Fighting for recognition: Online abuse of women bloggers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract

Women who blog about politics or identify as feminist in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States face great risks of online abuse. In-depth interviews with 109 bloggers who write about feminisms, family, and/or maternity politics revealed that 73.4% had negative experiences due to blogging and/or social media use. Most of these negative experiences involved not only abusive comments but also stalking, trolls, rape threats, death threats, and unpleasant offline encounters. Response strategies included moderating comments, exposing abuse, adaptation, and solidarity. I argue that the democratic potential of social media in democracies remains haphazard because online abuse is not fully recognized as entangling online and offline communication, constituted and constructed through technological, legal, social, and cultural factors. Using the theoretical approaches of digital feminisms, I call for more systematic empirical work on global recognition of online abuse as punishable crime.