Syd Towle, Cholangiocarcinoma, and the Cruelty of Online "Snark"

The New York Times published an article about a young woman named Syd Towle, and if you spend any time on social media, it's absolutely worth a read. It's a hard but important story about what online "snark" communities can do to a real person, in this case, a young cancer patient.

Syd is a woman in her mid-20s going through cancer treatment in New York. She has a rare cancer called cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile duct. She has an intrahepatic tumor and, unfortunately, has progressed to stage four.

Like a lot of young people navigating something enormous, she posts online, not only about her cancer treatment but about her personal life. And as so often happens when you build any following, a group of people formed who dislike her, seemingly for no reason at all.

I always find this genuinely shocking: that a group of people can dislike someone they've never met, so intensely that they organize an entire community around hating that person. But that's exactly what happened to Syd.

These weren't just a few stray mean comments. Several frequent posters in her "snark" community said despicable things about her. Their core accusations:

• That she was faking her cancer
• That they didn't like how she behaves
• That she should be more sullen, apparently, as if there's a correct way to look while dying

And it didn't stay online. Their opinions spilled over into her real life in genuinely harmful ways:

• They called cancer centers to warn them about a supposed "fake patient," because they didn't believe she actually had cancer.
• Syd had done something kind, gifting products to her nurses (items she'd received as an influencer). After people called the hospital, she was told at her next chemo appointment that she could no longer do those nice things for the nursing staff.

Think about that. A stranger's harassment campaign reached into a chemotherapy ward and took away a small act of kindness between a patient and her nurses.

Here's the part that should end the "she's faking it" narrative permanently. The New York Times investigated and verified everything:

• They spoke to her doctor. She does, in fact, have cholangiocarcinoma.
• They spoke to her oncologist, who is famous and very well known for treating this specific cancer, and confirmed the diagnosis.

She is a real person dealing with a real, terrifying disease. Full stop.

The Times investigators were also able to identify some of the most abhorrent commenters. What struck me is how ordinary they were, people with normal jobs and lives: someone at a tech company, someone who worked at a daycare, a yoga instructor, even a woman whose own nephew had died of cancer. And the most frequent, nastiest commenter of all worked as a privacy officer for a health system, a person whose entire job is protecting patients, harassing a patient, and who, when confronted, reportedly asked for her own privacy to be respected. The irony is staggering.

As is so often the case, these people go silent the moment they're confronted.

I've taken care of cancer patients my entire career, and I want to say this as clearly as I can:

Some people get quiet. Some post through it. Some find humor. Some share every step; some share nothing. None of that is evidence of anything, and it's certainly not evidence that someone is lying about being sick. Policing how a dying person "should" act is one of the cruelest things I can imagine. It's a cousin of the same impulse behind harassing physicians and other people online, the certainty that you're entitled to judge a stranger's inner life.

And yes, I understand the reflex. Some people have faked or misrepresented illness to grift off the public. That's real. But it does not excuse this behavior. You do not get to torment a genuinely sick young woman because other people, somewhere, have lied. Those harassers should be disgusted with themselves, and we should all be disgusted by what they did.

The piece of this I most want people to sit with is the power of social media groups to change how people behave. Individually, most of these commenters would probably never walk up to a stranger and say these things to her face. But inside a group, egging each other on, insulated from consequences, they did far worse, they called her hospital. That group dynamic is corrosive, and it's worth being honest with ourselves about how easily we can get swept into it. It's the same undercurrent I keep coming back to in how social media shapes what people feel entitled to say, and in the broader conversation about how creators who share their lives get treated.

Syd, I'm so sorry for what you've gone through, both the disease and the cruelty piled on top of it. I'm glad you have an amazing team of doctors. I noticed in the article that you were initially treated at my home hospital, Cedars, and I hope you continue to get outstanding care. Most of all, I hope the internet starts treating you with the kindness you deserve.

Syd Towle is a young woman with stage four cholangiocarcinoma whose diagnosis has been independently verified by the New York Times through her physicians. She was harassed by an organized online "snark" community that called her a faker and even contacted her cancer centers, harassment that reached into her chemo ward.

There is no right way to behave while facing a life-threatening illness, and the existence of a few real grifters never justifies tormenting a genuinely sick person. If there's one thing to take from this, it's a reminder of how groups on social media can pull ordinary people into extraordinary cruelty, and a call to be the kind of person who logs off, or better, logs on with compassion.