A new report released last week by the Online Violence Against Women in Politics Working Group at Pitt's Ford Institute for Human Security in partnership with the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and Politus Project at Istanbul's Koç University features timely insights.
The report, "Hated More: Online Violence Targeting Women of Color Candidates in the 2024 U.S. Election," examines the prevalence of online hate speech on X (formerly Twitter) targeting women of color running for political office in the 2024 U.S. election cycle. Researchers identified all tweets posted between May 20 and Aug. 23 of this year that mentioned any congressional candidate with one or more accounts on X, then identified those that contained offensive rhetoric or hate speech.
“Our findings suggest that offensive speech targeted at Congressional candidates is not distributed equally, with race and gender being factors in which groups are targeted. This is even more true with hate speech, where a significantly higher proportion of these attacks focus on African-American women candidates compared to any other group,” the team shared while discussing the final report.
Researchers gathered at the University of Pittsburgh’s Washington D.C. Office on October 2nd to present their work to an audience gathered in person and via live broadcast.
Building upon previous research done by the CDT during the 2020 election cycle which found that women of color Congressional candidates in the 2020 U.S. election were more likely to be subjected to online harassment, sexist abuse, and mis- and disinformation campaigns, the findings outlined in this new report have significant implications for future election cycles.
"The consequences of the status-quo where women of color candidates are targeted with significant attacks online at much higher rates than other candidates create an immense barrier to creating a truly inclusive democracy," the authors conclude.
An article published by The Hill shortly after Wednesday's release focused on the new report. The piece discusses the report's findings while noting the changes to X/Twitter’s content moderation policies in recent years that led to conflict with advertisers and legal inquiries into company practices.
Visit the Ford Institute for Human Security website to learn more about working groups, upcoming events, and ongoing research initiatives.