Not enough people are paying attention to a major target for Brendan Carr and the Trump admin’s crackdown on free speech: social media. It’s under bipartisan attack, even though it’s a crucial forum for reaching the public and fighting back. spitfirenews.com/p/is-anyone-...

Mainstream institutions, including some of the biggest news outlets, have rushed to sacrifice their journalists and the meaning of words like "debate" to placate the people behind clickbait YouTube videos with titles about woke libs and Karens spitfirenews.com/p/mainstream...

Since Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, people on the left have been censored, punished, and targeted with more violence for telling the truth about Kirk's legacy. The cycle continues: mainstream whitewashing of violence begets more violence and the victims are blamed. spitfirenews.com/p/the-nation...

For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about how the social media trend of hoping that Trump is dead or dying is linked to both his administration's deadly unraveling of rights and institutions and how hard it is for actual news about it to reach people over memes and vibes. spitfirenews.com/p/is-trump-d...

I wrote about how Harry Potter slop is inescapable and fueling JK Rowling’s anti-trans bigotry—but pushback seems to be growing, too. Case in point: I just opened Reddit and saw another reboot cast announcement, but most of the comments were about boycotting it spitfirenews.com/p/harry-pott...

I wrote about stunt influencer “Lil Tay” joining OnlyFans days after she turned 18, sparking calls to ban the platform. It’s a typical internet outrage cycle, fueled in part by the manosphere, that deflects from the real villains of misogyny and child exploitation. spitfirenews.com/p/lil-tay-on...

I went to a ChatGPT press event and it was just as dystopian and manipulative as I had expected—but it showed me that a lot of media executives have fallen for OpenAI's ruse that this will help the industry when it's making everything (for everyone) worse spitfirenews.com/p/openai-cha...

Pedro Pascal spoke up for trans rights and has been targeted with a smear campaign as a result. False allegations lobbed by TERFs have since become a meme and entered the YouTube podcast sphere—not unlike the previous anti-MeToo smear campaigns I’ve covered. spitfirenews.com/p/pedro-pasc...

The Nelk Boys are fratty podcast bros who helped get Trump elected with slobbering podcast interviews. Now they’re doing the same thing to Netanyahu. Their fans are furious, but this is the exact pseudo-journalistic podcast style they’ve helped grow into a monster. spitfirenews.com/p/podcast-br...

The conservative obsession with Jeffrey Epstein isn’t about justice for his victims—it does the opposite, deflecting from their testimony and perpetuating conspiracies and myths about sex trafficking. One “Epstein Files” influencer even undermined one of his victims. spitfirenews.com/p/conservati...

Here's an excerpt about the kind of hate comments I get from women for writing about misogynistic smear campaigns and where it's coming from.

Today’s piece for @spitfirenews.com members is about MeToo backlash. I’ve heard from women and survivors who spread hate toward other women like Blake Lively and say she’s hurting their cause, because they don’t believe her. I try to unpack the cognitive dissonance. spitfirenews.com/p/blake-live...

In today’s newsletter: When progressive media undermines the importance of high-profile sexual violence cases like the one against Sean “Diddy” Combs, it creates an opportunity for conservative media to ideologically capture the audience of these trials instead. spitfirenews.com/p/grok-elon-...

Yesterday Elon Musk’s Grok tried to rewrite history, falsely claiming that real screenshots of a deleted Grok post were fake. It was a high-profile, easily verifiable example of how AI chatbots can be weaponized to distort reality in favor of the people behind them. spitfirenews.com/p/grok-elon-...

In Florida, censorship efforts have scrubbed reports that detail the history of racist violence in the state, including alligator rhetoric and incarceration. spitfirenews.com/p/alligator-...

"I think that the population that they imagine housing in this detention, you know, we all look alike to them. These are brown people. I think the same impulse is very much at work,” Dr. Patricia Turner, who studied anti-Black folklore, told me. spitfirenews.com/p/alligator-...

There's very little to celebrate about America today. Right now, immigrants are trapped in concentration camp cages. The threat of alligators eating them stems from over a century of racist rhetoric. With AI, racists can repurpose the imagery of the Jim Crow south. spitfirenews.com/p/alligator-...

🌟BOOK LAUNCH🌟 Join us for the launch of Coercion with author @kylietcheung.bsky.social‬ @jessicavalenti.bsky.social‬ and @kattenbarge.bsky.social‬ 🗓️Tues, July 29 ⏰6:30 pm 📍Lofty Pigeon Books www.eventbrite.com/e/kylie-cheu...

One of the biggest podcasters on YouTube tried to force me to apologize for writing about misogyny. But he and his fans don’t get to dictate what I do or my worth as a journalist. My response to Ethan Klein: spitfirenews.com/p/ethan-klei...

For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about Zohran Mamdani's win as further evidence that a pro-Palestinian, socialist platform is actually popular online and off. spitfirenews.com/p/why-zohran...

“Right-wing conservative values thrive when women are distracted. Obsessing over calories. Shrinking our bodies. Policing our hunger. Believing our worth is measured in discipline, control, and how little space we take up.” spitfirenews.com/p/skinnytok-...

I wrote about the inescapable skinny propaganda and pro-eating disorder content on mainstream social media platforms and how it's part of the reigning conservative culture that pushes health disinformation, control, and obedience. For @spitfirenews.com spitfirenews.com/p/skinnytok-...

Today was the first day of early voting for New York City’s mayoral primary. New Yorkers have the chance to prove that the left won’t tolerate sexual predators as elected leaders. @spitfirenews.com’s first anti-endorsement: don’t rank Andrew Cuomo. spitfirenews.com/p/stop-votin...

Dare I say a more important story than whether Bluesky is fun is whether X is going to be held accountable for creating an AI chatbot that sexually harassed women on demand. And the answer is bleak. Me for @spitfirenews.com spitfirenews.com/p/grok-tribu...

Important coverage by @kattenbarge.bsky.social

Elon Musk’s Grok has been weaponized to create viral AI-generated edits of women’s selfies that make it appear like they’re covered in semen. In theory there should be legal recourse, but the reality is grim for victims of AI sexual harassment. spitfirenews.com/p/grok-tribu...

For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about the police, military, and ICE escalating violence against immigrants, communities, journalists, officials, and anyone in their path—and how protestors are being blamed for it through abusive rhetoric known as DARVO. spitfirenews.com/p/the-argume...

On the three-year anniversary of the verdict in Depp v. Heard, I wrote about realizing the terrible truth that she was, in fact, the victim—and seeing the DARVO playbook weaponized against endless women online and in the courts ever since. spitfirenews.com/p/what-we-di...

This account hit 10,000 followers today! Thank you so much! Bluesky has been my biggest source of support in this newsletter's infancy. I'm going to thread some of the stories I'm proudest of so far. And if you haven't already, please sign up for free to get my emails! spitfirenews.com/subscribe

For @spitfirenews.com members, I wrote about what it means that people are increasingly gravitating toward short-form video content over short-form text content—but why I also think Bluesky will be fine, because of what it offers to the people who are already here spitfirenews.com/p/is-microbl...

The Last of Us season 2 finale is tonight. Over the past several weeks, the online abuse against the show’s nonbinary star and the lesbian character they play became impossible to avoid. It’s another chapter in the online playbook to regress culture by force. spitfirenews.com/p/the-bella-...

The Jake and Logan Paul HBO pseudo-docuseries was a painfully boring flop, proving they’re only successful because social media platforms incentivize the worst kinds of people to our collective displeasure. Of course, they cut my interview where I said that. spitfirenews.com/p/i-got-cut-...

I’m live now (for the first time ever lol) to talk about Spitfire News and answer subscriber questions!! youtube.com/live/pi6ZR2z...

I’m doing my first subscriber Q&A this weekend—for just $5 you’ll get access to all my paywalled content and you can AMA! spitfirenews.com/p/ai-is-pivo...

I've seen a lot of people compare AI products to the rise of the internet and warn that if we don't start using them we'll get left behind. But I don't think that's what happening. I think AI is "pivot to video" 2.0. My latest for @spitfirenews.com spitfirenews.com/p/ai-is-pivo...

In 2018, as a student journalist, I was awarded at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. What the weekend really showed me was how friendly media elites are with the people destroying America. For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about how they still haven't changed. spitfirenews.com/p/partied-tr...

The Trump administration has weaponized a temporary protective order that Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife filed in 2021 to deflect from its campaign of trafficking + illegal imprisonment. The DHS posted the unredacted filing, which put his wife and family in more danger. spitfirenews.com/p/kilmar-abr...

For @spitfirenews.com, I wrote about the ways people invalidate victims of government abuse like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, deflecting from the issue of due process by holding him to a standard that is impossible to meet by design. spitfirenews.com/p/kilmar-abr...

Online harassment is an anti-speech tool that has been a longtime weapon for Trump and his allies. I talked to @aliadastagir.bsky.social about her book and the consequences of online abuse for women, journalism, and democracy itself. spitfirenews.com/p/online-har...

Trump and his administration embody and glorify discrimination and sexual violence, so it’s no surprise he has weaponized Title IX to give collegiate perpetrators even more ways to retraumatize their victims and punish schools that allow trans athletes spitfirenews.com/p/title-ix-t...

I interviewed @kylietcheung.bsky.social about her essential work (and upcoming book) detailing how abortion bans are a state-mandated tool for abusers to entrap and coerce their victims—as she put it, “If we lived in a direct democracy, abortion would be legal.” spitfirenews.com/p/abusers-ar...

I can’t believe it has already been one month of @spitfirenews.com. The support I’ve received from Bluesky has been humbling. I wrote about why so many journalists are taking the leap to independence and why it matters now. You can read and subscribe for just $5! spitfirenews.com/p/journalist...

The smear campaign tactics used against actresses Amber Heard and Blake Lively have already been weaponized against everyday women, too. I spoke to a single mom who has been harassed by the manosphere for years over viral TikToks her abusive ex-husband posted. spitfirenews.com/p/there-will...

This is the final part of my 3-part series about Blake Lively for @spitfirenews.com. It’s free for everyone to read with your support. For just $5 a month you can support my journalism, read my paywalled stories, and join my members-only chat! spitfirenews.com/upgrade

What’s happening to Blake Lively is the latest chapter in a playbook to turn gender-based violence into for-profit media content that serves as an arm and reinforcement of patriarchy. It’s a cycle that will continue and target every woman at every level of privilege spitfirenews.com/p/there-will...

A snippet from behind the paywall of my latest @spitfirenews.com piece about why podcasting works so well for the right and what it takes to avoid falling into the same radicalization pipeline.

Gavin Newsom’s podcast is a clear example of how establishment Dems can fail to challenge the modern right while amplifying its conspiracies and bigotry. They radicalize themselves and their audiences in the process spitfirenews.com/p/gavin-news...

The people amplifying mainstream narratives about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are some of the same people who represented the Trump family and have worked for clients like Johnny Depp, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly. Baldoni is backed by a billionaire. spitfirenews.com/p/flooding-t...

This is part two of my three-part series for @spitfirenews.com about Blake Lively, misogyny, and media manipulation. You can sign up for free to get this series in your inbox or upgrade to support my journalism, join the conversation, and read my paywalled stories. spitfirenews.com/upgrade

The media strategy to "flood the zone with shit" that Steve Bannon said got Trump elected has since been weaponized against the Me Too movement, often by the same people using the same strategies. It's a hallmark of our social and traditional media ecosystem spitfirenews.com/p/flooding-t...