There is a clever trick used by people doing dark deeds? Have you noticed?
It’s not complicated. In fact it’s just about the simplest thing to do when you have a huge audience and a big microphone.
When you have broken a rule, committed a crime, or hurt someone physically, mentally or otherwise, then is the time for you to do one simple thing: you accuse the other side of doing the same thing.
You don’t need evidence. You don’t need facts. You don’t need truth.
You just need to claim that someone else is doing what you are (in fact and often provably so) actually doing.
This isn’t advice, of course. It’s gross and morally corrupt—but then when has that stopped some people, right? But it is a weapon of misinformation that is actively used against us as regular people routinely these days. What it is instead is a warning to think critically and look deeper: not every dark deed is equal. Not every accusation is true. And the people pointing fingers at each other are just as likely to be deliberately muddying the waters of reality to devalue the accusations aimed towards them.
Sadly, this tactic works. When a half-attentive audience hears that all sides are broken, dark and corrupt they usually don’t have time or resources to dig into the evidence, they don’t look if there is fire at the source of the smoke, they just see a haze and assume it is all bluster. Dark deeds are ignored or equated or hurt the victims even more.
When both sides are pointing fingers it usually means that one of them is very guilty and the other is being smeared. Stay vigilant.