The official #MeToo Twitter account has come out after the conclusion of the Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp trial to complain that ‘the mob’ (essentially) co-opted and corrupted their virtue-signalling brand.

We shall pause for a moment to let the karma settle.

And yet, the way in which #MeToo has been co-opted and manipulated during the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial is a toxic catastrophe and one of the biggest defamations of the movement we have ever seen.

— me too. (@MeTooMVMT) May 28, 2022

#MeToo has been used, even if it wasn’t the intention of the creator, to incite online crowds of strangers into the ridiculous position of ‘believe all women’ when an accusation is made against a man. Forget justice, evidence, the presumption of innocence, or the concept of a fair trial. For years society, has lived with the #MeToo witch trials that grew so bad a #MenToo movement rose to counter its effects.

Instead of encouraging empathy and justice, #MeToo became the mechanism to elevate female voices into declarations of ‘unquestioned truth’ – a status no group should hold. In doing so, #MeToo saw innocent men ruined and the careers of millions of young women written off now that they are viewed with suspicion and as a legal risk to employers. Who would hire a young woman in the post-#MeToo world where she cannot be left alone with a man in case she makes an accusation? She is either a victim or a predator.

This is the social environment #MeToo created by cultivating mob justice.

It should come as no surprise to the creators that this Medieval idea got out of hand and took on a life of its own. Of course it was hijacked. As a tool of incredible power and potential revenue, every gold digger within shouting distance wanted a piece of #MeToo. That is before taking into account the ‘virtue value’ where women, particularly high school girls, began inventing #MeToo events to garner sympathy and attention, diluting the voices of real victims.

When people refer to #MeToo, they almost exclusively mean the idea, not the organisation that birthed it.

Most people have no idea where the #MeToo hashtag came from – it simply appeared one day in 2017 on the internet and swiftly embedded itself in pop culture. #MeToo actually started in 2006 on Myspace, but did not reach a global audience. During the Harvey Weinstein trials of 2017, Alyssa Milano asked all the women on Twitter who have been sexually harassed or assaulted to put a #MeToo status up on their bios to ‘give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem’. It was this action that set the movement trending.

The desire to highlight abuse in an industry is admirable and it revealed that Hollywood treats women considerably worse than the rest of society. But accusations without intention to offer proof has rekindled a dangerous habit among humans. It has not been very long since we were running around accusing each other of being witches, cursed, or making ‘pacts with the devil’. Accusation without evidence used to be the chief political tool of the powerful to erase innocent people from existence. It is why we decided to reform our justice system to one based on evidence, not hearsay.

The #MeToo creators do not understand why their hashtag has been ‘abused’ and ‘corrupted’ by the Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp trial.

This trial crystallises the dangers and failures of the #MeToo movement, especially the ability of a predatory woman to potentially use an online mob to extort money, fame, and power from the fabrication of victimhood.

Heard’s lies, as revealed by the court, and evidence that she was physically abusive within the marriage, proved why the courts – not social media – must be the judge of guilt.

It should signify the end of #MeToo and the return to equality before the law.