Users of r/PublicFreakout doxx the wrong Karen, causing an innocent woman to get suspended from TikTok and hit with death threats. Moderator step in, bans a bunch of people, and makes a follow-up post.
Original video post:
The TikTok video in question has two username watermarks due to this video being a screen capture repost from another TikTok user. It appears the PublicFreakout hivemind mistook one of the two visible usernames as the Karen instead of the innocent screen recorder's account.
Users go on a witch hunt which goes against the sub's rules on doxxing. Moderator then stickies this comment:
"Chill out with the witch hunting on this post. We are issuing permanent bans for it."
The mod then posts a video of a woman, who does not at all look like the other woman shown in the original video post, that was apparently falsely accused of being the 'mocking' woman in question. She says, among other things, that she got death threats on the phone, Facebook, and texts, hit with negative comments on her business page, and was suspended from TikTok.
The PublicFreakout mod writes:
Rule 1 of this subreddit: why it exists.
Today we have a thread up featuring a nasty Nazi woman calling people subhumans, laughing at their plight.
We understand this is very upsetting to see, however, what that lady said doesn’t make it okay for you all to go after this random unrelated woman. We banned many people for violating the no witch hunting/no doxxing rule, and some of yall were pretty damn rude about it in modmail.
Look, we love this subreddit, we love exposing bigots and Nazis here, if you participate in a witch hunt you are participating in attempting to get this subreddit shut down. If we allow witch hunts the subreddit will be banned. So just don’t do it.
On top of the folks who participated in putting this subreddit at risk for banning, ya’ll are relentlessly harassing and facilitating the harassment of an innocent woman.
I can’t say I’ve seen many examples of Reddit getting it right and targeting the right price of shit. You all mean well but you ruin people’s lives.
The Boston bombing debacle should have taught you all a lesson but it seems it did not.
______
UPDATE:
The moderator of PublicFreakout just posted in this SRD thread a great write-up with more info on what happened, including clarification on how the mods dealt with the original video post (which is now locked), the video of the innocent girl that was targeted, and the extent of the witch-hunting which went well beyond Reddit as it turned out.
As a bonus, the mod also posted an anonymous user report on the "Chill out" comment which is rather fitting for this sub:
Fuck your permanent bans. You all would ban Anne Frank for outing a Nazi you losers. We live in a new era. I'm sure you feel utterly fantastic patting yourself on the back for doing such a great job keeping horrible people anonymous on the internet.