We know that the white right wingers love to have people of color or other identifiable minorities attack members of their own group since that saves them from the charge of racism or bigotry if they were to make those same charges. People like Dinesh D’Souza, Diamond and Silk have made a comfortable living occupying this niche, quickly vaulting to prominence within Republican circles because of their willingness to be such mouthpieces.
Now comes along yet another case of a white college professor who set up a fake twitter account adopting the persona of an immigrant in order to attack immigrants and social justice causes generally.
A white male University of New Hampshire chemistry professor is accused of posing as an immigrant woman of colour on Twitter to make racist and sexist comments and attack users who supported racial justice and other progressive causes.
The university has not named the professor whom it said was being investigated related to the allegations on social media. A spokesperson said that the person “is on leave and not in the classroom”.
Several people who have reviewed the account before it was taken down last week said there were routinely posts with racist, sexist and transphobic comments and images over the past year.
Toby Santamaria, a graduate student studying plant biology at Michigan State who identifies with the gender-neutral term Latinx, was attacked online by followers of the Twitter account.
“I’m disgusted but not really surprised,” Santamaria said.
The person behind the account also detailed how they had fought efforts from their unnamed department to speak out on racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. They also routinely brought up their fake background to criticise users who were pushing for greater diversity in science, mathematics, engineering and technology or STEM fields.
While this episode is disgusting, what keeps surprising me is that these people think that they will not be found out. While this episode is disgusting, what keeps surprising me is that these people think that they will not be found out. Haven’t they learned that the old joke that “On the internet, no one knows you are a dog” no longer holds?
Gosh, and this despite the well known “fact” that universities are bastions of liberalism, feminism, anti-racism and probably quite a few other -isms that conservatives / republicans enjoy complaining about.
Perhaps an excuse emblematic of the current situation in the US could be that they only did it so they could stay out of class during the pandemic. “Uncontrolled outbreaks, class rooms full to the brim and the government insists on opening everything up? I’d better get myself suspended.”
Other sources are less circumspect about naming this jerk (who totally deserves to be shamed).
Are they actually wrong to think that though? What proportion of these sorts of accounts actually are found out? We only see the ones that are, but it would be a mistake to assume that there aren’t others that we aren’t aware of. It’s entirely possible that there are far more of them than you think, and only a minority get discovered.
Seconding Dunc. From Silentbob’s link, it appears the guy was very lazy in his sockpuppetry:
The thing with those that are uncaught: we don’t know they are sockpuppets, because they have not been caught.
“Haven’t they learned that the old joke that “On the internet, no one knows you are a dog” no longer holds?”
Well, speak for yourself…
I’m sure it’s easier to find out the fake accounts that purport to be the opposite of what the sock puppet creator believes in because the straw people that live inside the heads of the folks doing this tend to bear no semblance to reality. It may be more difficult if the sock puppet agrees with the creator, but that person is still walking a thin line because they will still have beliefs about immigrants/people of colour/women/etc. that will taint the portrayal.
That being said, it is incredibly easy to fool people who want to believe something is real. Look at how difficult satire and parody are to pull off without loads of people believing it’s serious. Nobody talks about Landover Baptist Church anymore, but that’s a prime example. Hell, there are still people who share The Onion stories as real.