Talia Lavin: Into the Abyss
Photograph by Yonit Lavin Journalist Talia Lavin has experienced no shortage of abuse online from hate groups. In 2018, their harassment drove her to quit as a fact-checker at the New Yorker, after she mistakenly implied on Twitter that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent had a Nazi tattoo. When people pointed out that the tattoo could represent something else, she deleted the tweet and explained why—she didn’t want to spread misinformation. She didn’t start the tattoo rumor—only, briefly, perpetuated it—but far-right media entities, including the neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer, continued to peg the mistake as hers alone. Lavin quit her job to avoid attacks on the reputations of her colleagues.
But she didn’t stop writing about these hate groups. In outlets such as GQ and The Nation, Lavin—who is a Jewish woman and therefore a prime target for misogynistic, anti-Semitic white supremacists—examined why these groups exist and how they inspire acts of domestic terrorism. In response, white supremacists sent threats of violence to her and her family to scare her into silence. But even then, she didn’t stop writing. She doubled down.
The journalist spent the next two years undercover, gaining entry
