Why amplify fear, he asks?

Because someone has to.

Because 62 million visits to videos of unconscious women being raped is not a web metrics debate. Because the women in this story didn't give CNN their names and their trauma so that men could show up in the comments to challenge the edges of the data.

Because every single time a story like this breaks, there’s a man—reliably, predictably, exhaustingly—who’s more agitated about the precision of the stats than the existence of the crimes.

He asks why I'm amplifying fear?

Today, in the wake of this story??

Yes. Of course I am. Women are terrified. We’re sleeping next to men who are watching these videos. We’re married to men in these groups. Perhaps we’re even in one of these videos. The victims who came forward had no idea. So it’s plausible it’s happened to us, or someone we care about.

Our fear isn’t a rhetorical device—it's a completely rational response to a documented reality.

So yes. I will amplify it. Loudly. Unapologetically. Every time.

The rage is mine. The fear belongs to women everywhere.

And the problem—the actual problem, not the traffic metrics—lies with men who read a story like this and get bent on women’s responses, instead of the actual crimes.

You are the problem, Paul.

Since you asked.