Minus people living under rocks, just about everyone knows that J.K. Rowling has been at the center of an extreme amount of controversy as of late. Many were angered when she expressed anti-trans views with Daniel Radcliffe condemning her on the subject and Fantastic Beasts star Eddie Redmayne saying he would be uncomfortable working with her in the future. Harry Potter actress Miriam Margoyles even went so far as to call her a fascist.
While Rowling has threatened many lawsuits before for contradicting her views, even to a children’s website, it seems this time is the final straw for many fans. Twitter use @no1guncle issued an apology for a quote tweet related to Rowling saying, “I’ve ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art.” It has been alleged by many Twitter users that the user was likely sued for the tweet.
Writer Karen Geier also pointed out why someone would fall to the pressure of such a lawsuit, discussing why it was abhorrent that the rich and famous Rowling would have used that kind of pressure to silence someone in a Tweet.
“It costs about £20,000 to fight a defamation case in England and Jk Rowling targeted a queer person for screenshotting her exact words.”
Her alleged actions have sparked outrage on Twitter, with many users coming out and posting to show support, some going so far as to Tweet out the quote and images of Rowling’s tweets themselves in an effort to make it impossible to sue them all.
Some have pointed out the potential lawsuit may have sparked the Streisand Effect — an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information having the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information — so now more people than ever before know that she made that tweet and is attempting to silence people through experience lawsuits.
With some still fuming over her other book Troubled Blood and more people being exposed to her behavior now than ever before, it will be interesting to see if J.K. Rowling can recover her reputation in the future or if sales of her works will continue to decline due to her actions.