In the early hours of July 14, just hours after an attempted assassination of former United States president Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, the X account Libs of TikTok posted, “Hi @ubc, this one of your professors?” It included two screenshots: one was of the University of British Columbia faculty of medicine web page with information about a faculty member named Karen Pinder; the second was of a post by Pinder from earlier that evening: “Damn, so close. Too bad.” The screenshot included Pinder’s follow-up: “What a glorious day this could have been!” The Libs of TikTok post swiftly racked up nearly 200,000 likes and 38,000 reposts.
Libs of TikTok is run by Chaya Raichik, a social media influencer with more than 3 million followers on X, who frequently targets individuals or organizations associated with queer or trans rights by directing right-wing outrage like a firehose in their direction. After Raichik posted about the American gym franchise Planet Fitness, which has trans-inclusive facilities as a company policy, at least fifty-four bomb threats were made against their locations, according to the Washington Post. In a February investigation, NBC News identified more than thirty-three threats of violence—made against schools, children’s hospitals, libraries, elected officials, and businesses—since November 2020 that followed posts by Raichik.
