Shafiqah Hudson, who fought trolls on social media, dies at 46

Shafiqah Hudson was looking for a job in early June 2014, switching between Twitter and email, when she noticed a strange hashtag trending on the social media platform: #EndFathersDay.

The posters claimed to be black feminists, but they had ridiculous handles like @NayNayCan’tStop and @CisHate and @LatrineWatts; they stated that they wanted to abolish Father’s Day because it was a symbol of patriarchy and oppression, among other nonsense.

They didn’t seem like real people, Mrs. Hudson thought, but parodies of black women, making ridiculous statements. Like Mrs. Hudson told Forbes magazine in 2018“Anyone with half the sense that God gave a cold bowl of oatmeal could see that these were not feminist sentiments.”

But the hashtag remained popular, sending the Twitter community into a frenzy, and the conservative news media picked it up, citing it as an example of feminism gone seriously off the rails, and “a beautiful illustration of the cultural trajectory of progressivism.” as Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer at National Review, tweeted at the time. Tucker Carlson committed an entire segment from his show to mocking it.

So Ms. Hudson set out to battle what she quickly realized was a coordinated action by trolls. She created her own hashtag, #YourSlipIsShowing, a Southernism that seemed particularly useful, about calling out someone who thinks they present themselves flawlessly.

She started collecting the messages from the trolls below and encouraged others to do so and block the fake accounts. Her Twitter community took up the mission, including black feminists and scientists I’Nasah Crockettwho did some research of his own and discovered that #EndFathersDay was a hoax, as she told Slate in 2019organized on 4chan, the dark community of web forums populated by right-wing hate groups.

Twitter, Ms. Hudson and others said, was largely unresponsive. Nevertheless, their actions were effective. #EndFathersDay was all but silenced within a few weeks, though more and more fake accounts popped up over the years and Mrs. Hudson kept calling them out, like an endless game of Whac-a-Mole.

Yet #EndFathersDay turned out to be more than an absurd joke. It was a well-structured disinformation operation, a kind of test balloon, as Bridget Todd, a digital activist who interviewed Ms. Hudson in 2020 for her podcast “There Are No Girls on the Internet,” put it for subsequent actions: notably the election disruption campaigns launched in 2016 started with tactics that, as Senate hearings showed, were adopted by Russian agents. In retrospect, Ms. Hudson’s efforts provided an early and effective bulwark against what continues to be a threat to democracy.

“It should be an affirmation,” Ms. Hudson told Slate. “But instead it was disturbing and alarming. No one wants to be right about how much real danger we are all in, even if you saw it coming.”

Ms. Hudson, a freelance writer who had worked in nonprofits but devoted herself to Twitter activism starting in 2014, died Feb. 15 at an extended-stay hotel in Portland, Oregon. She was 46 years old.

Her brother, Salih Hudson, confirmed her death but did not know the cause. She suffered from Crohn’s disease, he said, and breathing problems. However, her followers knew from her posts that she had long had Covid and had recently been diagnosed with cancer. And that she had no money to pay for her care. Many volunteered to help.

At her death, her community mourned their lossand expressed frustration and anger that Ms. Hudson had never been paid by the tech companies whose platforms she controlled or properly credited by scientists and news organizations calling #YourSlipIsShowing, and that she had not received the health care she so desperately needed.

“The world owed Fiqah more than she gave her,” Mikki Kendall, cultural critic and author of “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot” (2020), said by phone. Ms. Kendall is one of many black feminists who have adopted Ms. Hudson’s mission and befriended her on Twitter, now called X. “The world owes Fiqah to never let this happen to anyone else again. Sadly, she is part of a long tradition of black activist women dying impoverished. Those who die sick, alone and afraid. Because we love an activist until he needs something.”

Shafiqah Amatullah Hudson was born on January 10, 1978 in Columbia, SC. ​​Her father, Caldwell Hudson, was a martial arts instructor and author. Her mother, Geraldine (Thompson) Hudson, was a computer engineer. The couple divorced in 1986 and Shafiqah grew up with her mother and brother, mainly in Florida, where she attended Palm Beach County School of the Arts, a magnet school.

Shafiqah received a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY in 2000, majoring in Africana studies with a minor in political science. After graduating, she moved to New York City and worked at several nonprofit organizations.

She was new in town and lonely. She found community on blogs and social media sites, including Twitter, which she joined in 2009. (She chose as her avatar an image of Edna Mode, the imperious fashion maven from “The Incredibles.”) And like many black women on that platform, she was mocked and harassed. She received rape and death threats, she told Ms. Todd.

In addition to her brother, Mrs. Hudson is survived by her father and her sisters, Kali Newnan, Charity Jones and Mosinah Hudson. Geraldine Hudson died in 2019.

In the final months of her life, Ms. Hudson posted about her deteriorating health and her fears that she would be unable to pay for her care or housing. Due to her disability she could not work.

She moved to Portland, her brother said, because the climate was better for her breathing problems. But she was unable to obtain health insurance. Doctors had discovered that the painful fibroids she was suffering from were cancerous. She needed money for more biopsies and for transportation to the hospital. Her Twitter community, as always, contributed. She didn’t ask her family for help.

“She was very private and very proud,” Margaret Haynes, a cousin, said by phone, adding that she had spoken to Mrs. Hudson a few weeks before her death. “She said to me, ‘I’m doing well. If I need anything, you’ll be the first to know.’”

Still, on February 9, she told her followers: “I feel like I’m meowing into the void. And it’s raining. And I’m just trying not to drown.”

February 7 had been a rough day. Ms. Hudson was dizzy and in pain, she wrote. Sensing her mortality, she reported her decision to be single and not have children – “to be an aunt and not a mother,” as she put it – and recalled a conversation she had with a young relative. , and portray it with characteristic humor.

“Suppose life on some plane of existence is a dinner at a restaurant,” she explained, then continued, “Let’s say the life Auntie (I) has chosen is the salad option. A life without partner(s) or own Littles. Let’s say the Soup option comes with Littles, and maybe a partner. But you can only choose one. Like it. If you choose the Family Soup, you cannot get the Singlehood Autonomy Salad. ”

She quoted a bit along these lines and then concluded, “Aunt Fiqah chose the salad. Because she only likes soup. And no one can ever convince her that she REALLY likes soup. Or will come. Or that she should. Soup should be enjoyed with love and enthusiasm. What if it’s not possible? Have the salad.”

Mrs. Hudson died eight days later.

Alain Delaqueriere research contributed.