The Global Disinformation Index, a not-for-profit entity established in 2018, has recently published a report focused on the rising levels of disinformation, in particular during the last elections for European Parliament. The report notes that women are singled out for abuse more often and the nature of these digital attacks is more vicious than ones directed at their male equivalents.
The GDI observed a rise in online spreading of gendered abuse and disinformation about current female EU leaders and candidates in the past several months. These narratives include elements of misogyny, global conspiracies, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia as well as elements of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen, faces particularly high levels of attacks, but the trend is widespread across member states and various candidates.
According to the report, misogynistic narratives range from overt rhetoric belittling women running for public office to more insidious discourse, playing into existing social bias against women to portray female candidates as less qualified than their male counterparts. Reflecting global trends, female politicians of colour in the EU encounter higher levels of abuse and are targeted for disinformation more often than their white female counterparts. Black female MEPs faced targeted rhetoric describing them as un-European due to their skin colour, and were subject to racist slurs and other forms of hate speech. Specific narratives described in the report tend to portray women as both in need of assistance from male counterparts to perform their jobs, but also as master manipulators eager to lean on their womanhood to incur favours, sympathy and support.
In other reports produced by GDI, has examined examples of brands that inadvertently fund misogynistic disinformation across news sites. Partners in the GenderEd project will soon be publishing own research on the topic which also aims to produce a gender-based competence framework for recognizing and tackling gendered disinformation in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, and France.