius_) April 11, 2024
And anti-social behavior in public is 1000% fair game. Always has been.
"Journalistic integrity".... Leaves out the "F*ck Israel" comment.
— NovaFoundries (@NovaFoundries) April 11, 2024
"I think they are serving to amplify the messaging that one was seeing, that Israel is completely justified in what they are doing in Gaza."
— Mr Bo The Cat (@MrBoDaCat) April 11, 2024
uh, they are. What happened on Oct 7th Olivia?
I think the word you're looking for is 'martyr'.
— timcreen (@timcreen) April 11, 2024
It does seem as though NPR is making Lynch a martyr here, as well as the Harvard students who signed onto a statement condemning Israel and supporting Hamas.
Days after she tore down the poster, Lynch got a call from her boss: She had been fired.
She filed a claim for unemployment benefits a few weeks later, arguing that she had a right to express political opinions outside of the workplace.
"I considered it to be maybe a small act of civil disobedience," Lynch said. "It was nonviolent. I was taking down an inflammatory piece of propaganda."
The New York State Department of Labor denied her claim, stating that she "was held to a higher standard caring for children" and "knew or should" have known her actions would jeopardize her job.
I found this bit bizarre: "I considered it to be maybe a small act of civil disobedience," Lynch said.
— Terry Moore (@proxli) April 11, 2024
She didn’t break the law, she was fired for just cause, she doesn’t understand 1A, she doesn’t have a right to unemployment. Total ignorance of the laws at every step here.
So what NPR is upset about is that a woman faced consequences for publicly tearing down hostage posters and saying, "F**k Israel." We'd never have known her name if NPR hadn't blasted it out and tried to make her a victim. NPR seems very upset about anyone who's faced consequences for supporting Hamas.
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