Online violence and coordinated troll campaigns are not exactly new, but the just-concluded Paris Olympics offer a powerful reminder that no one is safe from keyboard warriors. Just to name one high-profile incident, the toxicity surrounding a judging controversy involving American gymnast Jordan Chiles and Romanian Ana Bărbosu drove both athletes off social media.

China’s Olympic team was hardly immune, either. Wu Yanni, a hurdler who failed to qualify for the final in her event, was attacked for supposedly caring too much about her looks. And Chen Meng, a table tennis legend who successfully defended her championship against her more popular teammate, Sun Yingsha, became the target of so much online abuse by Sun’s fans that moderators on social media platform Weibo had to step in, deleting more than 12,000 pieces of “illegal content” and banning over 300 accounts.

These outbursts highlight the difficulties regulators and platforms face in cracking down on cyberbullying. In September 2023, the Chinese government announced new guidelines for curbing online abuse; it followed that up by clarifying the legal liability of perpetrators of online violence this August. But despite attempts by platforms to implement the new rules, the abuse directed at Wu and Chen shows just how difficult it is to keep up with online trolls.

This is especially true when you consider another thing the above-mentioned athletes share in common: their gender. International organizations, from the United Nations to the European Union, have started raising alarms about the disproportionate targeting of women online. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, 38% of women report experiencing online violence directed at themselves, and 65% of women know other women who have been targeted online, whether personally or professionally. While there is no such comprehensive large-scale data for China, small-scale surveys suggest that women are more likely to be victimized by online violence, and that they also suffer more mental health issues due to such attacks.

One of the most common forms of online abuse aimed at women is appearance-based trolling and shaming. No woman is exempt: women with appearances deemed unattractive according to mainstream feminine beauty standards are shamed as “ugly,” while women who are seen as conventionally attractive or who are suspected of caring about their appearances are accused of sexual indecency, immorality in general, or unprofessionalism.

The latter was vividly demonstrated by the recent attacks on Wu, the hurdler. Although she first attracted public attention and praise for being “bad-ass and beautiful” during China’s 2023 national track championships, she was soon being shamed for failing to meet the mainstream “good-girl” standard that many Chinese female athletes are expected to conform to. The attacks on her looks and professional conduct only grew after she jumped the gun in a race last year.

She’s hardly alone. Feng Jingshuang, a triathlete, received a deluge of negative comments under a video she posted on social media, many of which focused on her pale skin and tight-fitting clothes.

This appearance-based violence even extends to women reeling from tragedy. In 2023, a mother who lost her child was criticized and harassed online for looking “too put-together in such a tragic moment.” Some social media users questioned her sincerity and demanded an investigation into her relationship with her child. After enduring days of this harassment, the woman tragically took her own life.

If anything, victimhood makes a woman more vulnerable to online trolling. When women stand up for themselves and fight back against sexual harassment and assault, they are called untrustworthy, attention-seeking, or overly sensitive. These judgments can easily be repurposed to attack their professional integrities, too. This online treatment not only causes additional trauma for victims of sexual misconduct, but may also further deter other female victims of sexual assault or harassment from reporting similar crimes.

The sexism and misogyny that underlie these attacks is perhaps most obvious when the women under attack intrude into traditionally male spheres, including some “hardcore” professions or hobbies. The term yuan, which literally means “socialite,” has become a popular suffix to shame women who supposedly “pretend” to like or excel at such subjects: An Oxford Ph.D. student in mathematics, Kate Zhu Wenqi, was attacked and trolled as a “mathematics socialite” because she was regarded as too young and too pretty to be good at theoretical mathematics and to attain such accolades.

While efforts have been made by legal institutions to address online violence, regulations and legislation alone are not going to fix this phenomenon. This is especially true because social media platforms often enable, induce, and amplify gender-based violence against women and girls. Despite the real identity registration system imposed on Chinese digital platforms, social media users still enjoy a certain level of anonymity online, which allows them to post harmful content or comments safe from retribution. The easy access to functions like reposting, tagging, and private messaging also add to the toolbox of gender-based violence. And fundamentally, social media platforms’ addiction to traffic and user activity makes them prioritize and promote controversial and sensational content, which includes gender-based violence.

Meanwhile, due to the long and complex procedures involved in defamation or privacy violation lawsuits, online violence victims are often unwilling or unable to spend the time and energy needed to get justice. But there are reasons for optimism. More young Chinese women are fighting back against misogynist attacks online: Of the victims discussed in this article, most have spoken out against offenders or brought lawsuits. Hopefully efforts will encourage other women to report and address online gender-based violence — a necessary step in making the internet a safer place for all.

Editor: Cai Yineng.

(Header image: Chen Meng hugs Sun Yingsha (in black) after the women’s table tennis singles gold medal match at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Aug. 3, 2024. Jung Yeon-je/VCG)