Of sock puppets and witch hunts

Steemit, I have something to say and I don’t think you’ll like it.

I came here by @kushed’s invitation based on my writing on The Huffington Post and what I could offer as far as original work that will both support Steemit through the curation of quality content. I understood the community to be supportive and excited about building a platform based on excellent, meaningful content and rewards for its curation. I wanted to contribute, but what I hoped for was a place I would be welcomed based on my original work rather than my credentials.

The fact is, I have the credentials. I am a woman with a family and friends, a history and a career in writing. I also have a stalker I would love to not have access to just one piece of who I am and what I do as well as abusers who have stood in the way of me expressing myself fully at every turn of my life. To say I was excited to have a space where I could be honest about who I am and what I am going through without those people finding it is a vast understatement. It is not easy constantly curating my life, but I have done it since I understood how to hide or stay silent.

I read around Steemit for awhile before choosing to share as @honeyscribe. I wanted to be sure my topics would be welcome. I was unaware of what happened with @msgivings until my own anonymity had been ripped from me—but not because I was plagiarizing. I have never plagiarized. I stated in my introduction that I am a well-established writer who is sharing work on Steemit it is not safe to share in my public life. The work appears nowhere else because it was written for this forum, this community.

I approached it as though I was writing for any other publication, feeling out the community first to get a general sense of responsiveness, but quickly beginning my work on issues I would otherwise avoid due to my given name in the byline. My work being promoted by @kushed struck me as normal. After all, there were other “publications” running on Steemit, other circles of promotion, and having him stamp his approval on my work is no different than appearing in a well-known magazine.

I shouldn’t need to prove myself or unmask myself.

You can learn plenty about me through my writing if you care to actually know me. However, it is my right to tell my story without my face attached if that is the safest way for me to do so, regardless of potential curation rewards.

Yet here is what happened: The Steemit community set to work exposing masked contributors in a knee-jerk response to betrayal by a long-term trusted writer. I was caught in the crosshairs. It became unacceptable that I write without a face. I didn’t understand that a girl can’t be no one here. My grasp of how Steemit works is still tenuous. I have been treating it like Facebook meets Reddit. We share information such as personal stories or researched work, interact and make friends. The only difference being there is a financial reward for good work. Since no one told me in comments or otherwise that my work was not good, I assumed it was being well-received and that I was as well.

I was wrong. I was being hunted.

Discovery

It didn’t take long for the rumor mill to bring me news there were efforts to unmask me. That was immediately frightening. I requested a “fresh” account from @kushed. I asked because I wanted a place where I could write pieces of my present and past under a new pseudonym. I put up a placeholder introduce yourself post, thinking of it as my landing pad should @honeyscribe be compromised. I created a persona I could write from that was slightly less exactly myself, giving her a different name but my history. @kushed had been sitting on an account that was perfect for me to try writing my story from a new angle. Like @honeyscribe, because I didn’t create it, it wouldn’t lead back to me. That account was @perspective.

Almost immediately after, I came into contact with @reneenouveau outside Steemit. On Sept. 10, we private messaged about @honeyscribe on social media over the course of a day so she could better understand 1) I am an actual person and 2) I have real reasons for wanting to remain anonymous. Real reasons, again, such as physical and mental safety.

Using a pen name or alias is not a new practice. Have you ever wanted to speak up but felt unsafe? Many know the feeling I am talking about.

Once @reneenouveau knew who I (@honeyscribe) was, the paranoia truly came crashing in. I stuck with writing about positivity, the same type of writing that made me think Steemit was an encouraging, caring place rather than an angry, paranoid machine hell-bent on revealing all secrets.

Even though @reneenouveau has shown herself to be kind and supportive, she knows who I am and that removed my immediate sense of safety. My identity was no longer controlled since choice had been taken out of the equation. It was a double-edged sword. Now someone could vouch for me, but she was also someone who could reveal me. And when you have been repeatedly abused and are struggling with a stalker, this is not a simple consideration.

The birth of @perspective

September 11 is a dark day reminiscent of its own horrors. I made a goal to keep my chin up and started in on telling my story as @perspective with the intention of gradually shifting away from the more dangerous (i.e. partially known) parts of my story as @honeyscribe.

I didn’t want @perspective promoted. I just wanted to start again and try to find the under-community I know Steemit is harboring; writers and survivors who choose positivity when given the chance.

I fleshed out @perspective with the goal of making the account more personable and less suspect, interacting with it as @honeyscribe and vice versa. My thinking was it would differentiate the pair of accounts. I didn’t know that was a practice that fell under the term sock-puppet or that it was frowned on. It’s embarrassing, but I was fully ignorant of these facts. In light of @msgivings et al, I can see why it would be a monitored practice on Steemit, but that has only just occurred to me. My skills do not lie in the technical realm.

Trying again

I jumped right back into writing aspects of my various abuses from a different “perspective,” hoping this time Steemit would leave me to my writing. I grew the account more organically and worked to incorporate more photos from my life.

Here are the strange facts: the majority of my writing in both accounts is true. Names, dates, places have been changed and I jumbled the timelines, but the topics are the heart of who I am and have been. Both faces are me. No, not “schizophrenic” faces. I am both @honeyscribe and @perspective just as you are a daughter/son and a sister/brother or girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband or lonely woman/man or cat/dog.

Re-discovery

I applaud the detective work of @ats-david. He is very clever and deeply dedicated to eradicating any whiff of duplicity on Steemit. What he has shown is that I am no great wit when it comes to technology, but he is. I had no goal of “scamming” the system. I am a writer. I wanted to write. I thought it could be my freedom from constant policing. So I wrote. I appreciate his educated journalistic work and the neutrality he extended with his suppositions as to my reasoning behind my actions. I also greatly appreciate the care he has for the sanctity of Steemit. In bringing up those concerns, he is working to make Steemit the safe place I was searching for.

Still, I wish he would have contacted me another way, such as inviting me to steemit.chat via comment, so I could connect with him and attempt to answer questions. He never attempted to contact me to confirm his suppositions which is an important piece of journalistic practice. Rather, he simply sought to expose me publicly to get to whales. This is of great concern to me, especially as he seems to have read my work and must therefore be aware I am writing on topics that put me in genuine jeopardy should I be publicly unveiled.

Please, Steemians, take note that sometimes people hide their faces not because they are liars, but because it is the only way they can step safely into the greater world. Again, I will point to the fact that all work here has been original.

Writing on two accounts and the curation rewards concern

While I didn’t want it promoted the way @honeyscribe was, I did want @perspective read. It wasn’t about curation rewards. Again, I can see why that would be a concern, but until recently, @perspective wasn’t being widely read. I understood the jump in readership and curation rewards to be a result of the commenting and following I was doing with that account with the goal of finding that elusive Steemit community and being heard (or, in other words, no longer feeling silenced). There is great power in stepping back into who you were to dispense the advice you wish you had heard.

An example being that if I were to talk to that just-unmasked @honeyscribe based on what I know today, I would tell her two things:

1. Steemit is hurting right now due to an egregious misuse of anonymity, and while you will think it looks very different from the anonymity you seek, Steemit will see it as the same.
2. If you are going to give this a try, do some research on covering your online tracks because you are not naturally duplicitous and this choice puts you at extreme risk.

I thought because I have learned to hide in real life, I could keep myself hidden online. Not so. At this moment, I genuinely wish I were a person who was better at lies than honesty. Not because I want to trick anyone. I only want to feel safe.

What does it all mean? What’s the takeaway here?

It has become an express concern that there are people here on Steemit who don’t believe or care that outing me could cause me mental and physical harm. They are intent on stripping me and tying me to the viewing post even if it is just to get at a whale for a perceived wrong.

I understand that this community is hurting due to recent betrayals. I understand how my trying to hide my identity a second time after having to out myself the first could be viewed as a betrayal. I offer you an apology if I have hurt you. I truly am sorry. I hoped I could be a thriving part of this groundbreaking platform. I had a wish to connect with other survivors of abuse. I will find another path.

I have experience recognizing when I’m not welcome. I am leaving, despite that @kushed has encouraged me to “not just give up because of a couple of internet trolls. Face them head on with the truth, for better or worse and never succumb to providing ID or any other info you are not comfortable with. There are always going to be nasty kids in the sand box, so you can’t simply stop playing.”

I agree. But when my personal safety is on the line, nothing is worth this level of scrutiny. I’m not a witch, although I did meet one recently. Still, I see the torches approaching. I don’t want to get burned for trying to contribute conversation on a platform built for it. I most especially don't want to add to the hurt Steemians are carrying due to recent events.

Steemit, I hope you have better luck not being betrayed. I also hope you have better luck not betraying the confidence of your contributors.

Many of you did show up as friends. I see and appreciate you. I believe this platform has the potential to be a safe space run on mutual empowerment via quality content creation and appreciation-based awards. It’s all about coming together in good faith. I wish that for you all.

If it turns out I have misread the animosity (although I think it unlikely), please let me know. @ned and @dantheman gave their stamp of approval on @ats-david’s skilled outing post. That doesn’t necessarily mean they dislike me or my presence here. Maybe they will chime in.

I would love to be proven wrong and keep writing here. I will be happy to answer questions as long as they don’t point to my offline identity. Again, my safety may not seem like a real issue to you, but it is extremely real to me. At the very least, please realize I have children who can be affected by the abusers in my life should they find more reason to come after me. As I’ve said, clean breaks aren’t always possible even if they are preferable.

Thank you, Steemit. It’s been . . . an adventure.

Images from pixabay.com