Black, female and high-profile, Kamala Harris is a top target in online fever swamps

[JI7]

Comments section to this article is more evidence of what this article is saying .


Jankowicz led a study released last month analyzing more than 300,000 posts against 13 politicians in four English-speaking countries in the couple months before the U.S. election. Harris was targeted in 78% of the posts, more than other high-profile women of color in the study, such as Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the leading targets of abuse on Twitter and Facebook in Guerin’s study.

Facebook and other social media companies defend their efforts to detect and remove harassing content but concede that some material, especially coded or sarcastic posts, eludes automated filters powered by artificial intelligence. Jankowicz described several such tactics, such as sending images of empty egg cartons to women in their 30s who do not have children, an inference that they are infertile and bitter.

Older white women such as Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, were less likely to be the target of gender-based attacks than younger women or women of color. Even a younger Republican woman with a high profile, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, did not receive as many attacks as her Democratic counterparts in Congress. Jankowicz’s study did not include Facebook because the data set was more complete from six other platforms, including Twitter.

It showed that many of the attacks and disinformation lobbed at Harris echoed tropes against Barack and Michelle Obama: that she is insufficiently Black or Indian because of her mixed-race heritage, that she cannot legally serve as vice president because her parents were immigrants, that she slept her way to the top, that she has a secret plan to steal authority from Biden and, perhaps most outlandish, that she is secretly a man.


https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-02-19/kamala-harris-is-the-top-target-of-online-harassment-as-fears-of-political-violence-grow

[murielm99]

1. And people believe this stuff!

[electric_blue68]

2. Surprise, surprise. 😑

[Celerity]

3. this is what these fuckers look like

[Skittles]

4. it's like Kamala took over where Michelle Obama left off

not to worry, they can both handle the neanderthals

[betsuni]

5. When she ran for president there was a convenient list of ready-made bullshit attacks and

conspiracy theories supposedly from the Left: "List of Damning Articles on Harris." Was posted on Buzzfeed and Jackpineradicals. Not enough to only get it from the Right.

[radius777]

7. +1. There is a conservative left on social media that rails against 'identity politics'

as much as the conservative right, and is basically racist and pining for the Dixiecrat days, ie those like Krystal Ball that are obsessed with going after Kamala Harris, viewing her as only being selected as VP for 'identity politics' (and not actual ability):

[onetexan]

6. More confirmation that a highly intelligent woman, esp'ly one of color

In a highpowered position riles up the crazies. This is why they want to derail Neera's nomination like they did with Susan Rice during Obama's term.

Its sheer sexism & bigotry.