The right-wing "Libs of TikTok" account deleted thousands of tweets after its owner's identity was exposed.
The account, which has nearly 650,000 followers and is widely shared among prominent conservatives, singles out individual teachers and public officials with pedophilia smears for supporting LGBTQ rights, and has helped drive discriminatory legislation in Florida elsewhere -- but its administrators took down 2,795 posts after the Washington Post unmasked its owner.
Releasing 2769 deleted tweets by @libsoftiktok\n\nThey have been furiously deleting tweets after the Washington Post published an article on them this morning https://github.com/salcoast/deleted-tweets-archive/blob/main/datasets/libsoftiktok-deleted.md\u00a0\u2026— Deleted Tweet Archive (@Deleted Tweet Archive) 1650435289
The Salish Coast Anti-Fascist Action, which tracks right-wing extremists, used the Wayback Machine to determine that the account owner, identified by the Post as former real estate salesperson Chaya Raichik, deleted the tweets as the report ignited online debate over privacy and accountability.
Raichik was subsequently hired by Seth Dillon, CEO of the right-wing satire website Babylon Bee, and she counts a number of Republican politicians and conservative media figures as supporters.
Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, credited "Libs of TikTok" with influencing her position on the state's controversial "don't say gay" law prohibiting classroom discussion of gender and sexual orientation, and Raichik has appeared anonymously for interviews on Fox News and in the New York Post.
NOW WATCH: Outrage erupts after video shows Syracuse police detaining a sobbing Black child
Outrage erupts after video shows Syracuse police detaining a sobbing Black childwww.youtube.com
