Table 1. Empirical Accounts of Abuse... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1.

Empirical Accounts of Abuse Gathered from Interviews.

Element of Online Abuse	Example from Empirical Research
Defamation	[I receive online abuse] basically challenging my ethics, or the way I operate, or… ‘will the [role name] answer why she hasn’t done anything about this’, and neglected my duty. (Karen, Senior Police Officer)
Emotional harm	I knew that all that abuse would continue [after the election] and I was expecting my majority to go down to a couple of thousand, and I thought they’ll keep coming, they’ll smell blood and all I used to do was get bullied, permanently. It was absolutely horrendous. (Phyllis, Member of Parliament until December 2019)
Harassment	The people who do it know that they are chasing you to your very marrow. Everything you do, they are chasing you all the time and never leaving you alone. And the ‘pile-ons’, in inverted commas, are exactly designed to make an individual feel persecuted and overwhelmed. There's no question in my mind about that. Then when they think they’ve done their job, they back away. (Patricia, Member of Parliament until December 2019)
Threat	Somebody messaged me and said, it serves you right if your daughter gets raped in front of you. They made that physical threat to me and to my family. (Agita, Member of the House of Lords)
Silencing women's voices	I think a lot of what they do is to try and discourage you from doing the kind of reporting you do, rather than… I don’t know, they may be personal in the stuff they say. Ultimately what they’re trying to do is discourage you from covering the topic which is criticising them. (Linda, UK-based journalist)
Belittling and undermining women	We don’t see this as a new phenomenon, it's just the newest iteration of an old phenomenon, all those things that continue to undermine and weaken women's protection in the physical space from violence and domestic partner violence, intimate partner violence, street violence, all of that, all those things are still at play in the digital world. (Helen, Academic based in the USA)
Criticism of physical characteristics	When pictures have been taken of me in Downing Street they try and zoom in on my badge and try and catch you out to see if you’ve exposed something that you shouldn’t expose, either about your body or the post. (Sarah, Senior Police Officer)

Element of Online Abuse	Example from Empirical Research
Defamation	[I receive online abuse] basically challenging my ethics, or the way I operate, or… ‘will the [role name] answer why she hasn’t done anything about this’, and neglected my duty. (Karen, Senior Police Officer)
Emotional harm	I knew that all that abuse would continue [after the election] and I was expecting my majority to go down to a couple of thousand, and I thought they’ll keep coming, they’ll smell blood and all I used to do was get bullied, permanently. It was absolutely horrendous. (Phyllis, Member of Parliament until December 2019)
Harassment	The people who do it know that they are chasing you to your very marrow. Everything you do, they are chasing you all the time and never leaving you alone. And the ‘pile-ons’, in inverted commas, are exactly designed to make an individual feel persecuted and overwhelmed. There's no question in my mind about that. Then when they think they’ve done their job, they back away. (Patricia, Member of Parliament until December 2019)
Threat	Somebody messaged me and said, it serves you right if your daughter gets raped in front of you. They made that physical threat to me and to my family. (Agita, Member of the House of Lords)
Silencing women's voices	I think a lot of what they do is to try and discourage you from doing the kind of reporting you do, rather than… I don’t know, they may be personal in the stuff they say. Ultimately what they’re trying to do is discourage you from covering the topic which is criticising them. (Linda, UK-based journalist)
Belittling and undermining women	We don’t see this as a new phenomenon, it's just the newest iteration of an old phenomenon, all those things that continue to undermine and weaken women's protection in the physical space from violence and domestic partner violence, intimate partner violence, street violence, all of that, all those things are still at play in the digital world. (Helen, Academic based in the USA)
Criticism of physical characteristics	When pictures have been taken of me in Downing Street they try and zoom in on my badge and try and catch you out to see if you’ve exposed something that you shouldn’t expose, either about your body or the post. (Sarah, Senior Police Officer)