'Libs of TikTok' has outsized role in right-wing discourse

[sasquatch69 584]

Compelling (and disturbing) reporting here. It's mystifying to me that a rando Twitter user has been able to influence public talking points (and even legislation) to this degree simply by being consistently hateful and never letting up on the outrage p0rn.

And for all those crying that this is "doxxing," it's all publicly available information.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/19/libs-of-tiktok-right-wing-media/

[Sawbonz 27443]

Of course she’s a realtor

[Anastasis 23397]

Taylor Lorenz lol. 

[Poe It Up 126]

“Libs of TikTok is basically acting as a wire service for the broader right-wing media ecosystem,” said Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director for Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. 

 

[Hank Kingsley 20716]

Holy shit what a fucking dunce. 

 

[TheStoicPaisano 9904]

[Foosters 17734]

[PRONG HORN 3103]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Libs of TikTok

 

@libsoftiktok

 

 

UNREAL. The Mass General Brigham Hospital system will no longer report babies who are born with d*rugs in their system to child welfare because it "disproportionately affects Black people." Reporting child neglect is now racist.

 

 

 

Edited April 3 by PRONG HORN

[Js1 85129]

This bitch needs to be run out of town on a rail. 

[safe sex 11686]

No longer notify != No longer automatically notify

[PRONG HORN 3103]

3 hours ago, safe sex said:

No longer notify != No longer automatically notify

Yeah it’s pretty funny.  They don’t think drugs in a baby’s system matters anymore for certain races.  I don’t think they should give up on people because of melanin.  
 

 

[aggie08 21436]

You're an idiot.

[safe sex 11686]

6 minutes ago, PRONG HORN said:

Yeah it’s pretty funny.  They don’t think drugs in a baby’s system matters anymore for certain races.  I don’t think they should give up on people because of melanin.  
 

 

You're not a serious person.

[Hookah Horns 3082]

I don't really get what the relative racial incidence has to do with it. If drug screen doesn't mean abuse/neglect, why not just cite that as the reason for the change? 

[PRONG HORN 3103]

9 minutes ago, Hookah Horns said:

I don't really get what the relative racial incidence has to do with it. If drug screen doesn't mean abuse/neglect, why not just cite that as the reason for the change? 

They’re lowering standards for people across the board to protect one race is what it looks like given the information here.  
 

I wouldn’t think a hospital could do this on its own.  It seems like a law issue.  Is having drugs in your babies system illegal?  Wouldn’t the cops be the ones to say what the hospital should report?  

[Brian Fantana 6668]

No DEI in MY hospitals!!!

[PRONG HORN 3103]

20 minutes ago, safe sex said:

You're not a serious person.

what’s the matter?  You can’t express yourself?  What was so offensive that you negged the above post?  

[safe sex 11686]

An actual article from an actual newspaper from actual city in Massachusetts, Boston:

Mass General Brigham to stop filing neglect reports solely because a baby is born with drugs in its system

Quote

Hospitals within the Mass General Brigham system will no longer report suspected abuse or neglect to state child welfare officials solely because a baby is born exposed to drugs, targeting a practice hospital leaders say has long stoked fear in women in recovery from addiction.

The new policy, which Mass General Brigham is unveiling this week, is one in a series of changes coming to Massachusetts’ largest health care system, including at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and six other hospitals that have labor and delivery units in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

The hospitals will now require written consent for toxicology testing of any expecting mother or infant in most cases. Going forward, the hospitals will also limit such testing to cases where the results “will change the medical management” of the pregnant mother or her baby.

Hospitals leaders say current policies have varied from hospital to hospital, creating “unconscionable” disparities, particularly for women of color. Mothers who are taking medication as part of their recovery from opioid use have described to the Globe feeling unnecessarily targeted by reporting mandates simply for taking a legal prescription.

Mass General Brigham’s decision to change how it reports suspected abuse or neglect is not unprecedented in Massachusetts. But with 18,396 births recorded in the system’s hospitals last year alone, it’s likely the largest wide-scale policy shift the state has seen.

“Those structural policies may not be written in a way that screams racism, but if you dig down deep,” it creates inequities, said Allison Bryant, associate chief health equity officer at Mass General Brigham. “We have 18,000 plus births a year, they’re all in different hospitals. And as we become an integrated system, we’re really trying to get some clarity and uniformity around what we do.”

The biggest change will be felt in reporting. Doctors, nurses, and others will now file a report of suspected abuse or neglect to the Department of Children and Families only if there is reasonable cause to believe that an infant is “suffering or at imminent risk of suffering physical or emotional injury.”

That an infant has been exposed to a substance — be it methadone or buprenorphine, which are used to treat opioid use disorder, or other drugs — will not require a report of abuse or neglect if there aren’t other “protective concerns,” Mass General Brigham officials said.

For years, new mothers taking medication to treat addiction, such as methadone and Suboxone, have been reported to DCF under a legal mandate in Massachusetts that medical professionals report suspected child neglect if a baby is born exposed to an “addictive drug.”

The existence of a report does not guarantee the state will seek to remove the infant from the mother’s care. But it can spur lengthy investigations, followed by months of visits from child welfare officials.

Just the possibility of being reported prompts some mothers to consider stopping taking their medications, citing what they consider a “discriminatory, unjust and stigmatizing” mandate, according to an MGH study.

State and federal legislators have sought to change the law in a bid to shield pregnant or postpartum mothers from child welfare investigations solely because they are taking prescribed medication. A bill being pushed in Congress by Senator Edward Markey and others would also block states from requiring health care professionals to notify child welfare officials about a mother if she’s taking a drug in “accordance with the recommendations of the prescribing practitioner.”

Mass General Brigham is shifting its approach without the law actually changing. Sarah Wakeman, the system’s senior medical director for substance use disorder, said the policy change hinges on a revised interpretation of the statute.

The current law, she said, has multiple prongs: It requires that a mandated reporter file a report if a child has a “physical dependence upon an addictive drug at birth,” but a health care provider must also have a “reasonable cause to believe” that a child is suffering some type of physical or emotional injury because they’ve been born exposed to a drug.

“Both of those things have to be true,” Wakeman said, adding that health care providers, in interpreting the law, have previously focused exclusively on whether babies are born with a drug in their system.

“We would never make a change that was illegal,” she said of the new policy.

A spokesperson for Boston Medical Center said it revised its guidelines in May 2021, when it began directing staff members to report suspected abuse or neglect to the state only after a child is born and if “they have concerns about the parent’s ability to safely care for the child.”

David Kibbe, a BMC spokesperson, said the hospital hopes to see changes in state law that “allow all pregnant people statewide to be treated with equity and compassion.”

Some states have moved to make similar changes, including Connecticut, which in 2019 created a system under which hospitals can file a notification of a substance-exposed newborn without identifying the baby by name. If a health care provider reports concerns about the child’s welfare in a separate assessment, it can spark a report about the infant to DCF.

A 2022 University of Connecticut study found that under the new system, the state diverted more than half of substance-exposed infants away from the child welfare system. Of the more than 4,700 notifications reviewed, the vast majority — 79 percent — involved exposure to marijuana, not opioids.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health released a report last year saying it intended to release new guidelines for a “dual reporting system” here, in which substance-exposed newborns can be identified “but not investigated” if there are no indications they’ve been neglected or abused.

The state has yet to release those guidelines. Cecille Joan Avila, a spokesperson for the state Office of Health and Human Services, which oversees both DPH and DCF, said the office is reviewing Mass General Brigham’s policy, but added that “substance exposure alone does not automatically equate to abuse and neglect.”

“We are committed to reducing stigma and promoting health equity, especially for those affected by substance use disorder,” Avila said in a statement. “We will continue working with the advocacy community to determine what support an individual needs and how they can best access them.”

In the interim, creating a new approach to reporting within Mass General Brigham’s hospitals will be “really transformative,” Wakeman said. She recalled a patient roughly six years ago who had an opioid use disorder; because she feared being reported to DCF once she gave birth to her baby, she declined the medication offered to help her recovery. She later overdosed, Wakeman said, and “both she and the fetus died.”

“I can’t imagine anything more terrifying than getting reported with the possibility of losing one of my babies,” said Wakeman, a mother of three. The current approach to reporting, she said, has had “a chilling effect on access to the most effective treatment we have for opioid use disorder.”

Latisha Goullaud, a 34-year-old mother of three, said she was in “pretty chaotic substance use” when she learned she was pregnant with her daughter eight years ago. She wanted help, but she initially declined taking medication to help her recovery, fearful that merely taking that step would trigger a report to DCF. She eventually relented and began taking medication only after entering a treatment facility and experiencing serious withdrawal symptoms, she said.

Goullard, who has been in recovery ever since, now works at the Institute for Health and Recovery, helping train others working with pregnant women and mothers in recovery. For Black mothers, like herself, “this fear of child welfare is exponentially more in them than their white counterparts,” she said.

“I was able to see what a benefit medication can be for a person’s recovery,” she said. But she’s worked with women in long-term recovery who were anxious about even getting prenatal care and going to the hospital for delivery because of the potential of being reported. “It really impacted their decisions.”

Katie White, a perinatal nurse at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, N.H., said creating a single policy for her hospital and others in the Mass General Brigham system will impact thousands of families. Currently, she said, providers at Wentworth-Douglass file reports in cases of substance-exposed newborns if they’ve been unable to get the mothers into treatment.

“We can work better not working in our silos,” she said.

Go fuck yourself, you lazy bigot who can't be bothered to take ten minutes to look for an actual source about the issue, read, and process it.

You're a fucking racist is my problem with you.

[Da Fino 2740]

Burn her. 

[safe sex 11686]

Please engage guys, please don't just neg. You gotta engage with my lazy racist trash opinions and thoughts because if you don't take what I have to say seriously then you are the one who is in the wrong haha!

[Firemans4Horn 17840]

wasn’t there a legit funny Pronghorn account on Shaggy? Who is this sad sack imitator? 

[safe sex 11686]

Btw, I'll note that Molly Farrar is a writer for Boston.com, so her article is probably like just fine. But this racist piece of trash can't even be bothered to read the article Chaya Raichik posted an image of.

[Da Fino 2740]

31 minutes ago, Hookah Horns said:

I don't really get what the relative racial incidence has to do with it. If drug screen doesn't mean abuse/neglect, why not just cite that as the reason for the change? 

The article never touched on this, but why doesn’t a positive drug screen from a newborn’s system mean abuse/neglect? 

[PRONG HORN 3103]

1 minute ago, Da Fino said:

The article never touched on this, but why doesn’t a positive drug screen from a newborn’s system mean abuse/neglect? 

 

Because sometimes the mother is on a script drug that helps them to get off the street drug.  It can show as a positive for opioids etc

 

 

[safe sex 11686]

13 minutes ago, Da Fino said:

The article never touched on this, but why doesn’t a positive drug screen from a newborn’s system mean abuse/neglect? 

I'm not sure you actually read the article?

[safe sex 11686]

Apart from the obvious issue of taking medications that are prescribed for you by a doctor:

Should the state take away a woman's child because she made a mistake and smoked a little weed to calm down her anxiety? Many of your mothers probably drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes while pregnant with you. Should you have been taken from them? Were you being abused?

What if someone gave her an edible and didn't tell her what was in it? Should that be investigated by CPS? Or maybe just the hospital, which is already shit hospitals/clinics do, and then they can make the appropriate decision.

Edited April 4 by safe sex

[Da Fino 2740]

23 minutes ago, safe sex said:

What if someone gave her an edible and didn't tell her what was in it?

Good point i guess. What if? 

[scottsins 1953]

Good point i guess. What if? 

What if someone smoke during pregnancy? Or drinks a glass of wine. All of these things have some possible detrimental effect on the fetus. Is that grounds for the state taking legal custody of someone’s child?

[safe sex 11686]

Just look up how many children in the Texas foster care system die every year or experience sexual abuse. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13416]

10 hours ago, Da Fino said:

Burn her. 

this is satire right? It's cringey (is this an actual word?) in the opposite way how concert t-shirts from the 70s-90s are now cool but the person wearing them can't name one song from the band. And may actually not even recognize one song.

[Brian Fantana 6668]

It's not satire she's just profoundly stupid.

[DigglerontheHoof 21070]

[Willfully Horn 7921]

Wife was three days overdue, and her ob/gyn recommended we go out to eat and told her to have a glass of wine. Our first was born the next day. Never went back to that restaurant. 

[Bullneck 18999]

On 4/4/2024 at 11:41 AM, safe sex said:

Just look up how many children in the Texas foster care system die every year or experience sexual abuse. 

 

[Gil Bang 25899]

WTF is going on with these assholes vs. Planet Fitness? 

That dumbshit Kid Rock said something about Planet Fitness the other day, and I just heard that they (PF) are getting multiple bomb threats from the whackos every day. 

[safe sex 11686]

They probably have a policy of allowing people to use the bathroom that best matches their gender identity. Just a guess. I have no idea because idgaf what chuds have a problem with

Edited April 6 by safe sex

[956 Worldwide 34458]

It is wild to me how much of right-wing politics is just beefs with different brands. 

[Hank Kingsley 20716]

59 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It is wild to me how much of right-wing politics is just beefs with different brands. 

Every accusation is a confession.  Hardcore right wingers are thin skinned woke radicals in search of a safe space.  Waaaaah, a book talks about blowjobs, ban it, waaaaaah. Immigrants are taking over this country, waaaaah! Crime, waaaaaah! Border, waaaaah! Bathrooms are a sacred safe space, waaaaaah! Gay Bud Light can, cancel them, waaaaaah!

Truly the biggest pussies in this country. 

[Bullneck 18999]

4 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Wife was three days overdue, and her ob/gyn recommended we go out to eat and told her to have a glass of wine. Our first was born the next day. Never went back to that restaurant. 

[troph 24573]

4 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It is wild to me how much of right-wing politics is just beefs with different brands. 

Pretty sure they are ok with beef, but fuck that pork is the other white meat marketing that’s just down right feminine.

[atomheartbevo 89457]

6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It is wild to me how much of right-wing politics is just beefs with different brands. 

Right-wing politics is basically just cancel culture writ large.

[tchookem 3900]

Right-wing politics is basically just cancel culture writ large.

Karens never think that they're the Karens. Every problem in the world is someone else's doing. Every unhappiness they feel is due to some wrong. The only way they know to deal with that unhappiness is to spread it to other people.

Modern "Conservatism" isn't about politics or policy, it's about dumping negative feelings. It should be called Karenism.

[Mole 4320]

On 4/4/2024 at 12:55 AM, PRONG HORN said:

what it looks like given the information here. 

I’m late to the party, but this is the key phrase here with every outrage of the day.

[atomheartbevo 89457]

9 hours ago, tchookem said:

Karens never think that they're the Karens. Every problem in the world is someone else's doing. Every unhappiness they feel is due to some wrong. The only way they know to deal with that unhappiness is to spread it to other people.

Modern "Conservatism" isn't about politics or policy, it's about dumping negative feelings. It should be called Karenism.

“I feel guilty about looking at porn so easily online, so we should make it hard on people to look at it”

”I have an unhealthy obsession about people using bathrooms so we should check everybody’s genitals before they go in”

”I feel like the only way we can win elections is by cheating so we should accuse Democrats of rigging elections”

“I can’t control myself around young children so I’m going to accuse gay people of being groomers”

”All of my finances are tangled up with foreign countries so I’m going to accuse Joe Biden of taking money from them”

”I want to use the Department of Justice against my enemies and to get me off the hook in my criminal cases so I’m going to accuse the Democrats of weaponizing the DOJ”

”I know most of my supporters are uneducated so I’m going to work on destroying upper education any way I can”

and so on

Edited April 8 by atomheartbevo

[PRONG HORN 3103]

 

 

Is the governor of New York a Karen?  Or is lott the Karen?  

 

 

 

 

[Pancho 44492]

1 hour ago, PRONG HORN said:

 

 

Is the governor of New York a Karen?  Or is lott the Karen?  

 

 

 

 

 

On 4/4/2024 at 12:33 AM, PRONG HORN said:

 I don’t think they should give up on people because of melanin.  
 

 

You’ve never cared about Blacks before but now all of a sudden you’re trying to use Blacks as political pawns. I wonder why?

[PRONG HORN 3103]

1 minute ago, Pancho said:

 

You’ve never cared about Blacks before but now all of a sudden you’re trying to use Blacks as political pawns. I wonder why?

 

Are you sure I never cared about black people?  If I’m using them I guess the governor of New York is also using them.  Come to think of it everybody uses blacks as political pawns one way or the other.  I guess if I was running for president I wouldn’t ban menthol cigs just yet.  
 

 

 

[PRONG HORN 3103]

Are you mad at the menthol comment Fudge?  People on all sides were in agreement and ready to ban menthols but for some reason the president’s people think more discussion is needed.  

 

AP article about Biden and menthol cigs

[Bozo_Casanova 26296]

I think Biden was probably offered a Benson & Hedges Menthol 100, tried it, and realized that indeed it is the Cadillac of cigarettes.

[Captainant 27472]

2 hours ago, Pancho said:

 

You’ve never cared about Blacks before but now all of a sudden you’re trying to use Blacks as political pawns. I wonder why?

Because he had it pushed to his Twitter feed, and it's much easier to just listen to an apartheid heir for what is right and wrong. 

Prong is just dancing to whatever tune his social media is playing, completely oblivious to what happened in 2016 and who was ultimately behind it. And since prong probably doesn't know, even the Senate republicans said russia was pulling the strings to get people riled up

Edited May 7 by Captainant