Hatred

• Moments later, Swift uploaded full details of her new record to Instagram, including the album artwork and track list.
• One of the 17 newly revealed tracks is titled Clara Bow.
• Actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) was the original “It girl”.

• This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties.
• The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
• Twitter users called her “disgusting” for bringing her friend and collaborator Lana Del Rey on stage, after she’d lost out on her own award.

Who was Clara Bow?

• Clara Bow was an American silent and early sound film actress, whose tumultuous career spanned from 1922 to 1933.
• Bow’s best-known film, the 1926 silent romantic comedy It, secured her status as a cultural icon who embodied the youth and liberation of the 1920s’ flapper.
• This sequence of events, which kick-started the ongoing mythicisation of Bow’s star image, skips over the work Bow herself put in.

How Clara Bow inspired Taylor Swift

During the height of her career, Bow’s love life was a point of constant ridicule in popular film fan magazines. Headlines branding her “empty hearted” and asking “why can’t the It Girl keep her men?” sought to psychoanalyse her broken engagements. The press labelled Bow an “idiot”, and wondered why “no man [had] led her to the altar”.

• Bow’s assistant and best friend, Daisy DeVoe, was accused of trying to embezzle money from her.
• During my research trip, I was able to access the papers of Clara Bow, as well as those who knew her: including notable gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
• Perhaps Swift’s ode to Bow will offer some artistic justice for the often-misrepresented starlet.
• But it’s not hard to see why Taylor Swift, a modern starlet whose every move is scrutinised and criticised, would find a rich seam of inspiration in the life of Clara Bow.

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Jennifer Voss receives funding from the AHRC-funded Midlands 4 Cities Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme.

• Not all of members knew they had been added to the group at first, and many didn’t participate in the conversations that resulted in the leak.
• Last week, a transcript from the group chat was leaked and uploaded onto social media by pro-Palestinians, including the writer Clementine Ford.
• The leak gives rise to a complex tangle of contemporary ethical issues, including concerns with privacy, doxing, free speech and “cancelling”.

Read more:
Israel-Hamas war: What is Zionism? A history of the political movement that created Israel as we know it

Privacy and public interest

• The WhatsApp group was a private one, where group members would have had a reasonable expectation that their conversation would not be made public.
• Violating people’s privacy (especially through leaking information onto the forever-searchable internet) is always a moral cost.
• But sometimes that cost must be paid, particularly if the exposure is in the public interest.
• It could be argued that revealing the WhatsApp group’s activities was in the public interest.

The ethics of doxing

• It is usually done without the person’s consent, and aims to expose or punish them in some way.
• A statement from those behind the release asserted no links had been made to members’ addresses, phone numbers or emails, which were all deliberately redacted.
• However, the release of people’s identities is still a form of doxing and a serious moral concern.
• Read more:
  What is doxing, and how can you protect yourself?

What was the WhatsApp group doing?

The WhatsApp group conversations were wide-ranging, and some members made statements many might find offensive or upsetting. One part of the group’s activities involved organised letter-writing, including to the employers or publishers of writers or journalists they felt crossed the line into anti-Semitism.

• Letters can be used to raise awareness of ethical concerns, to share information and ideas, and to persuade.
• But letters can also do other things, and an innocuous practice can sometimes gradually progress into more fraught territory.
• They can also try to get people to act in ways that are morally concerning — such as having someone sacked for their political views.

Should artists be protected?

Before the story broke in the media, but after extracts from the group chat began circulating on social media, the Australian Society of Authors Board published a letter noting its “growing concern” that artists and authors in Australia were facing repercussions for expressing their political positions publicly or in their work. The society stated its commitment to freedom of speech (within the limits set by law) and its opposition to attempts to silence or intimidate authors.

• The society also opposed attempts to intimidate or silence people through hate speech, explicitly noting antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab rhetoric.
• Hate speech, racism and bigotry, and harmful disinformation or stereotyping, should be stopped, and speakers should face the consequences of their wrongdoing.
• What we perceive as dangerous misinformation or harmful speech (like antisemitism or Islamophobia) will inevitably be coloured by our cultural, political and moral worldviews.
• But it is precisely those who think differently who will disagree with us about what counts as harmful or wrongful speech.

Ethical worries

• Punishing, undermining and silencing others on the basis of our political beliefs gives rise to two potential ethical worries (both arise with respect to the modern phenomenon of “cancel culture”).
• Each side declares: “We are a support group nobly taking a stand against harmful bigotry and hate.
• Now, I have reason to push back against you – to no longer tolerate your speech.
• Tragically, some isolated individuals – not necessarily connected to the pro-Palestinians – felt justified in going further, even to threats of violence.

Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• "The California Way means finding new solutions to big problems, and that's exactly what these leaders have demonstrated through their innovative work."
• "I thank The James Irvine Foundation for its commitment to lifting up the impactful work of community leaders across our state to build a more vibrant, inclusive and resilient California."
• "The accomplishments of these diverse leaders and their ongoing commitment to improving the lives of Californians are truly inspiring," said Don Howard, President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation.
• Since 2006, The Irvine Foundation has celebrated the achievements of over 100 leaders in California.

• People are increasingly turning to gossip forums like Tattle Life, Guru Gossip, GOMI (“Get Off My Internets”) and the Blogsnark subreddit to critique the influencers they follow.
• Many forum users are former fans of the influencers they now publicly and enthusiastically criticise.
• So why might you start to hate the influencers you once loved?

• This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties.
• The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
• Favourite influencers can often feel like friends, even though they are likely unaware of their followers’ existence.

Feeling excluded

• This can shatter the illusion of intimacy, prompting anger from followers who feel entitled to omitted information.
• When we feel excluded by an influencer, our feelings can become increasingly hostile.
• Our findings indicate that gossip forums enable users to overcome feelings of exclusion by recreating the illusion that they know the influencer intimately.

Feeling ignored

• Many influencers also delete comments and block comments containing certain keywords.
• This leads some followers to feel ignored.
• She never replies, says thank you or even just acknowledges them with the little heart/thumbs up button.
• Our data indicates that posting on gossip forums can help followers feel seen and acknowledged by influencers in a way that they don’t outside of the forums.

Feeling exploited

• Followers can feel exploited when influencers only post content with a direct commercial gain.
• Retaliating in this way enabled forum members to alleviate feelings of being exploited.
• Gossip forum users are often dismissed as trolls and bullies, but this doesn’t paint a complete picture.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Rebecca Mardon receives funding from the Academy of Marketing Hayley Cocker and Kate Daunt do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.