First off, I find it hilarious that barely literate people think it makes sense to try and shame Emily — who is clearly brighter than they are — into silence simply because they could never hope to date her (Which seems to be the subtext of most of these tweets). So I clearly don’t have any regard for the people throwing this kind of vitriolic nonsense at Emily simply because she dares to have an opinion. But I also think both the header of this article and its premises are a little wonky. The real title would be “This is what happens when This women supports Bernie Sanders Online.” I tend to think it is sloppy and kind of disingenuous to draw a universal from the particular. I also want to push back really hard against the whole concept of ‘online abuse.’ If anyone puts their opinion out in the public sphere they are literally inviting a response. Whether that response is civil or nasty is both beyond their control and really beside the point. Obviously, overt threats of violence are completely unwarrented and should be treated the same way they would be treated if this was a face to face interaction, but bad language or insults are simply a form of discourse. They are often unpleasant and generally reveal far more about the person engaging in them than their target, but the idea that they should be policed or silenced in some way in inimicable to the basic premises of free speech. Which is what this is all about, in the same way that Emily has every right to voice her opinion, whether people find it disagreeable or even thoughtless, so do the people responding, with the obvious caveat that to threaten physical harm is potentially a felony.