Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @[email protected] was a banned user from early on the site’s history, and I’ve seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)
For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a
bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).
She later claimed that her account had been hacked, which frankly I did and do not believe. She was unbanned but later banned for other shit which I don’t recall and am unable to reconstruct from the modlog and came back on a bunch of different alts, all of which were banned.
If there’s any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.
Edit: There’s an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It’s 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don’t want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.
Edit edit: I’m going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread
i mean idk have you guys never given money to a homeless person who said it was their birthday? did you think that was true? would you be mad at them if it wasn’t? aggrandize yourself if you have to, but please break free of the austerity mindset you’re fucking communists for christssake
I don’t usually give money to anyone who calls me a slur, guess I’m not a real communist
lying about it being your birthday and repeatedly soliciting money in a political space, taking photos of you spending it on drugs (not even cool ones), and calling the people who gave it to you homophobic slurs and telling them to kill themselves are two different orders of magnitude
e: they’re also qualitatively different, she harassed the community too
e2: this all said, people can grow and change, and while it’s up to the individual offering the aid, holding something against someone forever, especially when their behavior is from a situation of crisis or duress, is not productive.
This isn’t about a
“these people don’t deserve to have things” approach. This is a discussion about potentially harmful actions, that’s all.
Ideally mutual aid happens in person where you can easily know a person. On the Internet with anonymity, you need to have these kinds of conversations to be a sustainable project.