Reaching out to citizens on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram is becoming an increasingly important task for politicians worldwide. While online communication in many ways improves the interaction between elected representatives and citizens, a growing number of reports point to the potentially detrimental effects of online abuse, where politicians who are being attacked and threatened online are silenced. What is more, new research on gendered political violence suggests that female political actors may be particularly targeted (see Krook 2017; Bardal, Bjarnegård and Piscopo 2017). Nevertheless, few studies, if none, have systematically analyzed and compared men and women politicians’ experiences of online abuse. Consequently, we know little about the gendered nature of threats and harassments online, both in terms of quantitative and qualitative differences. This paper makes an important empirical contribution to the rapidly growing field of violence against women in politics by comparing Swedish legislators’ experiences of online abuse. Sweden’s share of daily internet users is among the highest in the world, and the Swedish Parliament has been descriptively gender equal for over two decades. We examine men and women legislators’ experiences of online communication and abuse using two survey data sets (including one longitudinal survey over three waves), and interviews with 40 MPs (20 men and 20 women). Our results show that threats and harassment on social media is an increasingly integrated part of being an MP in Sweden. Although many legislators have experienced online abuse, women, and particularly young women, are targeted more intensively than men. Both men and women emphasize how online abuse at times leads to self-censorship and that this is particularly true regarding their online activity connected to issues such as migration, integration and gender equality.
