There’s a new formula for punishing women who speak out about abuse by high-profile figures, and it usually goes like this: woman alleges abuse, woman seeks recourse through the justice system, woman’s accusation is made public – and then a tidal wave of fans of her abuser come together to help deny the abuse, attack her credibility and reverse the roles of victim and offender.

If this sounds familiar it’s because Darvo – the “deny, attack, reversevictim and offender” method of manipulating abuse victims – has existed for forever. But social media has given it a whole new dimension, and powerful people now have an army of rabid fans ready to do that work for them.

That’s exactly what’s happening to the singer and actor Halle Bailey, after she was granted a domestic violence restraining order against her child’s father, the YouTuber and Twitch streamer Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr, known as DDG. Once the news broke, fans jumped to his defence, ramping up an existing campaign of trolling and harassment, where she’s been accused of everything from infidelity during their relationship to keeping their child from him after it was over – the latter a narrative that DDG himself has helped fuel.

Since news of the restraining order broke last week, we’ve gotten some details of the physical, verbal and financial abuse that Bailey alleges, including photos of injuries submitted as evidence. In that time, even more accounts have spawned, claiming that Bailey is

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