MRC Tries To Defend Libs Of TikTok Creator After Violent Threats Follow Her Posts

The Media Research Center hated it when Chaya Raichik was revealed as the proprietor of the viciously anti-LGBTQ Twitter/X account Libs of TikTok — and it was just as angry when the links between Raichik’s hateful rhetoric and violent threats was repeatedly documented. When USA Today highlighted how getting targeted by Raichik inevitably resulted in violent threats, Tim Graham spent a Nov. 8 column attacking the newspaper and its sources as irredeemably gay:

They still call their national newspaper USA Today, but on some days, the front page looks more like “LGBTQIA Today.”

On October 6, the bold top headline was “When Libs of TikTok posts, threats increasingly follow.” The author is Will Carless, whose beat is “Extremism.” Beware, that beat is almost always just “Right-Wing Extremism.” That’s how they define the wildly successful Twitter account of Libs of TikTok, operated by Chaya Raichik. (She trolled them by happily posing with their hit piece.)

In a front-page text box, USA Today warned this account is a “creator of, and a force multiplier for, right-wing outrage.” It’s a “hive of conservative politicians, media personalities, and far-right online influencers.” With badly disguised propaganda like this story, that can be reversed: USA Today is a creator of, and a force multiplier for, left-wing outrage. Carless came to the “hive” of McPaper from the far-left Center for Investigative Reporting,

This new Carless front-pager spread to an entire inside page. It began with a list of alleged bomb threats and public ridicule of drag-queen events and hospitals performing mutilations, which they call “gender-affirming care.” Then they blamed Libs of TikTok.

“In almost every case, the perpetrator of the threat is unknown, and Chaya Raichik, the far-right influencer who runs Libs of TikTok, says she opposes violence, and that because there have been almost no arrests, there’s no proof the threats come from her followers,” Carless admitted.  
But he warned of a “clear pattern. USA Today “has confirmed dozens of bomb threats, death threats and other harassment after Libs of TikTok’s posts since February 2022.” Based on what? “Exclusive new research from the progressive analysis group Media Matters for America.”

So USA Today is partnering with a passionate LGBT advocacy group, not unlike the media’s public alliance with the censorship group GLAAD. The method is the same: suggest that anyone and everyone who spreads information resisting their revolution is an extremist that spurs violence. It’s meant to ruin reputations and intimidate people into silence.

Graham then baselessly claimed that the threats were manufactured by the targets themselves, which seesm like an attempt to intimidate LGBTQ people into silence:

Anyone who calls in a bomb threat to anyone, even if they have no intention of acting on it, is committing a crime. That’s why they’re usually anonymous. But sometimes bomb threats are faked by the “victims,” just like Jussie Smollett faked a late-night beating by Trump fans. “Extremism” reporters like Carless are hot to find the “far-right” threats and ignore the behavior of their side.

Speaking of extremism, Carless used experts like MMFA’s Ari Drennen, who recently tweeted “homeschooling should be illegal. Too many parents use it to abuse their children, keeping them ignorant and easy to control.” Wow. That’s just like The Washington Post, which once described right-wing Christians in a 1993 front-page article as “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”  

Carless also quoted Alejandra Caraballo, “a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic.” He noted Caraballo was “openly critical” of Raichik, but not that Caraballo is a radical “trans woman.” Last month, Caraballo attacked Elon Musk after headlines vanished in Twitter posts.

Despite all his whining about purported bias, Graham did not dispute the accuracy of anything in the USA Today article, even as he admitted the article told her side of the story: “Carless let Raichik defend herself, but nothing about this article was balanced or fair. It was designed to shame and degrade any resistance to the ‘LGBTQIA Today’ agenda.” He also failed to dispute the accuracy of Drennen’s tweet about homeschooling — there is, in fact, child abuse linked to homeschooling — and his dismissal of Media Matters as nothing but a “LGBT advocacy group” is laughable, given that it’s actually the liberal version of the MRC (and does that job much better, even if Graham and Co. don’t want to talk about it). He also offered no definitive statement from Raichik denouncing the violent threats that follow their hateful tweets, nor any evidence to prove his claim that she was “trolling” people by “happily posing with their hit piece” — which, in a less charitable interpretation, could be that she was endorsing the threats she incites.

When NBC did a similar report on the correlation between Libs of TikTok and violent threats a couple months later, it was Jorge Bonilla’s turn to rush to Raichik’s defense in a Jan. 24 post:

During its coverage of the New Hampshire primary, NBC News Now seized upon the opportunity to smear Libs of Tik Tok founder Chaya Raichik as being linked to “school bomb threats”. The vehicle was a report on Raichik’s appointment as an adviser to the Oklahoma Education Department’s Library Media Advisory Committee. 

Watch the video brief that ran between news segments, and which laid out the incendiary claim:

CAPTIONS: 

Libs of TikTik creator accused of inspiring school bomb threats named to state library board

Chaya Raichik, who runs the inflammatory Libs of Tik Tok social media account, was named an adviser to an Oklahoma State Department of Education’s library committee. 

NBC News seems to be quite mad that Raichik, known among other things for exposing the woke mind virus within our school system, now has a role wherein she can provide oversight for an entire state’s library content. 

Bonilla didn’t explain why outsiders like Raichik has any business influencing library content in Oklahoma. He then insisted that Raichik being called out as the far-right hater she is is worse than the bomb threats she incites:

NBC News seems to be quite mad that Raichik, known among other things for exposing the woke mind virus within our school system, now has a role wherein she can provide oversight for an entire state’s library content. 

Bonilla didn’t explain what this “woke mind virus” supposedly is, though the implication is that it involves viciously hating people who aren’t heterosexual. He also didn’t dispute the documented correlation between Raichik’s posts and the bomb threats. Instead, he helped Raichik distract frpm the issue by complaining that NBC never responded to her sending it ” compilation of drawings seemingly from young adult novels that depict sexual encounters and asked: ‘Do you think this is appropriate for kids in school?'” insisting that the failure to respond to a distraction “is an admission in and of itself that is worth keeping in mind. That particular question is consistent with the mission of Libs of TikTok: to hold a mirror up to the left. And in lashing out at Raichik, they make clear that they do not like what they see reflected back to them.” And it’s clear that Raichik doesn’t like the fanatical hate she sees reflected back at her — heck, Bonilla didn’t even try to offer the unsubstantiated excuse that she has denounced those threats.

It appears that even the MRC is tired of defending the violent threats Raichik has inspired; when NBC did a fuller report on those threats a couple weeks later, it stayed silent.