‘Gender Trolling’ Has Breached Women’s Freedom of Expression Online
Written by: Isabella Fang | Edited by: Veronika Bianca Millena
The indomitable and orchestrated nature of ‘gender trolling’ has riddled the Internet, embedding itself in some of the most far-reaching digital platforms. Gender trolling is an umbrella term, referencing instances of sexist and misogynistic hate speech facilitated through the means of information and communications technology (ICT). Ranging from direct insults and verbal attacks to outright blackmailing, deadnaming, doxing, and even death threats, gender trolling is alarmingly multi-faceted. Often launched by organized groups of aggressors, gender trolling has immensely heightened since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding insult to injury by magnifying inequalities in online accessibility and experiences. As social services, work obligations, educational resources, and more have made the staggering transition into the digital world, so have gender trollers who exploit digitized loopholes to initiate their slew of attacks.
Statistically, young women are more likely to be targeted by online violence such as physical threats, sexual harassment, and stalking. In an interview conducted by Amnesty International with Laura Bates, a UK writer and women’s rights advocate, she expounded on this harrowing truth: “We are seeing young women and teenage girls experiencing online harassment as a normal part of their existence online. Girls who dare to express opinions about politics or current events often experience a very swift, misogynistic backlash … It’s an invisible issue right now, but it might be having a major impact on the future political participation of those girls and young women.”
Bates’ statements couldn’t be more accurate. Globally, an estimated 85% of women and girls have sustained some form of online harassment and/or abuse. Women who are politically active online face intimidation, malicious commentary, intimidation, sexualized misrepresentation, and reputational risk. Sexist hate speech and gendered disinformation campaigns on social media in particular have severely inhibited women’s online activity, staving off women’s civic and public engagement. The Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2018–2023 affirmed that social media is notably subject to gender-abusive use.
An undeniable driving force, gender trollers are prompting women to abandon their digital podiums, withdrawing themselves entirely. According to a report authored by UN Women, 18% of girls who are met with very frequent harassment cease posting content that expresses their opinions, and 16% of girls change the way they express themselves online to avoid harassment. Leading women to limit what they share and how they interact with others, self-censorship kindled by hateful stigma has stifled women’s voices.
In addition, research conducted by the Pew Research Center found that only 1 in 4 women reported online abuse to relevant legal authorities, and almost 9 in 10 opted to restrict their online usage, augmenting the digital gender divide. Currently, women and girls constitute an astonishing 2.9 billion individuals who remain unconnected to the Internet. This constitutes a substantial proportion of those with intersecting identities in which individual characteristics and factors such as race, ethnicity, and economic standing overlap with one another to influence online access. To the point in which Internet usage is more than an inconvenience, but psychological torment, gender trolling has only amplified the urgency and gravity of online accountability.
As for the ubiquity of gender trolling, although significant data gaps persist, one global examination by the Economist Intelligence Unit observed that 38% of women have personally experienced digital violence, and 85% of women have witnessed online violence against other women. Another study, published by the Pew Research Center, determined that women are more likely than men to report sexual harassment (16% contra 5%) and stalking (13% contra 9%) online. Likewise to other forms of gender-based violence, sexist hate speech is exceedingly underreported and these numbers are even greater for marginalized women that have been societally disempowered and alienated. Women are consciously choosing to keep to themselves and, especially, women who are markedly being cast into the online spotlight are being bombarded by digital, gender-based abuse.
With calculated intent, gender trolling has latched onto the lives of high-profile women and girls. In deliberate attempts to silence those who choose to speak out, reverse gender equality, and diminish democracy, women are being forced into the dark and dehumanized, sometimes for their mere online presence. Online abuse has sought to undermine the credibility of women and, oftentimes, their agendas. Recurrent themes for this systematic and targeted online discrimination have been identified as women’s equality, sexual and reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and liberal values. Evidence has cited women and girls experiencing higher rates and increased severity of online violence when engaging in advocacy, particularly related to gender justice. “Pile-ons,” in which activists are confronted with systematized waves of varying online abuse, are some of the most common incidents. Research directed by Plan International demonstrated that girls involved in activism and feminism are regularly victims of online harassment, suggesting that the deterrence of women from partaking in social and political discourse starts early.
In the past few years, gender trolling has become a tactical and menacing tool, penetrating the world of politics. Increased anonymity online has further expedited and, in one way or another, protected the transmission of hate speech across the board, opening up barrages of attacks against female opponents with politically-divergent views. Gender trolling has been the impetus for political candidates and elected officials in some of the highest positions of power having to resign. Scotland’s very first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern both stepped down, in part, alluding to vicious and persistent cyber abuse.
When Manuela D’ Avila ran for Brazil’s 2018 presidential election, she was met with a bombardment of extreme antagonism and online hostility, including propagated deepfake stories diffusing malicious and forged information. One story claimed that, during the period of time in which Brazil was enduring a financial crisis, she took a trip to Miami to purchase luxury goods, wearing a photoshopped image of the words “Jesus is transgender” on her T-shirt. In reality, D’ Avila never went on that trip, and the word on her T-shirt actually read “Rebel!”
D’Ávila announced, in May 2022, that she would not run for office in the Brazilian general election that year for several denoted reasons, one of which specified the frequency of online hate she and her family had been encountering.
A recent study published by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence reinforced the existence of this pattern of cyber abuse. Delving into the frequency of coordinated online attacks, the study investigated how coalition cabinet ministers in Finland were being impacted by technology-enabled abuse. The report ascertained that an inordinate majority of abusive messages targeted female ministers. In fact, female ministers were the recipients of about 10 times the volume of abusive messages as opposed to their male counterparts — an extremely colossal disparity.
Not only do women currently in politics have to overcome the hurdles of gender trolling, but the issue also introduces intergenerational complications. Women with a prior interest in politics may reconsider their ambitions over fears of similar online violence, an impediment to young, aspiring women entering professions that necessitate a highly visible public life.
Women in the public eye — politicians, human and equal rights defenders, activists, and journalists to name a few — tend to face higher onslaughts of gender trolling. One recent study conducted by UNESCO discovered that 73% of female journalists experienced digital attacks throughout the course of their work, including physical and sexual violence along with digital security transgressions. As a result, 11% missed work to recover from the attack, 38% lowered their publicity, 4% quit their jobs, and 2% abandoned journalism altogether.
In the web of global society, gender trolling has sanctioned hate at the expense of social solidarity. Identifying misogynistic hate speech in everyday online interactions is becoming even more of a challenge. For even the best-equipped and well-intentioned moderators, gender trolling, in its complex and, oftentimes, obscure linguistic diversity, can be a major hurdle. However, as advanced and capable artificial intelligence is integrated to learn to combat gender-based, technology-facilitated violence, trends may start to decline. Current laws addressing gender-based digital violence are unclear and inconsistent, frequently not keeping pace with technological developments and the infinitesimal modes of such abuse in a digital context. Especially, deficiencies in social media and technology company algorithms have fundamentally promoted online violence against women while failing to detect when organized men’s groups, incels, and radical sexist groups use these platforms to disseminate their attacks. Ultimately, social media platforms must immediately stop publishing the discriminatory views of extreme misogynists and eradicate similar existing posts. Enhancing cooperation between states, the technology sector, women’s rights organizations, and civil society along with strengthening policies will help to better regulate content posted online and hold companies accountable for their actions. By taking the initiative, progress is possible toward closing the digital gender gap while defending the right to freedom of expression. The impacts of these solutions transcend the digital sphere, proposing significant impacts on the rights of women online and off. Although the online world can be daunting, it can provide us with something even greater — an entire network of people, a digital space for creation, connection, and expression.
References
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