LA Times, The Hill Highlight Online Abuse of Women Politicians and Journalists

The Los Angeles Times put together an interesting profile on how women politicians, such as Vice President Kamala Harris and others are targets for online abuse. A Wilson Center study, Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized Against Women Online, found that Harris was the overwhelming target for much of this abuse and criticized the platforms in their response.

This comes, as The Hill was reporting on Online harassment is ugly and routine for women in journalism.

Sadly, however, this is nothing new. As host of Cyber Law & Business Report, I had numerous shows addressing the abuse of women in social media, most notably my 2018 interview with Amnesty International’s Azmina Dhrodia on their report “ToxicTwitter: Violence and Abuse against Women Online”, which charged that Twitter’s failure to safeguard women on its platform is a human rights violation. 

(See detailed summary – Amnesty Int’l Report: Twitter’s Failure to Protect Women from Online Abuse Violates Human Rights Law.)

There also have been numerous articles on this topic, including

Amanda Hess, Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet, Pacific Standard (Updated Jun. 14, 2017)

Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly, The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women, The Atlantic (Oct. 9, 2014)

Conor Friedersdorf, When Misogynist Trolls Make Journalism Miserable for Women, The Atlantic (Jan 7, 2014)