It was somewhere between the calls to repeal the 19th Amendment and the declarations that I was a traitor who belonged in Guantanamo Bay that the trolls started to wear me down.
Several days before the onslaught began, I posted a dry Twitter video debunking a conspiratorial narrative that was gaining prominence among Trump supporters. The next week, while sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office, my iPhone grew hot as it processed a stream of tweets and direct messages telling me “Islam was right about women,” criticizing the size of my breasts, my chin dimple, and the symmetry of my face. According to the trolls, I was an “affluent white female liberal,” or “AWFL,” and part of a CIA psyop. The guest room that has served as my office since March, where I filmed the video, was actually a basement in Langley, they said. Next year, I would be “dealt with in the streets.” One tweet read chillingly: “I’d fix her.” When it’s happening to you, online abuse feels like a tornado of thousands of insects that, when swatted, will simply get angrier, or dirt that will get kicked up if you struggle.
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Source: Online Harassment Toward Women Is Getting Even More Insidious | WIRED