Hajah Bah was shocked to see notifications pouring in of hate comments directed at her Twitter this week.
On Tuesday, Bah, a first-year graduate student in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, was inundated with Twitter notifications and realized that a fake account impersonating her messaged former President Donald Trump’s deputy assistant and radio host Sebastian Gorka asking for an interview. The radio host decided to post a section of the direct message conversation on his Twitter after blocking both the troll account posing as Bah and Bah’s real account.
Gorka posted a screenshot of a direct message he said he received from the account, showing a message that referred to him using the r-slur. Believing the acocunt was run by Bah, he responded by tweeting, “This person works for NBC12. Why is MSNBC OK with their employee calling someone she politically disagrees with a ‘retard?” Gorka’s tweeted, believing the fake account was really Bah. “What protects foul-mouthed bigoted ableists like @Hajahbahh?”
“I can’t believe they pretended to be me for a month,” Bah said, “and with over 2,000 followers.” The account was created in August and Bah said she has “no clue” who made it.
On Tuesday, after Gorka’s tweet was posted to his 1.1 million followers, Bah began to receive hateful comments through her social media and email.
“I woke up to more chaos [today],” Bah said when asked if the situation had blown over.
One of the most concerning aspects of the incident was that the fake account’s bio referenced Bah’s former internship with MSNBC at NBC 12, which also Gorka mentioned in his initial tweet.
Bah believes Gorka’s actions are damaging to both media companies’ reputations and that his actions were reckless. Bah also said that she is worried about her personal safety and online presence in the aftermath of the tweet.
Not long after Gorka’s tweet, Zachary Petrizzo, an investigative reporter from Salon contacted Bah about the incident. On Thursday, Petrizzo published a detailed article outlining exactly what had happened--clarifying that Bah was not involved in the initial direct messages to Gorka.
“I am so thankful that the investigative reporter reached out,” Bah said, “I have been getting so much positivity on Twitter too.”
On Twitter, many accounts responded to Gorka’s tweet condemning him for interacting with a troll and being irresponsible for posting the messages without verifying whether or not they were real. Many are also calling on Gorka to delete his initial tweet.
Bah said she received support from the Director of the School of Journalism, Gordon Stables, and the Annenberg Dean, Willow Bay.
“This is just terrible and unfortunate,” Stables said, “We are so proud of her as a journalist, student, and person. Our main priority right now is her safety and well-being. Being in a media storm for a story you write is one thing, but being targeted for something you didn’t do is just so unfortunate.”
Bah said she is grateful for the support she is receiving from strangers online, family, friends and her school. As of publication, the fake account was suspended from Twitter but Gorka’s original tweet is still up.