Networked misogyny is now firmly established as a key tactic in the 21st-century authoritarian’s playbook. This is not a new trend – but it is now being supercharged by generative AI tools that make it easier, quicker and cheaper than ever to perpetrate online violence against women in public life – from journalists to human rights defenders, politicians and activists.

The objectives are clear: to help justify the rollback of gender equality and women’s reproductive rights; to chill women’s freedom of expression and their participation in democratic deliberation; to discredit truth-tellers; and to pave the way for the consolidation of authoritarian power.

These are not the rantings of a “crazy cat lady” or a “fat, ugly whore”, although I’ve been called both. This analysis is rooted in hard – and frankly terrifying – data from new research I led, which has just been published by UN Women.

For the report – Tipping Point: The chilling escalation of online violence against women in the public sphere – my team and I surveyed hundreds of women in journalism, human rights and activism across 119 countries, documenting their experiences with online violence and the real-world harms it triggers.

What we found is a sharp, and potentially deadly, escalation in the incidence of online........

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