A TikTok Tarot Reader Accused Me of Murder. My Reality Unraveled.
New York Times · LC · trust 26/100
Credit... Alma Haser Listen · 7:25 min Share full article By Rebecca Scofield
Dr. Scofield is the chair of the Department of History at the University of Idaho.
I didn’t know any of the students, who had been killed only 11 days before I saw the video. The accuser knew nothing about me, lived in Texas and used tarot card readings as the only basis for her claims.
Over the next several weeks, while I was grieving with the rest of my community, this TikTok influencer uploaded over a hundred videos declaring that I had committed a quadruple homicide. The videos got millions of views. I was overwhelmed with calls, messages, comments and emails, many of which were disturbing or threatening. And I could have been anyone.
You cannot stand in digital spaces. I was not hit by a bus or punched in the face. Yet I saw up close how the online world can come to feel more real than the physical one. Even after the actual murderer was arrested and convicted, the accusations against me continued. And even though these outrageous claims were made online by someone I had never met, they were amplified by unsuspecting viewers and algorithm-driven platforms, and the harm seeped into every aspect of my life. I came to realize that all of us are responsible for the online world we inhabit, and all of us must fight its tendency to propagate lies.
Of course, the people around me knew these claims were ridiculous. Yet the gap between my knowledge of the truth and the falsehoods people were willing to entertain created a kind of purgatory. I desperately wanted to spend time with my colleagues, students and friends as we grieved, but I became isolated. I stopped going to campus, moved my course online and ceased using social media. I stopped sleeping well, and instead, I walked the hallway outside my children’s rooms, utterly terrified that they would be harmed by the person hyperfixated on me, any of her believers or the person actually responsible for the murders.
With the increased media attention, my relationship to my house shifted. It was as if our walls had been removed and anyone could peer inside. Doors and windows had new and frightening meanings. I sensed that perhaps I was unraveling, disintegrating — that I was no longer a real person. If my face and name were not my own, who was I?
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