Ash Sarkar - twitter really is grim

[Xanthangum]

The story is in the papers now: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/reading-stabbings-muslim-journalist-death-22227933

I'm diametrically opposed to Ash's views on some issues. But this is quite clearly a) racist bullying, b) misogynistic bullying and c) people using a very horrible incident to unleash their own prejudiced vile viewpoints.

@ATomeOfOnesOwn

Princess yy I know what people are saying the oranges mean but I didn't find them very convincing. Equally I didn't find AS's explanation that she posted them because there were three orange things in the photo very convincing either. Hence I'm willing to accept there could be an undercurrent in the posting of the oranges that I'm unaware of but I think it's more likely to be of insta significance than political. For one thing, no-one knew what the final death toll would be at that point.

As a 'serious' political commentator, AS should have been aware of the attacks. That's her job. They were trending on Twitter where she was posting the pic and were headline news across Sky, etc. So the pic made her seem either inept or narcissistic. I don't think she's inept.

Right, so what sort of undercurrent do you think there might be, and what could the significance be? Are you suggesting she was celebrating the attacks in some way? I'd like more clarity from you on this.

As for the second, it's one thing to say someone should have been aware and another to say they were. Now Ash is someone who has previous for not researching before she tweets, see the Julie Bindel doesn't care about women in prison episode. Given this, and the certainty that she was going to attract a load of racist attention if there were even the remotest possibility she could be seen as being disrespectful of terror attack victims, Occam's Razor is pointing us in the direction of inept. Unless, of course, you're into conspiracy theories.

And if you are going to condemn everyone who posted something banal on social media after the murders, you are going to have to condemn a lot of people, inevitably including people whose political views are in line with your own.

I think it's de rigeur and done on both sides of politics.

There was mass criticism of anyone who DIDNT post about black lives matter, even people who were not political - you had people whose normal Instagrams were selfies in bikinis and little else criticised for not 'blacking out'

However when it comes to MPs, people like Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar, every post is likely to be taken as political.

MP: 'enjoying a day with my family' Twitterers: after you just voted for austerity , you insensitive bastard

MP: 'in the sunshine' Twitterers: 'with 60,000 dead from covid-19? Evil evil evil'

The main thing I've learned from this thread is that spending too much time on twitter tends to send people mad

Absolutely! And who is Ash Sarkar?

Princess how odd that you are responding to my posts but not actually reading them. If you had, you'd see that I said 'I think it's more likely to be of insta significance than political' - insta means instagram. Perhaps the shorthand confused you.

for the second, it's one thing to say someone should have been aware and another to say they were. Now Ash is someone who has previous for not researching before she tweets, see the Julie Bindel doesn't care about women in prison episode. Given this, and the certainty that she was going to attract a load of racist attention if there were even the remotest possibility she could be seen as being disrespectful of terror attack victims, Occam's Razor is pointing us in the direction of inept. Unless, of course, you're into conspiracy theories.

Eh? Isn't the most straightforward reading that she is a troll who posts things for attention and that she knew exactly who Bindel was as she had been following her on Twitter for at least 5 years and had criticised her on multiple occasions since drinking the TRA kool aid

twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/324146108311949313

You know, the Twitter trolls have got us all arguing amongst ourselves over nuance and intent, delivered by a tool that doesn't have the capacity to deliver these things accurately (how many characters in a tweet?)

They don't care about AS but they must be rolling their hands in glee at the thought they can cause ill ease on a mother's forum.

It provocative marketing and the nature of the beast that everything is fair game. That this level of aggression is not, imo, benign (as the media is a magnifier) is something else and shouldn't detract from the fact that the violence towards women (online/offline) is wrong.

Ethical guidelines. To protect, not regulate. It's the only solution I can think of.

@ATomeOfOnesOwn

Princess how odd that you are responding to my posts but not actually reading them. If you had, you'd see that I said 'I think it's more likely to be of insta significance than political' - insta means instagram. Perhaps the shorthand confused you.

Don't be ridiculous, it was incredibly obvious that you meant Instagram significance. And I'd like to hear more about this, since you evidently think it's a sufficiently realistic possibility that you're willing to stick your neck out and say you'd guess she posted the photo knowing about the attacks. So what might these undercurrents and significance pertain to?

ShootsFruitandLeaves, the point being that despite this she still hadn't managed to learn about Julie's history of activism for women in prison, and felt a twitter search was sufficient research on the subject. The tweet you link to doesn't even address the point I make, much less refute it. Ash made such an abject fool of herself during that exchange that there's zero possibility she did it on purpose. Thus, it's an example of ineptitude.

I don't think the Twitter trolls have got us arguing unless you include AS and OJ as Twitter trolls in which case yy I agree. OJ and AS have orchestrated numerous vicious misogynistic pile-ons on Twitter. Yet whenever they are the victims of similar pile-ons they suddenly decide they are inappropriate. But it doesn't extend to retrospection. It doesn't extend to self-reflection. From that pov, this current storm is symptomatic of a culture they actively encourage and use to shut down debate.
I think their particular brand of political Twitter trolling is very dangerous from a democratic pov and a safety of women pov.

@ATomeOfonesown

But it doesn't extend to retrospection. It doesn't extend to self-reflection. From that pov, this current storm is symptomatic of a culture they actively encourage and use to shut down debate.
I think their particular brand of political Twitter trolling is very dangerous from a democratic pov and a safety of women pov.

Yes, much better put.

I am so shocked at the reactionary and widely inaccurate comments I have encountered from some of the grads I have met. It is as though they only believe something if it is on the internet. There's revisionism there that really concerns me.

ShootsFruitandLeaves, the point being that despite this she still hadn't managed to learn about Julie's history of activism for women in prison, and felt a twitter search was sufficient research on the subject. The tweet you link to doesn't even address the point I make, much less refute it. Ash made such an abject fool of herself during that exchange that there's zero possibility she did it on purpose. Thus, it's an example of ineptitude.

But that just isn't how life works now.

We no longer have impartial journalists or people making a pretence at it. The NY Times employs people like this

tuftsobserver.org/11051/

Who wrote about 'heterosexism', 'transphobia', 'cisheteropatriarchy' and so on

Black transwomen ARE killed at disproportionate rates even though there's no evidence of it - just state it as true.

JK Rowling never did anything for women - just say it and it's true

Julie Bindel likewise. People are 'cancelled', they are unalloyed evil, we knock down their statues, we lie about them on social media, and it's all 'true'

For people who worry about 'terfs', Ash Sarkar did not do a thing wrong, and lying, and refusing to apologise and not deleting her post means that she thinks it's true.

It's no different to Trump supporters. If Trump lies then his supporters love it. The person being attacked is the point, not the message

Ash Sarkar saying stupid things doesn't harm her career, so long as she says stupid things that are pursuant to a woke cause.

Lies are absolutely fine.

@Shoots Yes.

People are 'cancelled',

and histories - of contribution, work, input. Reinventionism?

Absolutely it's not how a lot of journalism works now, but again this doesn't even address my point, let alone refute it. Which is that some of you are engaging in bizarre strangulations and assumptions you can't possibly prove in order to avoid having to consider the possibility that the woman being subjected to rape and death threats didn't actually deliberately do the thing the people making the threats are accusing her of. And you are. It sounds uncomfortably like the people borrowing language straight out of the rape apologists playbook because they couldn't just outright condemn the treatment of JK Rowling.

Likewise the 'truth' of whether Ash Sarkar somehow didn't notice that the well-known feminist she had been tweeting for years had done lots for women in prison, or that people might draw any parallels between her photo and the terrorist attack, isn't that important.

The fact is that Ash Sarkar gained massive profile from lying about Julie Bindel, and she's getting lots and lots of attention now.

She's just produced , tweeted and retweeted a video
"Why do the far-right push outlandish conspiracy theories?

It’s to make the possibility of ‘random’ acts of political violence more likely. TangerineTangerineTangerine"

twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/1275357626218446855

The 'truth' or otherwise about this claim (which is more than a little odd in its phrasing after she was criticised for her post in the aftermath of a 'random' act of political violence) isn't so much the point as that people are talking about Ash Sarkar.

It's funny how the truth is all of a sudden not important, when this morning it was sufficiently vital for you to be assuring us all that there was no way she could be unaware of the attacks before tweeting. One can only hope that's because you realised how far you were reaching.

Princess what is your point? and your agenda? Because your deliberate misreading of three pages of posts, points to you having the latter if not the former.

Misreading? Nah, just correctly identifying bullshitting and backtracking.

Princess even in the unlikely event of Sarkar not knowing about the attacks (which frankly I think is stretching credibility to breaking point given Sarkar lives almost permanently on social media) did it not occur to her to have a second thought after ripx4nutmeg responded to her?

And, on having that second thought, like any decent human being with a shred of empathy (or failing that, because I don't think she is a decent person with a shred of empathy- like any media savvy journalist) think "oh that's not well timed"

It's not as if the world was losing out on anything worthwhile in not getting to see a photo of Sarkar licking an ice- lolly.

I'm wondering what your agenda is too.

I'm wondering what your agenda is too.

You're probably wondering this because your stance on the thread has been consistently idiotic. But I'll gladly summarise:

• I'm a feminist, so I don't want any woman to suffer rape threats or misogyny. This includes those who wouldn't thank me for it and those who like Ash are happy to throw other women under a bus when it suits.

• Ash is getting shit not because she's a dick pandering handmaiden, which she is, but because she's an Asian Muslim woman in the public eye who says things that the far right don't want said.

• Nobody apart from her and perhaps a couple of people close to her actually knows whether she posted the tweet knowing about the attacks, and people claiming to are all reaching so madly that they make themselves look ridiculous. Some of them, including several on this thread, sound like the people who couldn't bring themselves to simply condemn the abuse of JK Rowling and had to invent reasons why she was somehow involved with The Sun's article.

• There's a reasonable argument that an actual decent journalist should have more idea of current events than she did. But then she's not a very good journalist.

I already answered it. I'm not going to engage with you on this thread. You can just keep rereading my posts until they make sense to you.

That'll take a while then, since you gave a non-answer and swerved the question. Duly noted though, you think it's more likely than not that Ash knew about the attack when she posted and are speculating on the possibility of the three oranges having some deeper meaning, but not to the extent that you've any explanation for what it might be.