Jessica Malaty Rivera never expected a simple request would upend her life. As a science communicator with a public-facing role, in 2022 she joined fellow scientists in co-authoring a letter to Spotify, urging the platform to add a disclaimer to an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast. The episode was filled with misinformation about Covid-19 and mRNA vaccines.
The backlash was massive. In what she called “one of the darkest times in my life,” Malaty Rivera received a call from the FBI, warning her that her name and her children’s names were circulating on dark websites. She was advised to leave home for a few days.
“That was a turning point for me,” she said. “It radicalized me a bit in that — yes, many times there are keyboard warriors who are braver on the computer than they are in real life, but this was also happening at a time when that person was apprehended for having Dr. Fauci’s name etched in guns, who was on his way to Maryland with a mission.”
Her experience is not unique. Experts warn that online harassment has escalated in both frequency and severity. What was once confined to hostile comments or email threats now includes doxxing, swatting, and coordinated efforts to intimidate targets into silence. In addition, recent threats to freedom of speech during President Donald Trump’s current administration have raised alarms. This includes the investigation of students, such as recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who, according to Hell Gate, was punished for sharing social media posts critical of Israel.
Harassed in gaming
While most people are not as public-facing as Malaty Rivera — or Khalil — they still face online threats. Marginalized groups in particular are often targeted for their identity or dissenting views online. Ari Waldman, a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, who focuses on online harassment and queer people, says this is nothing new, it has just become more obvious.
One area rife with harassment is in gaming. Women gamers are more exposed to sexual harassment, gender exclusion, and explicit or offensive content. In a 2020 survey of women gamers in the United States and United Kingdom, 14% of female gamers gave up online gaming due to harassment, 31% hid their gender, and 33% avoided speaking in voice chats. Black women gamers are subject to even more abuse, diversity experts say.
Waldman was harassed years ago just for writing an op-ed on GamerGate, an online harassment campaign linked to white male right-wing gamers that targeted women. He was highlighting how online harassment of women in gaming communities fed into a broader toxic masculinity that fueled Trump culture. When Waldman was bombarded with homophobic and antisemitic comments, he locked his social media accounts and stepped away.
“You have to shut down, you have to close your tweets or whatever, and deny access and just depart from it, I think that’s self-preservation mode,” he said.
Why the system is only designed for some
Waldman started their work a decade ago researching questions around the harassment of queer kids online. Harassers use photos and videos to abuse queer people online, spy and out them. Online harassment is “a tool of marginalization and silencing,” he says.
“Digital social life, particularly for queer people, is a rough road,” Waldman said, because social media platforms have now regressed to allow hate speech to be directed at queer people. He says these systems are geared towards getting the most online engagement, even if it’s harmful. They’re based on what advertisers want and what a small group of most privileged people think is normal.
When you have “a rule that tries to please the most people, most of the time, anyone who has cultural differences or is marginalized from most people, most of the time, they’re going to be erased or [harmed],” he said.
Women and queer people face targeted harms on and offline
This rule works against women, queer people, and other marginalized groups outside the online space too, Waldman says. For more than a decade, a version of this situation has become almost commonplace: A young woman shares a private picture of her body to someone she thinks is her boyfriend. It’s the guy who shares it; it’s the girl that gets suspended.
“We’ve seen this for a long time, and we just perpetuate those systems of punishing the victim online,” Waldman said.
The system targets transgender people in particular, such as trans content creators trying to share information about top surgery, or drag queens trying to share makeup tips, Waldman says.
“These innocuous or public health beneficial pieces are being banned or restricted simply because platform rules associate anything queer with being sexual, and that’s not the case,” he says. It’s just one edge of the sword: Over-censoring can lead to silencing. So can harassment of queer people and dissident views online.
While some activists encourage others to “be out and proud,” for many — especially trans individuals — being out is not an option, Waldman says.
How to stay safer online
Waldman hesitates to provide specific steps on what someone should do to stay safer because some people have a privilege to be visible that others don’t have. But he shares a few reminders.
- Use secure apps: If you’re worried about companies knowing everything about you, switch to encrypted apps like Signal for private chats.
- Limit what you share on social media: Take a look at your privacy settings on social media. Cut down on how much your personal info is used for ads. It might not change everything, but it’ll help reduce the data they collect about you.
- Assess safety, especially if you’re queer or trans: Think about the platform’s track record with queer content. If you decide to stick around, be careful what you share and brace yourself for possible harassment.
- Report harassment and/or shut down your accounts: If you’re harassed online, you can of course quit social media for a while, or close down your accounts. You can report it to the platform, even if they might not do anything about it. Depending on your relationship with law enforcement, that’s also an option. You could also be public about it. It’s not just about reporting what happened; it’s also telling the world what happened, Waldman says, because harassment happens more often than everyone realizes.
Because of her experience, Malaty Rivera no longer posts identifiable information about her children. “Having good digital hygiene should be on everybody’s priority list,” she said. She also reevaluated how and when she engages with sensitive topics, balancing her role as a science communicator with the real risks involved.
Malaty Rivera also recommends that online users develop what she calls a “risk budget” to assess their own risk. A risk budget is a personal calculation of what they are willing to share and what consequences they can withstand.
“If it’s not worth it, don’t do it,” she said. “There are people who are actively conducting witch hunts online.”
You can find more resources on preventing or defending against online harassment here.
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