A woman went on a racist rant in a pizza shop. TikTok vigilantes went after three innocent accountants

"This was hate I've never been exposed to before," said Bogar, 55, the president of the Jenkintown accounting firm Bogar & Associates Inc.

After a video of a woman's racist rant inside Amy's Family Pizzeria went viral on Reddit and TikTok in February, the internet was in pursuit of Rita Bellew, who called owner Omar Quiñonez an un-American "ignoramus" for playing Spanish-language television in his shop. Bellew, 55, was later charged with ethnic intimidation and harassment.

But before the Hatboro police publicly identified Bellew and TikTok found her Facebook page, several Twitter and TikTok accounts doxxed Bogar, then Sally Poppert and Tracey Gaida — three women who have nothing in common with Bellew other than being blond accountants employed in Montgomery County.

The release of their phone numbers and home and work addresses exposed these women to threatening phone calls and emails that left them fearing for their jobs and safety. After identifying Bellew but before releasing her name, the Hatboro Police Department issued two warnings to stop harassing the doxxed women.

Amy's Family Pizzeria also issued a since-deleted statement that asked people to "stop accusing innocent people" of racism.

The hunt for Bellew and its unintended consequences reveal the precarity of digital vigilantism, where content creators must balance disillusionment with systems of power and a desire for accountability on the internet, which tends to reward speed and ease over accuracy.

Bogar, Poppert, and Gaida's misfortune gains new importance as the U.S. Supreme Court decides two cases that could force platforms to be held liable for user-generated content, which raises questions, such as: Who's at fault when the pursuit for justice goes rogue? And is the ever-messy internet a viable accountability mechanism, even when faith in authority is low?

For Bogar, Poppert, and Gaida, the answer is no.

But for internet detectives, negative Google reviews and accounts deleted in shame may be the only forms of accountability they experience. And there's clout to gain from being a Karen-chaser.

Bogar began receiving calls after 4 a.m. on Feb. 24, hours after the posting of a now-deleted viral video from TikToker user @thereelsizzle. The video featured Bogar's work address, email, and phone number.

From there, her voice mail and email inboxes were filled with messages that all had one thing in common: They said Bogar was a racist, and she deserved to be fired.

Google and Facebook pages associated with Bogar's accounting firm garnered more than 500 reviews from people she'd never taken on as clients, all claiming her bigotry didn't deserve business.

"It was the worst day of my life," said Bogar. She still worries for her personal safety and ability to take on clients during tax season, even though the defamatory comments have been deleted and reviews are disabled for Bogar & Associates' Google and Facebook pages.

Under the advice of her son Tyler Stampone, who is an attorney with Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer Law, Bogar filed reports with the FBI and police departments in Abington Township, where she lives, and Jenkintown, where she works. Jenkintown police conducted a search of her office last week at the request of Bogar, who feared a possible break-in.

Bogar believes @thereelsizzle settled on Poppert, Gaida, and her after Bellew identified herself as a CPA in the video. She thinks the account searched for accounting firms in the Hatboro area, checking their employee rosters for middle-aged, blond women. When one woman didn't work out, the account pushed followers to jump on the next.

Bogar and Stampone said they have not yet heard back from investigators. The FBI said it does not comment on the existence of open investigations, though local police departments corroborated Bogar's reports.

The TikTok account @thereelsizzle blocked The Inquirer from messaging it after reaching out for comment.

Sally Poppert and Tracey Gaida, who both work for Abington-based Poppert & Co. LLC, recounted similar experiences. After @thereelsizzle learned that Bogar wasn't the woman in the video, thanks to a response from Stampone, the account then posted videos doxxing Poppert and Gaida.

Gaida, who moved from Warrington to North Carolina in 2020, said the phones at work were "ringing off the hook" the morning of Feb. 24. Soon after, Gaida started to receive Facebook messages with "just the word racist written back-to-back." Meanwhile, Poppert & Co.'s rating on Facebook fell to 1.8 stars as reviews flooded in that claimed the firm employed bigots.

"It was like the Salem witch trials. We were being condemned without any basis for it," said Poppert, 60. "[Bellew's behavior] was as far from me as could be."

Poppert & Co.'s Facebook rating remains low and several negative reviews are still up.

Beyond the harm to her employer, Gaida is concerned by the reputational hit. Gaida told The Inquirer internet vigilantes contacted her aunt, daughter, ex-husband, and brother-in-law after @thereelsizzle's video appeared.

"Please do not respond to messages on any social media platforms, answer any phone calls that you may receive as this will just continue to cause more chaos and hurt," reads a Facebook post addressed to "friends, family, and colleagues" that Gaida posted Feb. 25.

"I would never hurt someone like this or threaten them," said Gaida, 51. "I was open to the world, but now I'm closing my doors."

Bogar's son Stampone is considering legal action on behalf of his mother but isn't sure if he's just taking individual posters or social platforms to task.

That distinction is the crux of two Supreme Court cases — Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh — that can determine who can be held liable for illegal or harmful content posted on the internet.

"Any and all options are all on the table" for a lawsuit, said Stampone. But "this is more of an example of how irresponsible behavior online can affect everyday Americans."

Here's how things currently work: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act absolves tech companies from blame for harmful user-generated content posted to their platforms. It was written that way to help the internet blossom in its infancy but isn't well-suited to govern a web reliant on algorithms.

That practice could be heavily regulated if the Supreme Court rules against Big Tech during this session. In other words, if TikTok's or Twitter's algorithms promoted content found to defame or harass Bogar, the platforms could share blame with users.

According to Amy L. Landers, a Drexel Law associate dean who specializes in tech and intellectual property law, that's not likely to happen.

"I don't think the court is capable of obliterating Section 230 completely," because it's not unconstitutional, said Landers, just outdated, which isn't a crime.

Besides, explained Landers, suing individual Tweeters or TikTokers is difficult enough.

Stampone and Bogar could sue for things such as defamation or intentional emotional distress, but "the problem with pursuing individual Tweeters is you often don't know who they are" and if you do, they may not be reachable, said Landers.

One could also start a lawsuit and then subpoena the platform to find out posters' identities, which is expensive — and would go against the interests of tech platforms that are already plagued by privacy concerns.

Gaida, Poppert, and Bogar confront a dilemma: How to acknowledge the harms of doxxing without diverting attention from Bellew's racism?

"We don't mean to take attention away from the horrible racism the Quiñonez family experienced," said Bogar. But, she said, "this whole thing developed because of the reckless behavior of someone who felt he needed to be a vigilante."

Quiñonez did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Bellew's rant has given way to a dichotomy: His pizza shop is doing better than ever, but he's still hurting.

"I feel bad, angry, sad. ... And the more that I think about it now, it's getting worse," Quiñonez told WHYY.

According to Erick Louis, a 22-year-old Black content creator known for social commentary and igniting the Black TikTok Strike, so-called Karen hunting is the only way most people of color see justice or feel vindicated for weathering racism.

"We're forced to survive among systems that are either not built to serve us or built to work against us," Louis said, invoking racial disparities in policing, education, and urban planning. "Social media has become a tool that empowers marginalized folks. ... For a lot of us, it's the only place we have a voice."

And yet, internet vigilantism has a mixed track record: It has exposed insurrectionists, a culture of casual racism at a Philadelphia high school, and held Rachel Dolezal, a white NAACP leader who posed as Black, accountable. But it's also set the internet after the wrong people, such as when internet sleuths inadvertently shut down a Black-owned hair salon, or mistook a well-meaning engineering professor for a Unite the Right protester.

Louis said this has to do with the nature of the internet — earnest desire for justice is mixing with people who know how to turn misinformation into clout and capitalize on short attention spans.

"Media literacy is at an all-time low. People don't critically engage with information on the internet anymore," said Louis. "So when you combine all of that with a fervor for justice and reparations, instances like these are bound to be an issue."

Louis is quick to differentiate between online activists and people who profit off online activism. Several of the TikTokers who posted about Bellew's rant or attempted to doxx her — including @thereelsizzle and @tizzyent, who has more than 5 million followers — are dedicated to posting rage-bait videos of white people behaving badly with little actual discussion of antiracism.

"People are just trying to capitalize on anti-BIPOC violence as a way to build social currency," said Louis. "Everyone is familiar with a Karen, so there have to be conversations about the things captured and why they happen."