Public Figures, Public Rage

The report finds that women and candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds are disproportionately targeted by systemic online abuse on social media. On Twitter, abusive messages accounted for 15-39% of content directed at female candidates, compared to 5-10% for men. On Facebook, female Democrats received ten times more abusive comments than their male counterparts. The abuse directed at women is frequently gendered, attacking physical appearance and competence, while abuse toward men is generally focused on political stances. The authors argue that self-regulation by tech companies is insufficient and recommend that democratic governments implement mandatory transparency and accountability for algorithmic systems and content moderation processes.

• Women are significantly more likely than men to experience online abuse on Twitter, with abusive messages comprising 15-39% of content directed at every female candidate analysed, while male candidates typically received 5-10%.
• Candidates with intersectional identities, particularly women from ethnic minority backgrounds, face the highest levels of abuse. On Twitter, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar received the highest proportion of abusive messages at 39%, while Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received the highest proportion of abusive comments on Facebook.
• The nature of online abuse differs by gender: attacks on women are often personal, targeting their physical appearance, intelligence, and professional competence, whereas attacks on men are more generalised and focused on political positions.
• On Facebook, gender and party affiliation intersect to influence the volume of abuse; female Democrats received ten times more abusive comments than male Democrats, and Republican women received twice as many as Republican men.
• Male politicians from ethnic minority backgrounds did not show higher vulnerability to abuse than white men, although the content of the abuse was more likely to be racialised, such as the use of racist slurs and tropes against Senator Tim Scott.
• Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was a notable exception to gender trends, receiving the highest proportion of abuse among all male candidates on both Twitter (27.8%) and Facebook.
• The report identifies a failure in platform self-regulation, noting that some content violating policy guidelines remained live on platforms due to an increasing reliance on automated systems and reactive user flagging over manual review.

APA

Guerin, C., & Maharasingam-Shah, E. (2020). Public Figures, Public Rage. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Public-Figures-Public-Rage-4.pdf

Chicago

Guerin, Cécile, and Eisha Maharasingam-Shah. Public Figures, Public Rage. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2020. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Public-Figures-Public-Rage-4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Guerin |first1=Cécile |last2=Maharasingam-Shah |first2=Eisha |title=Public Figures, Public Rage |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2020 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Public-Figures-Public-Rage-4.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{guerin2020public, author = {Guerin, Cécile and Maharasingam-Shah, Eisha}, title = {{Public Figures, Public Rage}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2020}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Public-Figures-Public-Rage-4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }