“If I write this post, the terrorists win”.
I was eager to find out who these terrorists were, and what atrocities they committed. It turned out Gina's accused ‘terrorists’ were other bloggers. Did they have a fanatical Islamic blog with threats of beheading? No, it was a gentle parenting blog named ‘Dr Momma’ (also known as ‘Peaceful Parenting’). Gina’s post went on to describe the accused terrorists actions:
There was a rumor circulating that Gina was an advocate for circumcision. Gina wasn’t happy about it and decided to blame it squarely on the administrators of the Dr Momma blog. Why? Gina claimed a friend of hers had seen them chatting about the rumor on a private online thread, despite numerous others insisting the person they were talking about wasn’t Gina at all.
To most people this might seem insignificant and petty, but Gina saw an opportunity to write a dramatic post about it, proclaiming she was being ‘terrorized’, ‘abused’, and ‘tortured’ by the administrators of Dr Momma.
Gina wrote an entire post dedicated to vilifying the admin’s of Dr Momma. She wrote that they had 'terrorized, threatened, abused and tortured her over nothing'. This was a big statement, that needed to be backed up if Gina wanted to be taken seriously. But she based her dramatized accusations on a flimsy, refuted rumor that there was no evidence for.
So why the dramatics, why write an entire post slandering someone on a public forum, especially when you can’t be sure anything ever happened at all? Why make absolute judgments on such flimsy evidence? And why even give such a small issue even a second thought? Gina’s blog entries have often had a running theme of accusations, personal attacks, dramatization, exaggeration, and appealing for sympathy from readers.
Unfortunately for Gina Dr Momma has a big following (over 25,000 fans on Facebook alone), they’ve been around for years, providing a consistent resource for informative articles that promote gentle parenting techniques. So when Gina’s ‘terrorist’ post reared its head readers were more than a little peeved.
What got readers riled was that EVERY comment readers left on Gina’s ‘terrorist’ post that questioned Gina’s reasoning, or supported Dr Momma in any way, was DELETED IMMEDIATELY. The only comments left were the those from readers happy to join in with Gina’s terrorist witch hunt, or those expressing sympathy for her story of being ‘terrorized’, ‘abused’ and ‘tortured’.
To this day when people disagree with Gina's statements she calls it ‘hateful abuse’. She says she receives this ‘abuse’ because the readers are ‘jealous trolls’, that ‘it’s human nature to think the worst of people’, and ‘it’s just the price of being me these days’. She went so far as to say the readers ‘are trying to me get me to kill myself’. Well let’s see the kind of comments we’re talking about:
"I am wondering why it is always blamed on Peaceful Parenting? I didn't see the person who runs peaceful parenting commenting. I saw lots of other people who have blogs of their own for personal use, but I did not see DrMomma."
This is a recent comment from a reader which got deleted by Gina, which along with many other deleted comments is publically claimed by Gina to be ‘jealous’, ‘hateful’, ‘abusive, ‘terrorism’, ‘torture’ and ‘trying to make her kill herself’.
Because these comments are deleted, other readers are none the wiser, and often believe Gina’s sympathy-drawing claims of ‘torture’ and ’abuse’ – there is no evidence to the contrary.
Gina continued to slander the admins of Dr Momma, this time publicizing that they were planning a protest at the funeral of a baby that had died from a hemorrhage, in part because he'd been circumcised. She described the main admin of Dr Momma as ‘disgusting’, a ‘sicko’, and a ‘wench’. Was there any validity to Gina's claim? Not a whiff. The 'funeral protest' statement was another made up rumor.
This might be viewed as just internet bullying, but some of Gina's readers fully believed the accusation and one woman got so riled, she approached the husband of an admin from Dr Momma at a local park, screaming insults at both him and his toddler. Did this make Gina think about retracting her false accusations? No.
There is very little diplomacy with Gina. Try posting a comment questioning or disagreeing with one of her posts. No matter how diplomatic, the comment will be labeled ‘abuse’ and get deleted. If readers inquire about their deleted comments, Gina denies she deleted it, says it was a computer glitch, or denies she ever saw it in the first place.
A few Dr Momma advocates recently began taking screen shots before their comments got deleted as proof they actually existed. When these were presented to Gina she publicly brushed them off as ‘very suspect’, that ‘she would not be shocked if they were photoshopped into existence’, and that they were made by ‘trolls’ that were ‘torturing’ her out of enjoyment.
In my opinion Gina is an internet bully. She wrote inflammatory, false statements, slandering the administrators of a well respected mothering blog, and still continues to reiterate these statements today. Gina refuses to publically acknowledge that the reason why readers are upset with her is because they want either evidence backing her statements about Dr Momma, or a retraction of her statements, along with an apology to the administrators of Dr Momma (an apology to all the readers she has dismissed as ‘hateful trolls’ would go a long way too).
Good luck with that! Gina publicly claims there is no reason for readers incessant commenting, and she has done nothing to elicit any response from anyone.
But it’s not just one inflammatory post, Gina has written a raft of aggressive, over dramatic, groundless posts on a range of topics that elicit disagreeing responses, to which she simply deletes the responses. Further eliciting frustration from readers.
Gina surrounds herself in controversy, and seems to be basking in the attention, often posting of her poor state, the stress the attention has put her under, and her ignorance as to why it’s happening to her. Oblivious readers pour in with sympathy, unaware it is Gina’s inflammatory, groundless accusations that spur the controversy…. and unaware of the upset and chaos her accusations cause the other innocent party.
Regardless of who’s getting hurt, or who's reputation she's vilifying, Gina seems to be under the impression:
“It’s my blog, and I can say whatever I want!
But it’s not JUST a blog. This is an internet publication, a very powerful form of media, with a massive, worldwide audience. Gina’s blog had nearly 100,000 views last month, she brags about it. It’s not a case of innocently spewing whatever crap comes to mind out into a post. It’s a case of using the power of a 100,000 strong audience as a platform, to bully, spread rumors, and discredit someone else.
With that amount of power you’ve got to have some responsibility when publishing posts. Choosing what to publish isn’t hard. Do you have solid evidence for the accusations you’re making? Can you link to those sources of evidence? What are the consequences of what your opinion implies? Think of the people you are making statements about. Is it fair to make accusations without letting the other party have their say? How would you feel if someone did it to you?
Gina doesn't need to tame down her opinions - opinion is one of the mainstays of blogging. Gina needs to stop publishing false statements. She needs to stop using slander, malice, personal attacks, and unsubstantiated accusations to stir up false drama and controversy. She needs to think about the needless upset and chaos it causes. She needs to own the consequences of what she's done, and allow those that disagree, and those that have been bad mouthed by her, to be heard.
There, I've said my piece. I hope Gina does read this one day, if not simply to get a glimpse of why people are so upset with her. My sympathy goes out to anyone else who's been stung by Gina's accusations. I know Dr Momma is not the only one.
