Abusing women in politics

Meta’s Instagram is becoming a weapon in this assault, failing to step up to make its platform safer as the US election approaches.

CCDH reported 1,000 abusive comments targeting women politicians running for office in 2024 including:

• Democrat: VP Kamala Harris, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
• Republican: Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Maria Elvira Salazar, Anna Paulina Luna, Lauren Boebert and Senator Marsha Blackburn.

A week later, Instagram had taken no action against 926 of these hateful comments, which contained sexist and racist abuse, and death and rape threats.

An intro from CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed

Online spaces are now the primary places where societal norms and values are negotiated and normalized, and where we learn about and discuss current events, social issues, and politics. In 2024, with democracy hanging in the balance, social media platforms are under heightened scrutiny for their role in rising polarization, stoking division, and our increasingly toxic political environment. So how are they doing? In the case of Instagram, this report finds that they may as well not be trying at all. Abuse is endemic, and there is evidence they fail to act in over 9 in 10 instances even when alerted, including comments like:

“We don’t want blacks around us no matter who they are.” – Targeting Vice President Kamala Harris

“Hope someone leaves you for a dead in a ditch.” – Targeting Senator Marsha Blackburn.

In a diner, town hall meeting, or political rally, we would not tolerate violent, racist, or misogynistic slurs being hurled at a woman seeking to serve her community in public office. An abuser would be thrown out of the venue, fast. Yet, on Instagram, an abuser can barrage a woman with rape and death threats and can continue to use the platform with impunity.

This report is a snapshot of how platforms fail to step up to protect women and public officials. Researchers selected five Republican and five Democrat female incumbents running for office in 2024 and collected 560,000 comments on their recent Instagram posts. 1 in 25 comments – over 20,000 – were identified as likely to be “toxic” by Google’s Perspective AI tool.

When our researchers reported 1000 of the worst of these comments – sexist and racist abuse, death and rape threats, and rule-breaking offenses – Instagram allowed 93% to remain on the platform. Instagram’s failure to uphold and enforce its community guidelines means the platform is failing women and, by extension, our society’s desire for equal opportunity and treatment for women.

The cacophony of hate speech, threats, and gendered abuse we find flooding the comment sections of prominent women politicians is united in one shared purpose: to push women out of political life.

A 2016 Data & Society study found that 41% young women between the ages of 15-29 self-censor online to avoid online harassment. In the 2020 US Congressional race, it was found that women of color candidates were more likely to receive sexist, racist, and violent abuse online. At the state level, 43% of state legislators say they have experienced threats or abuse and 40% expressed they were unwilling to seek reelection or higher office due to abuse, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Algorithms reward hyper-emotive content and the engagement it generates, with amplification and visibility. Indeed, some politicians deliberately incite hatred to boost their engagement online. In our study we found that the hate in Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments reflected both the type of abuse we see all women politicians in the sample endure, but also her own incitement of hate against colleagues in Congress. Just as we clearly condemn abuse against Representative Greene, there is no condoning her own cynical behavior, inciting viral cycles of abuse, much of which is itself misogynist or racist.

Countless studies have been conducted in recent years chronicling the ways women in politics face abuse online. But nothing changes if platforms refuse to act.

Instagram must enforce its existing rules against violent threats and abuse and work with experts in gender-based violence to ensure its current policies align with the lived reality of women and marginalized people in public life.

All platforms should be required to be clear on how they enforce their rules and allow visibility and scrutiny of the actions they take to address abuse. If they remove hate, tell us why. If they decide not to, again, be clear what rule it was assessed against, and why action was refused. Furthermore, platforms should report back to us – the public, regulators and advertisers – on their progress to create spaces in which women can engage without the threat of constant, persistent abuse, through the publication of regular risk assessments and progress reports.

Organizations that support women and underrepresented communities to run for office should be given the resources they need to support those targeted with online abuse, recognizing the potential for psychological and physical harm.

It is no accident that Meta and the large social media platforms that dominate our information ecosystem refuse to use their enormous resources to protect women from digital violence. The immunity gifted to social media platforms by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 – a law passed before social media platforms even existed – means platforms can do the bare minimum to clean up their platforms, while continuing to profit lavishly. Indeed, this legal immunity has since translated into a sense of moral impunity, and, today, ironic howls of victimhood when they are criticized.

The resulting normalization of abuse, violent threats, and hate speech directed against women in public life has serious consequences to destabilize our democracies. It is our shared obligation as a society to ensure that everyone feels empowered to use their voice and participate in politics – and to hold to account those seeking to silence women.

Instagram must enforce its guidelines to stop enabling this violent behavior, and lawmakers must hold the platform accountable for its failure to protect women.