Gendered Minsinformation

Bárbara Paes

based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Associate, Engagement and Support (Latin America)

A non-comprehensive collection of links related to gendered disinformation

When the week started, I wanted to learn more about gendered disinformation and how it relates to the state of democracies. I know, a huge topic to tackle in just a few days! There is so much amazing work and research being done in this area, and I thought I would share some of the links/resources that I’ve learned from as the week evolved.

The list below is not exhaustive and in no particular order – it’s just a representation of some of the works which happened to catch my attention this week.

The first thing I read right at the beginning of the week was “Placing ‘gender’ in disinformation”. If you’re interested in learning more about the overlaps and differences between gendered disinformation and online gender based violence, this recent publication by APC, gave me some food for thought:

"Disinformation can be regarded as a strategy that can serve various objectives. The ultimate goal of gender-related and identity-based disinformation is to discourage the exercise of freedom of expression and manipulate the information ecosystem. Harm to individuals is in general a secondary outcome. That said, violence or the threat of violence of a gendered nature is often applied as part of gendered disinformation campaigns. So although different concepts, they as a rule take place concomitantly and with the goal of reinforcing each other. As a result, gendered disinformation and technology-facilitated gender-based violence have often been lumped together in research, analysis and responses, with the result that inadequate attention has been paid to the distinct characteristics and specific impacts of gendered disinformation."

I then moved on to the report “Malign Creativity” , which analysed online conversations about 13 female politicians across six social media platforms, totaling over 336,000 pieces of abusive content shared by over 190,000 users over a two-month period. In analysiing online gendered and sexualized disinformation campaigns against women in politics and beyond, they conclude:

In this article , from a few years ago, the researcher Sarah Sobieraj, talks about how the “resistance to women’s public voice and visibility” is now extended into digital arenas, harming the health of democracies. Sobieraj demonstrates a few things, including:

1. “that aggressors draw upon three overlapping strategies – intimidating, shaming, and discrediting – to limit women’s impact in digital publics”;

2. “the way femininity and femaleness are used to undermine women’s contributions”;

3. that “men call attention to women’s physicality as a way to pull gender – and the male advantage that comes with it – to the fore in digital exchanges”;

4. and lastly, that “when digital sexism succeeds in pressing women out of digital spaces, constrains the topics they address publicly, or limits the ways they address them, we must consider the democratic costs of gender-based harassment, in addition to the personal ones”.

In this piece, authors Lucina Di Meco and Saskia Brechenmacher talk about how gendered and racialized harassment and abuse online as well as gendered disinformation need to be tackled urgently, since

“[t]he disproportionate and often strategic targeting of women politicians and activists has direct implications for the democratic process: it can discourage women from running for office, push women out of politics, or lead them to disengage from online political discourse in ways that harms their political effectiveness”.

For an insightful overview of the issue in Latin America, I started by listening to this incredible event , hosted by ELA (Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género) in collaboration with Chequeado. They discussed the impact of gender disinformation on electoral processes in the region. Check it out to learn from: Daniela Mendoza Luna, general director of Verificado (Mexico); Juliana Quintana, journalist specialised in gender and human rights from El Surti (Paraguay); Carmen Quintela, editor at Ocote (Guatemala); and Leticia Smal, research coordinator at Chequeado (Argentina).

Still in Latin America, I checked out La Factoría . After years of publishing articles combating disinformation about gender and sexual diversity, covering stories from all over Latin America, Agência Presentes has a newly launched gender and diversity data verification unit called La Factoría. Learn more here.

La Factoría published this resource entitled “Cómo funcionan las campañas de desinformación de género” , which I highly recommend for those who, like me, are interested in understanding how these campaigns work. It does a pedagogical job of showing how anti-rights groups sequester the conversations we’re having in our information ecosystems:

The question of ¿Cómo se articulan los grupos que difunden falsedades sobre el tema en América Latina? is what Chequeado set out to investigate in 2023. In this amazing journalistic investigation on the inner workings of the groups which spread disinformation about gender in Latin America, they found that:

I also spent some time exploring the “Countering Disinformation Guide”, an initiative that “identifies key topics that should drive disinformation and information integrity research” and “an inventory of actions and interventions from around the world”. They have a section on “Promising Approaches to Gender-Sensitive Counter-Disinformation Programming”, it includes strategies like:

“Gendered and sexualized disinformation is a phenomenon distinct from broad-based gendered abuse and should be defined as such to allow social media platforms to develop effective responses. The research team defines it as “a subset of online gendered abuse that uses false or misleading gender and sex-based narratives against women, often with some degree of coordination, aimed at deterring women from participating in the public sphere. It combines three defining characteristics of online disinformation: falsity, malign intent, and coordination.”

“En este sentido, los grupos antiderechos desarrollan una relación simbiótica con este tipo de medios. Diversas personalidades digitales han cobrado relevancia como “periodistas” o “analistas” por publicar desinformación cada vez más extrema –copiando al pie de la letra las “guerras culturales” de Estados Unidos y Europa–, mientras que los medios convierten esas publicaciones en misinformation que apuesta por un crecimiento en audiencias e interacciones.”

Artwork by Musa