Beware the armchair warriors

Armchair experts are usually people who share their thoughts and perceived “expertise” based on no official information or any training in the subject. They are the people that go to where a person is mossing because they might be able to think of things the police didn’t. They are the people that ignore hundreds of studies on a subject, and decide the one study that agrees with them must be true. I have 37 years experience supporting people with Autism and I have studied the subject for that period. Yet if I say there’s no link between Autism and vaccines, as proven hundreds of times” i am being paid by big pharma or I need to do my own research.

The internet versions are often usually called keyboard warriors, people who claim expertise from behind an anonymous social media account. they will state whatever the conspiracy of the day is, whether covid, vaccines or recently court cases. There’s a recent high profile court case in the UK that I will get back to, where the armchair experts are denying the court case was run properly or that there was any evidence. they decide their opinion is more important than people who were actually involved in the incident they have latched on to.

For example, after the Manchester arena bombing of 2017 the armchair detectives were out in force. The most evil is an individual I wont mention, hes had enough time in the public eye. This person decided that the bombing was fake, nobody really died and the injured were crisis actors. The person stalked the injured, even leaving cameras in order to catch them out. This includes a family where the father and daughter were seriously injured and had spent weeks in hospital. The stalker filmed the father despite him being in a wheelchair for life.

Hunting Alice bell

This series is on channel 4 in the UK and on their streaming service. Its fiction based on real stories. The story is that a doctor is jailed for killing 14 people in his hospital, his accomplice was a nurse that falsified documents to hide the murders. When she is released after a period in jail she gets a new identity and is supposedly left to live a life. The story begins with a character getting a brick through her window, followed by an angry mob abusing her. They all claim she is the hidden “Alice Bell”, information shared by a whistle blowing armchair expert, who hides behind a mask.

Her family and her address gets shown on line and soon her children are getting bullied and she is being called a killer. Nobody seems to believe her enough to defend her, her work place suspends her and her mother in law is taken in by the lies. She soon finds out that she isn’t alone, there are 4 other ladies suffering in a similar way. The reasons they were labelled as the killer varies, the outcomes broadly the same.

After one of the victims reverse hacks the perpetrators computer, she finds his address. They tell the police , who said they investigated and all was fine. The first victim went to the address and found out the person leading the hate is an officer. The rest of the police do nothing, during a live tv interview out first victim gives the officers name out.

Suddenly everything changes, the rouge cop is suspended and following a statement from the real Alice Bell clearing the 5 ladies all appears to be normal. A side story is the doctor trying to appeal his sentence by claiming Bell killed the people. The second episode ended with the dodgy policeman meeting the dodgy doctor in prison. He is in awe of the doctor and lets his hero worship cloud his judgement. Now I admit I had to sleep after those 2 episodes, I will watch more today. There has already been enough to reflect society as it is today.

With incredible timing or incredible luck the series arrived soon after tv and film star Russell Brand was locked up for sexual assault and rape. My X feed then became over run with posts claiming he was locked up with no evidence or because he questioned vaccines or because of his religious views . The armchair detectives jump on the statement that there was was no DNA or physical evidence from the time. They fail to consider the police took stsements from over a hundred people, or that Brand couldn’t get anyone to speak for him. There were no frinds or colleagues that would say positive things about him.

The keyboard warriors have decided no physical evidence and the time since the assaults mean no case. None were in court, none no evidence produced and none know what information the impartial jury were given. They don’t realise that police have to inform the crown prosecution service of the intent to take someone to court, while listing the evidence they hold. If there was any lack of information and evidence the CPS would have stopped the case being heard.

The paradox isn’t apparent to these so called experts. The reason many sexual assaults arent reported is because women fear not being believed or that social media will find them. So the more morons that blame the women, the more women who wont complain. In theory , more men might attack women as they will think nothing will happen.

There is of course little so say which of the experts are human and which are AI bots. One apparent human announces he has an interest in miscarriages of justice, that is apparently enough for him to decide the case was flawed. Scarily many of the comments are credited to women, either defending Brand or saying the assaulted women is to blame for being near to Brand.

The first story in my X feed starts with “ was brand locked up for his views on Russia” Guess where the story is written, in substack, an international writing forum. Obviously I wont be reading it, it just shows how desperate people are to get attention. They don’t care if its good or bad, they just want to be seen and heard. As I have written elsewhere that’s one of the problems with social media, they allow anyone to share anything about anyone.

Finally, a more recent case. In January 2023, Nicola Bulley disappeared while on a dog walk, her dog was found by a bench and her phone was still on a work call. She was near a river, so police searched the area and also searched in the river. She wasn’t found initially, then the social media experts decided they could solve it. First they declared equally she killed herself in the river or that her husband killed her. Next they invaded the area to share their expert theories with the police.

The armchair detectives decided that the police needed their help, as obviously the armchair invaders had their own expertise. Unfortunately it took 3 weeks to find her body, which was also picked apart on line. She ended up a mile down the river from where its believed she entered it. Initially the police made the grave error of stating they were concerned as Nicola had been struggling with menopause and alcohol. The coroner ruled she would have died almost immediately she entered the river due to the freezing temperature. Also ruled was there was no indication of suicide, no third party involvement and there was no alcohol in her blood.

Of course they keyboard warriors decided this wasn’t the real answer, despite not knowing anything about the subject. The total ignorance can have very serious consequences, especially where race and colour are involved. After a terrible incident in 2024 the ignorance was in full effect, including posts by politicians. A 17 year old male travelled to a Taylor Swift inspired dance class and stabbed 3 very young girls. While truly horrible the internet fuelled it even more.

After a video showed the perpetrator as being black the usual idiots started. It was the usual “immigrants out” and he must be an “illegal immigrant”. Riots started happening around the country, hotels housing immigrants were attacked and damage ran into millions. Even a couple of our dodgiest members of parliament posted the same , directly fuelling the unrest. The small problem was that he wasn’t an immigrant of any kind, he was born in the UK.

Nigel Farage, a reactionarily MP, posted a video of his views , immediately before the riots began. He questioned why it wasn’t being treated as a terror related attack, also stating “truth is being with held from us”. He also questioned if the killer was being monitored by the security services. Every word intended to imply there was something going on and we weren't being told. If the killer had been white non of this would have been claimed.

This incident initially led to police trying to name people arrested for certain crimes quickly, in order to prevent social media theories appearing. When this didn’t work , they decided to not say anything until they were were ready to charge and had evidence. Then the keyboard warriors reappeared with the claims we are being deceived. Another trait was to say it must be an immigrant, because police are protecting them. They demand to know everything immediately, often before the police themselves know what’s going on.

This is yet another reason that anybody on social media should have traceable details stored. So if there is criminality then they can be traced easily, this would also put off many of the perpetrators. The basic rule should be, stop and think, then trust the police and others to do their jobs. Unless your involved your not an expert.