Let me tell you what it’s like to report on “internet culture” for a minute and the types of things tech reporters are up against when we do even the smallest stories 1/

Last night the man running these pages began threatening me saying there would be “consequences” for my story & he has “connections w/ Tucker Carlson & is “going to sue me for for writing abt this.” Since then I got texts trying to reset my IG password 2/ https://t.co/jHT7fflNUD

He’s been harassing me ever since the story went up, telling me to reinstate his war accounts, (which IG banned for blatantly violating guidelines), and posting incredibly menacing threats. Keep in mind we didn’t even use this man’s name full in the story! 3/ https://t.co/o7FuYr0dzY

Meanwhile I’m getting 2 factor texts because someone is trying to hack into my social profiles and accounts. And other meme pages who blame me for their War pages on IG getting deactivated have been planning to doxx me (again lol) in Discord 4/ https://t.co/jHT7fflNUD

So far no one in the right wing media world has taken the bait, but very often they do. I don’t believe this 21 yr old meme admin has an in w/ Tucker, but many in that world would happily latch on to any aggrieved person like this to spin up a news cycle. Happens all the time. 5/

Previously, I could never talk abt this stuff openly on here because it was “violating the social media policy” to do so. Many legacy news orgs mistakenly believe that not speaking about harassment/attacks will stop the harassment/attacks. It actually does the exact opposite. 6/

The fact is that these are things EVERY reporter covering tech/the internet (and other beats) deals w/ every day on even the smallest stories. Newsrooms need to recognize this and recognize what goes into the job in 2022. It’s a completely different media landscape now. 7/

I don’t care about these meme admins on this story, I deal with crazy meme admins all the time. It’s so completely minor compared to most stuff, which is why I felt it would be a good example to share and start the convo around these issues. 8/

And huge shout out to Input Mag which is wonderful and supportive and who I loved writing this piece for!!!! They’re great and I’m so honored to be able to publish on a site I’ve loved reading. Now let’s get all newsrooms as up with the times 💪🏻 9/

Someone has hacked/commandeered dozens if not hundreds of IG accounts and is using them to spam everyone I follow with this insane message smearing and lying about me. WaPo is not “reducing my position”!

These smear campaigns are just what I deal with for doing my job. https://t.co/1vmmsslvoH

This person has actually commandeered thousands of accounts and is using them to blast out the same crazy lies in an attempt to smear me. He is using bots or hacked profiles to do this.

Again, these types of modern day smear campaigns are what newsrooms need to prepare for https://t.co/epsbYSMbwf

.@oneunderscore__ and others have done excellent reporting on how bots and fake profiles can be leveraged for disinformation campaigns.

This is what that looks like when it’s directed at a journalist. The goal here, as always, is to silence the press. https://t.co/l6JDAi468F

Dealing with these attacks takes hours and hours of time. Explaining what’s happening to less internet savvy sources and winning back/maintaining their trust in the midst of this stuff is grueling. I’ve been on the phone for hours this morning trying to do damage control.

When I was at NYT someone was targeting everyone quoted in one of my stories, harassing my sources and running a campaign like this against ppl mentioned in my piece. It took so much time to mitigate the damage and I had to do it all personally, myself, with zero support or help.

I was up until 3am every night for 2 wks dealing with the worst of one of these campaigns last year. It took everything from me, I was trying to protect ppl I wrote abt. My editor told me to put in for overtime, management at NYT denied it, said dealing w harassment “wasn’t work”

I appealed w/ support of my editor & said idc abt getting paid, I just wanted help + recognition of the extra labor. I was trying to close a story while negotiating digital security for sources, preparing them for the attacks they’d get simply by being quoted in one of my stories

The journalists who are targets of these types of attacks are largely women + POC, they are the ones doing hours of unpaid labor in the face of these types of campaigns. To say nothing of the emotional toll. Newsrooms must acknowledge this and compensate/support ppl accordingly

WaPo has been so wonderful. They were aware of the attack I was dealing w/ this morning before I was!! I am so grateful. At my last job I wasn’t allowed to speak up about this stuff and I think that’s a mistake. We have to educate everyone across the industry abt what’s happening

I want industry-wide change on this issue and I hope newsroom leaders can understand that I’m calling these things out with love. I believe in the power of journalistic institutions and my whole career has been abt helping ppl understand the internet & modern media climate.

Let’s all work together to help newsrooms do better on this issue. And no need to DM saying sorry or u feel bad for me. Don’t feel bad for me! I’m fine!! I have privilege and resources most don’t. Think of those people and fight for change 💪🏻

These thousands of accounts are now pushing a new message: lying and saying I was fired from NYT (not remotely!), and that I “harass minors over social media”.

This is what Tucker implied on his program last yr and the right wing media has been pushing, that I’m a child predator https://t.co/re0B8zWRW7

Thankfully WaPo understands these attacks. But tactics like encouraging everyone to reach out to my employer are classic gamergate style networked harassment. While WaPo gets it, many newsrooms and companies don’t. https://t.co/k9IYhIbTaX

There's also an SEO smear campaign happening about me online right now claiming I was fired from NYT and WaPo (not true obviously lol) ironically the people running it got my name wrong(??), but stuff like this is trickling up for ppl googling me after getting the IG DM spam https://t.co/soVmHsMbYa

There’s a slew of these sites and they’re all using a tweet of a screenshot of the IG DM smear to spread lies about me. The sites are complete spam, but once they’re sucked into search results they do have an impact https://t.co/cTB5E903OK

These articles claim my name was "Taylor Lorenz" but I changed it to "Taylor Lopez" to get hired at WaPo. This way, it links my IRL name w/ a fictional name that the bad actor can control the search results for. Google "Taylor Lopez fired" and you'll see, it's SEO manipulation https://t.co/jN1jExL5mX

This is how they warp the narrative abt me online and damage my reputation. These links are promoted on IG and Facebook ads and other places where people see them w/o context and it further spreads. People think "where there's smoke there's fire". But of course it's all untrue https://t.co/m5Y1SY5FhK

It's crucial ppl understand the shape of these attacks and how intricate/interconnected they are. I'm grateful for my platform and the freedom I have to speak abt it, but many don't. Read this @kashhill story & see how this stuff and SEO can be weaponized https://t.co/nTL8kRsh6O

Apparently they’re not just targeting my followers w/ DM spam they’re also targeting people who liked my post about this or interact with my content and don’t follow me. https://t.co/hNz6R9ccP3

Thank you to @ShorensteinCtr @EmilyDreyfuss for putting together this case study on some of what I’ve been through this past year and a half. The stuff I describe above in this thread is the tip of a large iceberg and newsrooms need to be prepared https://t.co/cBP0kbONMa

Today I found out someone has been screen recording my personal, “friends only” TikTok videos and sharing them to an anonymous twitter account hating on me. https://t.co/uSeWHqZvwz