You Have the Right Obligation to Remain Unhappy

[Content Note: Sexual assault; workplace injury; misogyny.]

Amanda Hess: "Evidence of Life on Facebook: Appearing happy on social media may be used against you in a court of law."

Amanda does a good job of teasing out a lot of the reasons why people may cultivate illusory lives via carefully curated social media, and I just want to add this observation: Many people who have survived trauma, including the very sorts of trauma for which civil suits are brought, have to withhold from public view anything that shows vulnerability, because the person/people who harmed them lay in wait to exploit that very vulnerability.

So, in a very real way, this shit empowers the very abuses who limit their victims' freedom of expression. It's a gross revictimization.

There are so many reasons that people don't or can't put their pain on public display. And the last thing anyone needs is for that to be used against them.

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