The Washington Post’s doxxer-in-chief Taylor Lorenz dominated Tuesday’s news cycle with a hit piece “exposing” the previously anonymous creator of the popular Twitter account “Libs of Tik Tok.” But the most important story isn’t that Lorenz engaged in an unethical doxxing campaign; it’s the reason why she did it.
Lorenz sought to destroy the account’s owner by publishing the creator’s name and even linking to details about the user’s day job. She even explicitly referenced the creator as a “powerful” Orthodox Jew who is “shaping” the media, an antisemitic trope, despite religion’s irrelevance to the story.
Lorenz’s hit piece was more than just bad-faith smears with no other discernible cause or effect. It was a diversion so that she didn’t have to explore why content documenting leftist crazies and then reposted by Libs of Tik Tok resonates with the public.
The Libs of Tik Tok Twitter account achieved fame because it gave parents and taxpayers a peek into the leftist radicalism that often happens behind closed doors in schools, such as advertisements for genital mutilation and pornographic library books.
When the corporate media repeatedly claimed that critical race theory isn’t taught in schools, Libs of Tik Tok posted an avalanche of videos and pictures showing the opposite.
Since the increasingly popular Twitter account debuted less than two years ago in November of 2020, Libs of Tik Tok has amassed more than 847,000 followers. Its amplification of left-wing radicalism in schools attracted the attention of the media, politicians, and even Elon Musk. More importantly, it horrified parents who were already growing restless about leftist ideology pervading the nation’s educational institutions.
As the Libs of Tik Tok account’s reach grew, so did its capacity to effect change. In less than two years, Libs of Tik Tok became a powerful, conservative force that inspired real change aimed at combating the indoctrination.
With the click of one button, the account could repost a video of progressives forcing radical ideas on children as young as 5 years old. Plenty of times, Libs of Tik Tok’s highlighting of insane content led to investigations, suspensions, and even firings.
Lorenz admitted that Libs of Tik Tok is “shaping public discourse,” but beyond charging the account with “spreading anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment,” she did not detail why the content is often scoffed at as “disgusting,” “disturbing,” and “dangerous” in replies. She can’t engage with the reasons for the account’s popularity — or at least she doesn’t want to — because that would force her to admit just how radical the left has become and legitimize parents’ well-founded concerns.
That’s why she deliberately did not explain why content that shows teachers saying parents have no place in their kids’ education is problematic for hundreds of thousands of the account’s followers.
While Libs of Tik Tok was calling attention to the issues that mattered to parents nearly every day, Lorenz was busy dismissing TikTok’s effect on children as a “dog whistle” that resembles “QAnon.”
Then, instead of admitting that the media constantly lies to parents about the dangers of CRT, Florida’s parental rights law (labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by the press), and other conservative culture war efforts, Lorenz took the easy way out and charged Libs of Tik Tok with “secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine” in an effort to destroy the effective account. Her tactics are straight out of the corrupt media’s playbook.
It’s the same way the corporate media treats Donald Trump voters. Instead of trying to understand why someone would vote for the businessman-turned-president, the press smears MAGA supporters as “racists” and domestic terrorists. To reinforce their baseless claims, the media amplified fake news such as the Jussie Smollett hoax while encouraging censorship of election integrity concerns.
It’s much more appealing for the media to destroy political enemies than to admit the self-inflicted loss of their credibility and the radicalism of the political party they hold dear. Lorenz is no exception.
