Report finds social media companies do little to stem harassment of female elected officials
With America’s bitter divide on full display this election season, social media platforms are often blamed for fanning polarization by failing to reign in hate speech and misinformation.
A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found Instagram does little to stem harassment of women politicians.
"We found that a lot of these posts were from repeat offenders who were consistently going back again and again and again to these women and abusing them," CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said. "So that every time they post, no matter what it's on, it might be talking about how they have a new childcare policy, it might be talking about how they want to improve healthcare locally, they get a constant drumbeat of racist, misogynist, hateful abuse that threatens them, that makes them think, well, gosh, why on earth am I even bothering to do this?"
A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found Instagram does little to stem harassment of women politicians.
"We found that a lot of these posts were from repeat offenders who were consistently going back again and again and again to these women and abusing them," CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said. "So that every time they post, no matter what it's on, it might be talking about how they have a new childcare policy, it might be talking about how they want to improve healthcare locally, they get a constant drumbeat of racist, misogynist, hateful abuse that threatens them, that makes them think, well, gosh, why on earth am I even bothering to do this?"
