Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @storyofrachel@hexbear.net was a banned user from early on the site’s history, and I’ve seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)

For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a

bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).

She later claimed that her account had been hacked, which frankly I did and do not believe. She was unbanned but later banned for other shit which I don’t recall and am unable to reconstruct from the modlog and came back on a bunch of different alts, all of which were banned.

If there’s any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.

Edit: There’s an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It’s 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don’t want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.

Edit edit: I’m going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    21·
    5 days ago

    Isn’t there a point where you just become an enabler though? I don’t know if you can OD on meth, but if someone abused heroine and a community financed that abuse until the user OD’ed, wouldn’t that kind of be on the community?

    I’m genuinely asking by the way, not trying to do some weird debate thing of thinking up some odd hypothetical or some shitty rhetorical framing in order to shame people for helping. The example is just to explain my thought process.

    I expect it’s the kinda thing that doesn’t have a clear answer, but I feel like there’s also people who know a lot more than me about mutual aid, who will have a much better answer.

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      5 days ago

      I personally wouldn’t become an enabler bc I don’t give that person money, and it’s not my place to set the morals of another group of people be it the community or the user in question. The original identity of the user is sort of moot imo bc if you read the posts, it’s pretty much what you see is what you get. So if that’s not the kind of content you want to see, block and move on.

      The only argument I could entertain is, well, if you have money and youre a communist and this other person doesn’t it’s your responsibility to help them, which I guess would be the case, but you can’t help everyone and there are plenty of opportunities here to help others even if its just sticking to the people I know.

      • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        5 days ago

        First off thank you for your answer. I am writing this follow-up because I feel my question was phrased poorly and thus led to an answer to a different query than the one I had in my head.

        I’m not talking about passing judgement on others, but I can see how that’s what I described with my phrasing. I’m also not talking about caring about what others spend their money on, but again, I phrased it poorly.

        If I give financial aid anonymously to someone , whom I know abuses drugs which can kill them*, and I know this person is stuck in a pattern of financial aid they needed for housing or food on drugs instead, and I keep giving them money whilst they complain that their drug habit has gotten worse, and they then OD…
        IF all of this in this very long and needlessly complex hypothetical happened, would I not then be some kind of enabler? Isn’t there a point where me giving money unconditionally to someone who spends it on harmful and addictive narcotics (who complains about their habit) becomes hurtful instead of helpful?

        • I specify this to make it more extreme in order to more clearly phrame what I am asking about, not in order to eliminate nuance or grey zones. Its easier to draw the line here than with less harmful drugs, and I feel like that’s a bit of a pitfall of a discussion which isn’t really what I’m trying to ask about, but I also feel the need to acknowledge that by making it about OD’ing I am phraming the discussion in a certain way. So therefore this footnote.