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Do you hear that all of the time over and over and over and over again? We have to do something about it because it hurts real people. It really does. Welcome back to the show. Glad you are here today, 855-839-1210 on Twitter at Rich Zeeoli. One of the things that really terrifies me is the internet mob and the mindset of people on the internet to try to destroy somebody.

The assistant editor at Reason Magazine and Reason.com, one of my favorite libertarian sites. Emma, thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. You wrote a piece from the June 2023 Reason Magazine issue. How an ill-informed internet mob ruined a UVA student's life. There was a person named Morgan Bedinger who was accused on social media of telling protesters they would make good speed bumps and was more than a year before investigating

her. The story is about a young woman named Morgan Bedinger as you mentioned. She was a senior at the University of Virginia when she was the subject of a series of unsubstantiated rumors that were lobbied online by a very popular student activist at UVA named Zeyanna Bryant.

And so what Bryant said that Bedinger did is that she wrote this Black Lives Matter protest. And as you mentioned, told the crowd that they would make good speed bumps several times in a very violent and threatening manner. However, the University of Virginia's own investigation actually cleared Bedinger of pretty much all wrongdoing, not only did it define that there was insufficient evidence for single one of Bryant's claims, also found that it was more likely than not that Bryant never heard

Bedinger make a good speed bumps remark. And this investigation essentially agreed with Bedinger's side of the story. What Bedinger said she did is she was driving home from work, saw that the road was blocked by a large city works truck, got out to look around, had a casual conversation initiate with the pickup truck driver. He started speaking to her. And she made kind of an offhand remark, you know, well, it's a good thing you're here because otherwise these people

could have become speed bumps. Very clearly not a threat. However, one thing led to another will sort of filming her. They chased her back to her car. And this is what got put on Twitter. And it became the narrative on campus. I actually was a junior at the university at the time.

This took place in 2020. And what I witness happen is that almost everyone around me, the biggest news. There were tweet after tweet after tweet. People were talking about it in person on zoom, in group meetings. And pretty much what everyone decided is that this person was a vile, terrible racist.

But the thing is there was never any evidence. It was a story that was really, really good. And it was so good that it couldn't be true.

And this is a great example of what happens because the internet mob piles on. They don't wait for an investigation to be done. They make their decision, their judge, jury, and executioner.

And then everybody piles on everybody piles on. And it just kind of like a like a virus almost it just keeps spreading.

Right. Absolutely. I think the fact that this happened during the summer of 2020, sort of during the height of the post George Floyd protests really gives a lot of insight into how this happened.

You know, there was a sense that everybody was really angry, you know, some of it justified, but some of it just just just needing someone to blame, right. And especially because the summer 2020 was kind of the summer of the Karen Morgan Bender was the perfect villain.

Her father who unfortunately passed away in 2014 had been a police officer. She herself was somewhat openly probe police and taken as 100% evidence.

It was taking this proof that she had said these horrible violent threats that as it turned out, there's no evidence she ever made. And in fact, a lot of evidence that she never said them at all.

You know, and so where she now and how she doing.

So what makes this story so sad is that she's completely stuck to did punish her. There was a complicated series investigations, but essentially despite this later investigation that cleared her, she was sanctioned to expulsion and advance.

So she was allowed to finish her schooling, but she was expelled under withholding with a couple other conditions. And she was also a few years of community service. She had to attend these mandatory ideological retraining classes basically to try to make her of different views about the police.

She had to apologize and she was actually in sort of a prestigious major at UVA that was kind of a pre law major, but because she'll have to disclose that she was found guilty of threatening students on all of her law school applications, she can pretty much never go to law school.

So when I talked to her, she's still living in Charlottesville where she's from with her mom. And she does work, but she wouldn't tell me where because she's still afraid of being stalked at her new job if she let a journalist know that.

So she's completely stuck and the student activist who accused her is can is and continues to be a rising star. Just last year that student activist was received a glowing profile in the Washington Post.

I'm not surprised by that Morgan Beninger was accused on social media of telling protesters they would make good speed bumps. However, she did not and was more than a year before investigations cleared her.

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