Online abuse is one part of a broader spectrum of attacks—digital, physical, legal and psychological—aimed at pushing women and nonbinary individuals offline, out of public discourse and out of their fields of expertise.
In 2011, I was a young student marching alongside millions of Egyptians to demand the removal of then-president Hosni Mubarak, who brutally clung to power for nearly 30 years. As I washed off tear gas and blood and patched up protesters violently attacked by the police and military forces, I made a fateful decision: I would leave my premedical studies to pursue a career in journalism to expose human rights abuses.
Covering human rights abuses under a dictatorship was hard. Being a woman doing that job was outright dangerous. The government and its supporters tried to intimidate me, to take away my power and silence me, as they did with many journalists and activists. Danger followed me everywhere. From sexual harassment, stalking, physical attacks and constant attempts to hack into my accounts to threats of rape and kidnapping, it became a nightmare that swallowed my existence, online and off. Well-intentioned people suggested I leave social media, spend less time online and on my phone, or just quit journalism.
Instead, I became even more determined to continue doing my job and staying online, one of the few remaining places not controlled by the Egyptian government. I refused to accept that the only way for me to be safe was to leave the online spaces where I could be my full self, where I, alongside many others, could draw attention to the constant, egregious human rights violations surrounding me.
I stayed online, but I couldn’t remain in Egypt—I had to leave my country and move to the United States. Even here, the online harassment and abuse continued, compounded by my layers of identities, and especially by my newfound status as a person in exile.
—Jeje Mohamed
Online abuse isn’t unique to certain parts of the world and it doesn’t need a passport to follow you. It is dynamic and ever changing. Most of all, it is a global and growing threat to anyone with an online presence.
Being online has become a central part of our professional, personal and social lives. For writers and journalists, who need to be online to do their jobs and make their voices heard, online abuse poses a particularly untenable double bind. They depend on social media platforms—especially X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok—to conduct, publish and promote their work and to secure professional opportunities.
At the same time, their visibility and the very nature of what they do for a living—which often involves challenging the status quo, holding the powerful to account and sharing analysis or opinions—can make them lightning rods for online attacks. A 2019 study from the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 90 percent of U.S.-based reporters felt that online abuse was one of their biggest safety threats.
People are abused not only for what they do for a living and what they say online but also for who they are and how they look.
- A 2021 Economist Intelligence Unit report found that 85 percent of women globally have witnessed online harassment and nearly 40 percent have experienced it directly.
- Black women around the world are “84 percent more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets,” according to a 2018 study by Amnesty International and Element AI.
- A 2021 report by Pew Research found that 68 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults faced online harassment, compared to 39 percent of straight adults.
- Recent research, including by GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League, has shown that online abuse against LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, is on the rise.
Identity matters not only in terms of the frequency of online attacks but also in terms of the kinds of tactics used. Whereas men may be subjected to insults about their intelligence or ability in general, women and nonbinary people are more likely to experience tactics that are explicitly gendered, including sexual harassment, threats of sexual violence, gendered disinformation and nonconsensual intimate imagery. Online attacks against women journalists often involve the targeting of their parents and children.
It’s one thing to be called an idiot and a hack. It’s another thing entirely to be called a c**t, have your face photoshopped onto sexually explicit images, and have your children threatened with rape and murder.
Identity can also profoundly shape the impact of online abuse. For a survivor of sexual assault, a rape threat can be especially triggering. For a person of color, a slur may be compounded by the steady stream of experiences with racism at work and in daily life.
The word we commonly use for such attacks, trolling, minimizes the seriousness of what is actually taking place: harassment, abuse, hate and threats that can cause a range of harms. Online abuse places an enormous strain on mental and physical health and can lead to stress, anxiety, depression and even suicide. It can also escalate to offline violence. Because the risks to health and safety are very real, online abuse has forced some writers and journalists to censor themselves, avoid certain subjects, step away from social media or leave their professions altogether. According to a report by the International Women’s Media Foundation and TrollBusters, almost a third of women in journalism think about leaving the field entirely over online harassment.
Individual harms have systemic consequences. Online abuse stifles press freedom, chills free speech and undermines equity and inclusion. When online abuse drives women, LGBTQ+ people and people of color to leave industries that are already predominantly male, heteronormative and white, public discourse becomes less equitable and less free.
Attempts to harass and intimidate women, nonbinary people and people of color are hardly new. But while hate and abuse are as old as time, the internet is just 40 years old—and it’s an amplification machine. We know that hateful, harassing and inflammatory content travels further and faster online, especially on social media platforms that rely on eyeballs and engagement to make money. Governments, political parties, corporations and other powerful actors have figured out that they can manipulate algorithms to instigate coordinated online attacks to intimidate and threaten critical voices and stifle dissent.
Well-intentioned people suggested I leave social media, spend less time online and on my phone, or just quit journalism. Instead, I became even more determined to continue doing my job and staying online.
Jeje Mohamed
When Lebanese journalist Ghada Oueiss criticized the Saudi regime for murdering journalist Jamal Khashoggi, disinformation trolls and bots linked to the Saudis tweeted death threats and sexualized, disinformation-filled memes about Oueiss.
Indian journalist Rana Ayyub is frequently inundated with abusive comments within seconds of posting on X.
Such volume and speed are hallmarks of coordinated harassment campaigns.
This story originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Ms. magazine. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the Winter issue delivered straight to your mailbox.
Authoritarianism, which is on the rise globally, relies on the suppression of the free press and the fueling of misogyny and other forms of identity-based hate to dismantle democratic processes. Women journalists, whose voices have historically been marginalized and are now gaining ground, have become a target for anti-democratic movements.
We’re seeing this in the Philippines, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Turkey and right here in the U.S.
According to a global study from UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists, 73 percent of women journalists around the world have experienced online abuse in the course of their work; for one in five, online abuse migrated offline into physical abuse and attacks.
And when online abuse moves offline, the consequences can be deadly. In 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh were murdered within a six-week span. Both women had faced prolific online abuse, much of it gendered, in retaliation for producing work that was critical of their governments.
The connection between online and offline violence is so clear that when Filipina American Nobel Peace laureate Maria Ressa started facing escalating attacks online, the family of Caruana Galizia publicly expressed their fears for Ressa’s safety.
But online abuse isn’t just about writers and journalists. Outspoken, influential women and nonbinary people are under attack online in just about every field, including doctors, politicians, election officials, athletes, librarians, writers and artists.
What’s so effective about online abuse is that it’s made to feel targeted, personal, individual and organic— when in fact it’s often systemic, strategic and coordinated. Online abuse is one part of a broader spectrum of attacks—digital, physical, legal and psychological—intended to push women and nonbinary individuals offline, out of public discourse and out of their fields of expertise. Regardless of where they live and what they do, the goal is universal: to stop them from doing their jobs and shut them up.
If we could focus the conversation on how [to] create the conditions for free speech—free speech for reporters, free speech for women, free speech for people of color, free speech for people who are targeted offline—that is the conversation we have to have.
Mary Anne Franks
When people stop speaking out and writing about certain topics due to fear of reprisal, everyone loses. Even more troubling, this threat is most acute when people are trying to engage with some of the most complex, controversial and urgent questions facing our society—questions about politics, race, religion, gender and sexuality, and domestic and international public policy.
Democracies depend on robust, healthy discourse in which every member of society can engage. As professor Mary Anne Franks, president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative at the George Washington University Law School, said: “You can’t have free expression of ideas if people have to worry that they’re going to get doxed or they’re going to get threatened. … So if we could focus the conversation on how [to] create the conditions for free speech—free speech for reporters, free speech for women, free speech for people of color, free speech for people who are targeted offline—that is the conversation we have to have.”
Up next:
U.S. democracy is at a dangerous inflection point—from the demise of abortion rights, to a lack of pay equity and parental leave, to skyrocketing maternal mortality, and attacks on trans health. Left unchecked, these crises will lead to wider gaps in political participation and representation. For 50 years, Ms. has been forging feminist journalism—reporting, rebelling and truth-telling from the front-lines, championing the Equal Rights Amendment, and centering the stories of those most impacted. With all that’s at stake for equality, we are redoubling our commitment for the next 50 years. In turn, we need your help, Support Ms. today with a donation—any amount that is meaningful to you. For as little as $5 each month, you’ll receive the print magazine along with our e-newsletters, action alerts, and invitations to Ms. Studios events and podcasts. We are grateful for your loyalty and ferocity.
