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It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time, in the early 2000s, when many felt that social media would revitalize the public sphere and herald a new age of democratic participation. Two decades later, each week seems to bring fresh evidence of how tech platforms enable, amplify, and even encourage racist and misogynistic abuse. The coordinated campaign against Jane Doe, the woman at the center of the Cornell Seven case, is only the latest example in the headlines.

Julie Posetti, an award-winning journalist and a leading researcher of online misogyny, has watched this worrying reality unfold in real time. Two decades ago, she was optimistic that social media would help women in public life. More recently, she has overseen two major studies for UN Women, in 2020 and 2025, that reveal, based on surveys with women human rights defenders, activists, and journalists, a shocking escalation in attacks against women in public life.…