Celebrities’ victims are ON SOCIAL MEDIA READING YOUR POSTS. When you make light of abuse allegations and your reactions center the careers of accused predators, that contributes to survivors’ unwillingness to pursue their abusers in court. What you say online makes a difference.

Your tweets are in their group chats and on the minds of people who know the accused and know what they did. I see the other side of this through my work and public response really does change the course of whether people face consequences

People are like hurr durr social media has nothing to do with the justice system… it has everything to do with it! Potential future jurors are reading social media, victims and their allies are, predators and their enablers are… it has incalculable influence on outcomes

So much happens BEFORE there’s a public-facing trial with rules about who is allowed the courtroom. That usually doesn’t even happen, the outcome usually predates any kind of trial. A trial is a tiny sliver of how these things work, a fragment of the overall timeline

Your tweets are like an additional stab in the back on top of all the other harassment and backlash the victim is facing in real life right now. If you got a glimpse into what victims go through so many people with consciences would be ashamed of how they weighed in

@kattenbarge And if celebrities won't read it, family and friends who are victims and survivors and never pursued legal actions are reading everything and it hurts them. People saying that they will only believe a victim if she has a conviction against her abuser invalidates their experience

@kattenbarge I think that is the point of why stans act like this. They're actively trying to discourage people from coming forward about their faves, and punishing the people who do come forward.

@kattenbarge Chris Avellone's very recent settlement illustrates this perfectly; his stans look at the very carefully worded statement, won't see past the clinton-esque legal accuracy, and refuse to see that the man was trying to get people blackout, alcohol poisoning level drunk for sex.