The anti-LGBTQ tweets have not just gone viral but appeared on Fox News and in the right-wing media echo chamber. The tweets, often targeting LGBTQ people, have had an impact on legislation, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law, and helped fuel the vicious “groomer” label the right – including Governor DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw – has embraced as a weapon against the LGBTQ community. And now The Washington Post has unmasked the person behind the Twitter account Libs of TikTok, and conservatives are outraged beyond belief.
“Libs of TikTok is basically acting as a wire service for the broader right-wing media ecosystem,” Ari Drennen, the LGBTQ program director for Media Matters told The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz. “It’s been shaping public policy in a real way, and affecting teachers’ ability to feel safe in their classrooms.”
Reporting on conservatives’ outrage over The Post’s report, Rolling Stone calls Libs of TikTok “an openly bigoted and homophobic social media account that reposts so-called ‘liberal’ content culled from various platforms repackaged to produce maximum engagement via rage clicks.”
Meanwhile, according to The Post, the Libs of TikTok account had been “leaning hard into ‘groomer’ discourse, calling for any teacher who comes out as gay to their students to be ‘fired on the spot‘” all the way back in January, and before.
“Libs of TikTok has become an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse, and the content it surfaces shows a direct correlation with the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community,” The Post adds. “The anonymous account’s impact is deep and far-reaching. Its content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers. Its tweets reach millions, with influence spreading far beyond its more than 648,000 Twitter followers.”
The Libs of TikTok account is “shaping right-wing media, impacting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and influencing millions by posting viral videos aimed at inciting outrage among the right.”
“The role I’ve seen this account playing is finding new characters for right-wing propaganda,” said Gillian Branstetter, a media strategist for the ACLU. “It’s relying on the endless stream of content from TikTok and the Internet to cast any individual trans person as a new villain in their story.”
Spotify’s Joe Rogan has repeatedly promoted the anti-LGBTQ account, calling it “one of the greatest f—ing accounts of all time,” the Post notes. Rogan’s “seal of approval” “skyrocketed” Libs of TikTok account’s popularity.
Lorenz is now under attack by conservatives, including very powerful right-wing media outlets who are accusing her of “doxxing” the anonymous Twitter account owner.
The right-wing website Hot Air, created by the far right’s Michelle Malkin in 2006 but later sold, went ballistic on Lorenz, noting she “claimed ‘severe PTSD’ from Internet criticism — and then doxxed an anonymous Twitter user.”
“The content on the account is almost entirely reposting of insane TikTok videos without comment or just a few snarky words,” wrote Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey.
But is it?
Lorenz links to a Twitter search of the Libs of TikTok account that reveals it has used the word “grooming” 16 times. Among those tweets includes reports of teachers being fired. So let’s look at some of those “snarky words.”
“cultish grooming behavior”
“this is grooming.”
“why are you grooming kids?”
“Teacher brags about grooming kids”
And back in February Libs of TikTok tweeted this praise to the sponsor of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation:
“The libs continue with their cognitive dissonance in a desperate attempt to defend teachers grooming kids in schools. They think they own your children. Shoutout to @josephbharding for sponsoring the bill in Florida. Every state should follow.”
DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw was contacted by The Post for the story. She posted Lorenz’s emails to Twitter, with her own commentary Monday night, giving conservatives a heads up.
“By March,” The Post’s report notes, “Libs of TikTok was directly impacting legislation. DeSantis’s press secretary Christina Pushaw credited the account with ‘opening her eyes‘ and informing her views on the state’s restrictive legislation that bans discussion of sexuality or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, referred to by critics as the ‘don’t say gay’ bill. She and Libs of TikTok have interacted with each other at least 138 times publicly, according to a report by Media Matters. When asked by The Post about her relationship with the account, Pushaw wrote, ‘I follow, like and retweet libsoftiktok. My interactions with that account are public,’ and added that she’s a strong supporter of its mission.”
Rolling Stone also suggests the right’s outrage has more to do with its hatred of Lorenz than the “doxxing” of the Libs of TikTok owner. And they offer another look at the tweets from Libs of TikTok:
Among the myriad on-brand pearl clutching promoted by Libs of TikTok: expressing horror that college students (who, let’s be real, have definitely seen much worse) are being exposed to anatomically correct vulvae; calling mask mandates for unvaccinated toddlers “child abuse;” stating teaching elementary school students the proper terminology for genitalia amounts to “grooming;” and getting inexplicably angry that LGBT-identifying high schoolers are allowed to dance with one another. (In case you were worried the right had moved on from its obsession with race, don’t worry! Libs of TikTok has you covered in all racism-baiting departments, too!) The account is also responsible for continuing to spread the since-debunked urban legend that schools are providing litter boxes in restrooms for students who participate in the furry fandom.