In the Libs of TikTok Saga, it's Hypocrites All Around

A shoddy story exposes the woman behind an 'own the libs' aggregator account, and the usual suspects line up

The latest online drama—Taylor Lorenz vs. “Libs of TikTok”—is playing out in predictable ways. In case you’re not Very Online or haven’t caught up: Lorenz, a high-profile Washington Post reporter who covers digital life, has written a story on the woman behind the popular Twitter account Libs of TikTok, which collects and boosts TikTok videos of “social justice warriors,” many of them schoolteachers and many of them talking about LGBT issues. The story exposes the woman’s identity: she is Chaya Raichik, a real estate agent who was until recently based in Brooklyn but may have moved to California. The result has been a chorus of conservative outrage about doxing, as well as a string of doxing attacks on Lorenz herself and her friends and relatives. Even for many moderate right-of-center people, this is evidence that the “legacy media” are hopelessly biased, unethical, and given to vindictive witch-hunts against private individuals deemed guilty of “wrongthink.”