I was born before the age of the Internet, so my childhood was relatively troll-free. There were no embarrassing pictures or videos instantaneously circulating on a forum for the amusement of thousands of online voyeurs. There were no pile-ons via messaging so vile & soul destroying that it would drag me into the depths of despair or worse.
Just because we didn't have access to the marvels of instant technology, however, didn't mean that I escaped the bullying and the pile-ons via my peers at school. My school/social life when I was a teen was lonely and, at times, miserable because I didn't conform to the ideals of what was deemed 'to fit the clique'. Throughout my adulthood I didn't escape the sexism, misogyny, abuse and domestic violence either. All of these things have always existed outside the realms of cyberspace. Many of these things are now exacerbated via this 21st-century medium that allows instant belittling, abuse or worse - and very often perpetrated under the cloak of anonymity.
My first experiences of online trolling a few years ago came via Facebook. I joined Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family and my husband who spent many months at sea. Facebook was a miracle of communication for us as mobile phones didn't work in the middle of the ocean and we couldn't afford satellite. We could converse in real time via Facebook messenger and keep up with the family news. I eventually started to explore the many groups springing up on Facebook and followed a few of my interests. I would get the odd bully who didn't agree with something I said who wanted to argue the point - but it really started to accelerate in the last seven years or so. My first pile on was orchestrated by a particularly nasty Liberal senator who called me a 'moron' because in his opinion, I knew nothing about the outdated pension system in government. It was a trigger for some of the most rancid pile-on trolling I have ever experienced. Hundreds of people were tagging others to come and join in the evisceration of a stranger on the internet. Everything from my mental status, my personality, my education, my looks and my sexual predilection were up for grabs. It didn't matter that they didn't really know anything about me. What mattered more was the mob mentality, the power of unity and the enjoyment it brought these people to experience that power beyond any logic or reasoning that their behaviour in a real-world social situation would be considered unacceptable.
The experience was unnerving and quite frightening - but it gave me a good idea of what people were capable of online when an opportunity presented itself. I went to great effort to avoid that type of confrontation again on Facebook but I constantly observed this behaviour over and over again for the next two or three years. In 2019-2020 it accelerated beyond what I considered average trolling of people and seemed to coincide with the rise of Donald Trump in his quest to become the president of the United States.
Trump, as it turned out, was the perfect host for the parasitic phenomenon that had been brewing in the darkness on the Internet for many years. In the early days of Internet interaction among the nerdy, 'white, tech-savvy' and socially isolated groups of men - the stirrings of an online misogynistic ideology began to form. Women were, for the most part, not included in these groups - and when they were most were ostracised or attacked for daring to be considered intellectually equal to their male counterparts in the same field.
Out of this angry and strange brew, who were primarily misogynistic groupings of white, educated men with predetermined ideologies about their superior placement in the world - grew alt-right patriotic communities that encompassed racism, white supremacy and a much darker reactionism to the women's rights movement - which was gaining momentum after the second-wave of feminism in the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s there was increased awareness of the difficulties women faced with regard to sexism in the workplace, equal pay and the gender gap, racial issues and global feminism. Things really took off when the Internet became more accessible and user friendly for women - who were then able to network ideas and information, form mass movements and mobilise more effectively via the information super-highway.
Over the last two decades, distinct 'loosely moderated' forums were formed in retaliation to the angst and frustration that many in those fore-runner women-hating groups were a part of. 4chan - an under-the-radar, free-speech anything-goes discussion and image board grew out of the original counterpart 2channel. 2channel was a 'Japanese text board founded in 1999 by Hiroyuki Nishimura'. The postings were anonymous and became very popular as people could publish opinion freely and 'without moderation'. 2channel still exists today as 2chan - but the idea was adapted into another forum called 4chan by a young man in New York. The lack of moderation, the free speech and anonymity once again took off and seeded the ideologies of the 'us versus them' cohort, the downtrodden, the disaffected, the racists, the misogynists and anybody who had an axe to grind - found that they could do so easily here with the support and encouragement of their fellow 'compatriots' with like-minded and sometimes twisted intentions. 4chan gave birth to 8chan and 8kun with predominantly zero-to-no moderation & tech savvy operation where all users could create discussion boards, organise and mobilise en masse trolling & delve into areas of complete unhinged depravity with complete anonymity. People who participated in these forums have been linked to mass shootings, extreme trolling, promoting violence en masse, child pornography and domestic violence.
When one of these forums is taken down because of its participants extreme views, another is reinvented under the mantra that 'free speech matters and nobody is going to stop us from doing or saying what we want'. Participants and players who orchestrate mobilisation of these groups often have vested interests outside of them and achieve a certain amount of notoriety that pays them dividends - and often pays the bills through crowdfunding and donation sources 'to keep up the good work of the forgotten and marginalised men who have been victimised by an oppressive and often antagonistic society that favours women'.
These groups are all encompassing. And they are gaining momentum. The extreme, hard-core views are often hidden to those who haven't been desensitised to it. But they soon become indoctrinated once they have been 'pulled in' to the more hard-core forums. Some young men who start out in these groups are those who are the most vulnerable. The disaffected and lonely who don't fit in, who may be mentally unstable and may be easily influenced. The heady sense of belonging and acceptance in any group online may be enough to tip them over the edge to 'fit in'. Others already angrily teetering on the edge of murk will only need a push to become fully immersed in these dark online gatherings. These groups have become adept at marketing through men's rights activist groups. These MVA's should not be confused with real men's rights groups who often work actively and in tandem with women's groups to make lives better for men in their communities in solidarity with women's rights. Ulterior men's rights activist groups are not interested in helping the wider community with regard to women - they are more interested in painting men as the ultimate victims and women as the antagonists or the oppressors - and governments, courts and authorities as 'softcocks' for not attempting to create an environment for their misogynistic behaviour to be validated.
A group often under-reported who are deeply involved with the chan & kun forums are incels. Incels are often written off laughingly as young, pimply boy-men living in their mother's basement with no real experience of life - who are angry at the world and women - and are expressing it online anonymously in their frequent trolling of women. While some of this may be true - there will be those who may be harmless - many shouldn't be treated as such. There is a much more sinister intent running through these groups en masse which can indeed be a fore-runner to violence, rape, domestic violence, racism, hatred of minority groups and hatred of women. And these people online through mass mobilisation are capable of influencing and affecting people who are in the public sphere and people who are in power.
In Washington DC in 2016, a man entered a pizza restaurant with an AR-15 rifle with the intent of fighting off the perpetrators of a 'Satanic child sex abuse ring involving top Democrats such as Hillary Clinton'. This conspiracy theory had been circulating and added to for some time on incel message boards on the Internet. Before this man entered the restaurant with the intent to 'sort out the paedophile ring', the restaurant had been receiving hundreds of death threats. Michael Flynn Junior, son of Michael Flynn - Donald Trump's national security advisor - posted messages supporting this conspiracy theory. Michael Flynn himself has been allegedly linked to QAnon. As for the perpetrator with the AR-15, he went to prison and became an instant folk hero within those subterranean forums because of his 'heroic' actions and attempts to take down a paedophile ring. This conspiracy still persists and although AR-15 man was regretful of his actions as he saw no evidence of a 'Satanic child sex abuse ring' - his admission has been debunked again and again as more conspiracy theories circulate in these forums while moving to more mainstream social media.
Out of the Washington incident, gradually grew QAnon and the QAnon conspiracy theories.
Some mass shootings in the United States have been perpetrated by young men who have been influenced by these forums, but you won't hear much about the incel connection in mainstream media. What you will hear is that the young man was mentally disturbed and alone in his miserable life and his family life as they attempt to nut out the reasoning behind his awful crime.
While some of the forums on these sites may be harmless discussion boards about hobbies and interests, the real issues are accessibility, freedom to say anything you want without accountability and with complete anonymity. These boards allow all manner of hate and promotion of illegal behaviour to flourish without checks and balances. These forums are often infiltrated by members other groups and ideological alt-right thinkers - notably white supremacists, hard-right groups and men's rights activists. There is constant overlapping online by groups who are gaining more mainstream popularity and visibility in the media. When there are enough players to push through ideas, propaganda and misinformation online - it will often gain momentum when it is noticed by mainstream media. Promotion of these ideologies is coordinated and driven for that reason.
In my opinion, this has been building for many years - but there are certain trigger points that will harness the power of these groups online to enable others in positions of power to push through messages that are very often the same rhetoric that is pushed on discussion boards by incels and groups involved with them. The candidacy of Donald Trump was one of those trigger points. Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist specifically targeted groups of men who fitting the incel profile 'because they were easier to manipulate with conspiratorial thinking'. 'A former Breitbart editor (and whistle blower) enlisted the services of Cambridge Analytica to drum up fringe voters from swing states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign'. Bannon used that information and voter records to 'identify people more likely to vote for Trump'. Incels and other alt-right groupings were very aware of what was going on and celebrated on forums when Donald Trump won, congratulating themselves for the part that they seemingly played in this outcome. Donald Trump was their perfect man. His contributions to an anti-women rhetoric constantly echoed their own while feeding a misogynistic momentum to alt-right groups throughout the web. The degradation and disrespect of women is often rampant in these online communities, with constant encouragement, discussion and advice in how best to go about making some of their dark fantasies a reality. These communities deny these allegations and will assert that they are exercising their rights to free speech and are expressing themselves with 'dark humour'.
The crossover from these communities into public and media space comes through public figures, sometimes politicians - dog whistling deliberately or inadvertently to these communities with sexist, degrading and misogynistic remarks and actions - and also initial access through seemingly softer social media forums such as Facebook and Twitter. Over a period of time there is a desensitisation and a 'legitimisation' through constant exposure as to what is acceptable behaviour in society and what is not. I can't count the number of times I have heard a public figure - be it a politician, TV personality or celebrity - make misogynistic remarks and get away with it. Some have suffered a shellacking for it from various women's groups until it becomes too hard to ignore by mainstream media. And while it is good to publicly show people that these comments are not acceptable, it also serves to further inflame communities of men who think they are constantly 'under attack' for anything they say or do. They will immediately go on the defensive and downplay men's behaviour towards women. They will also vilify women's rights groups as people who are antagonistic, argumentative, self-righteous and 'feminazis'.
I believe these communities and/or some of their ideologies are infiltrating social media. I joined Twitter in July 2018 - quite late in the piece in comparison to some who have shared their views on this medium for a considerably longer time. In the last four years I have picked up a reasonably good following. I am an openly left-oriented Labor supporter and a supporter of women's rights. I am opinionated and I like to share my views and my life experiences. I have a past history - as many women I have met on this medium and in the public sphere do - of sexual violence, domestic violence, misogyny, sexism in the workplace and homelessness. I draw strength and comfort from these amazing women and their experiences and I have learned to speak up for myself and others who may be going through similar experiences. What I have noted on Twitter is that I am trolled considerably more than some of my male counterparts or those who have adopted male personas. Trolls will more often than not focus on what they feel are my key issues - my looks, my appearance, my education, my lack of intelligence and very often my sex life - or lack of it. They are very personalised attacks without substance and are often generated by key tweets:
My political affiliation
My support of BLM
My support of women's rights
My support for abortion
Speaking out against sexism, misogyny, rape and domestic violence
Vaccination support
My support for people on welfare and the CDC card
My castigation of alleged rapists
Speaking out against religion
My support for the LGBTQI community
I've been called a slut, a scrag, a dumb fuck, a c*nt, a feminazi, stupid, a numbnut, ugly, a whinger, a liar with regard to my experience of domestic violence and rape, someone who needs a good fucking, someone who doesn't deserved to be fucked, someone who doesn't deserve to live, somebody who needs to be bashed, somebody who should die from Covid. I've been stalked online, stalked offline, trolled on my mobile and I've had accounts hacked on various mediums over the last 12 months. It appears to be escalating and it appears to be coming largely from male personas.
Some people might write this off as 'trolling'. I don't. I equate it to a much larger and darker movement supporting each other in a common belief that women are inferior. It's not coincidental that women for more than the last two millennia have been treated as slaves, chattels, servants, inferior, weaker and less important than men in most societies - and a lot of men who occupy these groups would like to see a return to 'the old ways' - where men were men and women did what they were told.
These men draw their opinions and ideologies from not only social media, but from what has come before them for thousands of years. For them, social media has allowed magnification of these old societal accepted 'norms' and escalation of them by the sheer size and speed of cyber communications. It doesn't help that we have in some parts of the world patriarchal societies. It doesn't help that in western democracies that we have leaders and social opportunists magnifying the hatred of women. It doesn't help that we have had leaders in western democracies, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison - dog whistling their misogynistic tendencies through their speech, their actions and to the media on a regular basis. Belittling women deliberately. Legitimising it. Sending the message that even in powerful positions this type of behaviour is okay.
There was a distinct uptick in trolling of myself and other women following the March4Justice movement in 2021 after the Brittany Higgins rape allegations in Parliament House, combined with another surge in the MeToo movement which had previously spread virally following the exposure of sexual abuse allegations Harvey Weinstein in 2017. Women came together and shared their experiences in public, in private and online - and many of us were vilified for it. The trolling surged again when I and other women mentioned Christian Porter and the rape allegation. In the last twelve months or more, whenever a tweet of mine gained significant traction - I attracted a disproportionate number of misogynistic trolls regardless of the contents of the tweet. An opinion appears to have been formed based on my profile and at times I feel specifically targeted online because I am a female.
The latest trigger for mass trolling of women and a spectacle of hatred for women world-wide has been the overturning of Roe versus Wade in the United States. Right-wing supporters, religious fanatics and alt-right movements enthusiastically applauded this decision as tens of thousands of people, primarily women, across the Unites States and the world protested against the end of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. In June 2022, I tweeted my thoughts on the three Supreme Court judges who all voted 'to lift limits on carrying guns & strip away the right to an abortion. This tweet was seen over 34,000 times on Twitter. It attracted some rancid trolling - once again primarily by men. There seemed to be consensus of support of Donald Trump, a known misogynist, for helping to appoint the judges to make these decisions. Most were derogatory towards me. Some told me to find God, some alluded to my 'sexual promiscuity', my lack of intelligence and lack of remorse for 'killing' over 500,000 babies. These people were almost apoplectic in their anger and belief that I had no right to an opinion like that because not only was I the 'enemy' of the conservatives, I was a woman who believed in abortion. Their rights to bear arms, insult women and tell women what they could do with their bodies apparently trumped all aspects of women's rights - which is a disturbing trait of the Incel - who believe that women should not have any rights at all.
As trolling strategies move more into the mainstream arenas people become more desensitised to their behaviour. Women are advised to ignore them, block them and report the particularly volatile and threatening tweets or posts. Women have not been advised to be particularly proactive in dealing with this behaviour. It runs parallel to misogynistic behaviour in society, sexism, assault, rape and domestic violence. Women haven't reported this behaviour out of fear of ridicule, fear of not being believed, fear of retaliation. When women have reported this behaviour, very often it has had little effect on the behaviour. At times it has escalated the behaviour and in some instances the outcomes have been catastrophic.
If anybody believes that trolling of women in our online spaces is harmless, they should think again. In reality, trolling of women is an extension of the very real anger, frustration, impotence and hate that some men feel when they feel threatened by the strides women are taking in society and the impact that women's rights are having in our modern society. Men have felt this way for years, long before the advent of the Internet. The incels, the alt-right, the men's rights activists, the perpetrators of violence against women - have always been there in one form or another. The Internet and it's various extensions, groups, dark web, media and now even mainstream media have served to exacerbate their impact on others - pull others in and recruit beyond their wildest expectations. Just as women have been able to grow and develop their networks, enhance their communications and are on their way to developing strategies to create a stronger presence in a world that has taken more from women than given back - these misogynistic groups are gathering momentum and thriving. Their online presence is becoming more noticeable, more powerful and is having a disturbing impact offline - in the real world. Toxic masculinity is not only virtual, it's real and it's everywhere. It's reaching out and infecting new generations of vulnerable young men and boys.
Misogyny and hatred of women must be named and recognised. This is a man problem - it's NOT a woman problem. Women are the victims - not the perpetrators. Until society recognises the need to stand up as a collective and say that this behaviour will no longer be tolerated, change laws, legislate and educate - toxic masculinity will continue to stride forward.
Important references for further reading:
'Men who hate women. The Extremism Nobody is Talking About' (2020), by Laura Bates.
'QAnon and On. A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults' (2021), by Van Badham.
Photo by Yan Krukov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hand-typing-on-keyboard-9072332/