Nothing can ever justify a digital witch-hunt: How digital mob justice is destroying people and democracies

“Is that really true?” read the giant lettering on a poster by a mobile phone provider at a Berlin S-Bahn station. I was waiting for my train. It was a cold, rainy, November 2024 – right in the middle of the escalation. Three weeks after our women’s rights press conference, which had been followed by a wave of digital violence the like of which I had never experienced before. Beneath the headline, in smaller print, I read: “Questioning is important. Because misinformation online is extremely dangerous.”

Misinformation online and digital witch-hunts really are extremely dangerous. They can destroy livelihoods – and democracies. At the time when I saw the poster, this was my own reality. Some years ago, in her brilliant essay It Is Obscene, the Nigerian-American author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote about a defamation campaign against her: “When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. […] Many of those things […] you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth. In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.”

I am writing this text to share my story. I want to take a stand against all forms of dogmatism and authoritarian behaviour and contribute to the debate on how to prevent digital violence and protect ourselves against it. And I want to draw attention to the appalling injustice that many victims, particularly women, experience when there is no route to justice – when social media platforms refuse any responsibility, and when legal proceedings come to nothing because the offender lives abroad.

A press conference for women’s rights – and a storm of digital violence

In October 2024, my non-profit organisation, the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP) – which I co-founded with Nina Bernarding in 2018 in Berlin – hosted a press conference in Berlin-Mitte together with the human rights organisation HÁWAR.help. We focused on two highly topical political issues, the prevention of femicide and the legalisation of abortion. More than twenty women from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds – including lawyers, doctors, women’s shelter staff, actors, queer activists and, not least, survivors – took to the stage to speak. They shared moving personal stories about themselves or others, including accounts of extreme violence and even attempted femicide. And they translated these into clear political demands: for a new legal regulation of abortion outside the criminal code and for a law addressing gender-based violence (the latter was finally passed in February 2025). One of the speakers was the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, at that time one of the most influential German politicians publicly advocating the decriminalisation of abortion. Hundreds attended in person, and we reached thousands online.

During the press conference, shortly after the foreign minister’s speech, a woman stood up and loudly protested against Germany’s policy towards Israel. My response as moderator was that her points were important, but that I would move the discussion to the Q&A at the end. Very soon afterwards, a reel circulated with a manipulative caption, portraying me as someone who didn’t care about the suffering of the people in Gaza and implying that the woman showing solidarity with Gaza had been silenced. In reality, I personally and CFFP had publicly and repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the Middle East and an end to violence against civilians, and had repeatedly highlighted the situation of women and children in the war zone. In fact you could actually hear what I had said in the video, and the reel’s caption was clearly a complete distortion of reality. But none of that mattered when it came to fuelling hatred on Instagram. This outrage is the perfect cash cow for the platforms: nothing spreads faster than anger and indignation.[1]

Since the terrorist attack by Hamas in October 2023, the atmosphere on social media has become almost unbearable. Any attempt, for example on Instagram, to express empathy or compassion for Jews or Israelis has met with fierce attacks – often culminating in accusations of abandoning the Palestinians. And that’s the expurgated version. Conversely, posts showing sympathy for Palestinians triggered equally serious allegations, this time of betraying Jewish people. This football-match mentality leaves little room on social media for the simple truth that both sides can experience suffering and perpetrate violence simultaneously. Performative outrage has buried political nuance. I was branded an “Israel-hater” by some and a “genocide supporter” by others – all within a matter of hours. The way I see it is this: if we mourn some human lives more than others, based on the actions of those people’s governments or the attitude of our own government, then propaganda has won.

That reel about the press conference was only the beginning. In the digital aftermath, we – the organisers – were the target of ever more absurd lies: claims that the conference had been funded by taxpayer money, that we had paid the speakers, or that we had covered hotel costs (to the tune of several thousand euros). This led to thousands of supportive likes for the defamatory content, hateful comments and defamatory Instagram stories. What followed was a wave of slander, rabble-rousing and threats, lasting for weeks – an orchestrated attempt to publicly destroy us. Digital mob justice. It was an abuse of power – I was an object tossed about in the digital world by people wanting to generate attention at my expense. People who felt secure enough in the anarchy of the internet to ignore the rule of law and basic decency. Others have undoubtedly had similar experiences. The fact that we were women added spice to the spectacle. The reels and Instagram stories that drove this massive smear campaign were based on vile lies, removed facts from their context, simplified and distorted reality. Perfect ingredients to feed the algorithms of social networks.

This wasn’t a shitstorm, it was digital mob justice

At first, I thought I understood what was happening. I’ve been a public figure working on feminist issues for over a decade – I know digital violence. Whether it was my campaign against sexism in the Bild newspaper in 2014, my advocacy for reforming Germany’s law on sexual offences (“No means no”) in 2016, my work on feminist foreign policy, or simply being a successful feminist woman with a voice – online hate has followed me for years.

But in October 2024, this violence escalated in a way that surpassed anything I or we had ever experienced. The very violence and misogyny that our press conference aimed to expose and challenge now targeted our team, our leadership and me personally with full force. Calls for boycotts, lies, defamation, insults, threats – all stoked by a small but highly effective minority.

On the first day, a follower messaged me: “It’s incredible how your work is being attacked. As soon as I posted that story [to express my solidarity], I was attacked too. What’s happening to you is a proper witch-hunt.” Neither he nor I could have foreseen what was to come.

In retrospect, I can clearly see what was happening. It’s something that women in public life around the world are familiar with: the creation of a hate figure, which must then be destroyed.

The accusations – “white feminism”, misuse of taxpayer money, silencing at the press conference – were malicious and easily disproven: invoices, donation receipts and video recordings speak for themselves. But in the logic of digital violence, evidence doesn’t count. The tactic is to throw enough mud that some of it is bound to stick.

The accusation of “white feminism” is serious – not because it’s true, but because it exploits an important political issue. The term refers to a real problem within feminist movements, where marginalised perspectives are ignored or erased by white feminists. That’s exactly why grappling with power dynamics within feminism is a fundamental part of our work at CFFP. Intersectionality – recognising how gender, race, class and other dimensions of discrimination intersect – has been one of our guiding principles from the start. It would probably be impossible for anyone, including us, to simultaneously take into account every form of oppression, but this should still be the goal.

Our publications, projects and political stance have long been shaped by intersectional analysis. It becomes difficult when intersectionality itself is instrumentalised – and accusations of “white feminism” are levelled at anyone who doesn’t share the exact same view as the “opinion leaders”, with their binary, black and white thinking. Since 7 October, I’ve been called a “white feminist” for, among other things, highlighting Hamas’s sexualised violence against Jewish women. In doing so, I was said to be spreading Israeli war propaganda – and thereby abandoning the people of Gaza. Black and white thinking.

I want to illustrate this with a recent study from the UK by the organisation More in Common, which promotes social cohesion and democratic cultures in several countries. The study shows that so-called progressive activists in the UK tend to demand complete ideological alignment in their campaigns. Since public opinion rarely follows strict ideological lines, this inflexibility prevents many potential alliances. As a result, progressive movements lack broader appeal and are often paralysed by internal conflict. Or, as Rutger Bregman puts it: “You get a movement that is 100% pure but 0% effective.” An organisation becomes a target simply for not working in the exact way that the self-appointed leaders of progressive movements demand.

I, however, oppose ideological dogmatism – as outlined in my book Empathy and Resistance. Our press conference was an example of this. We invited foreign minister Annalena Baerbock because of her expertise and her stance on the women’s rights issues we were addressing – even though we had repeatedly voiced public criticism of the German government’s arms exports to Israel. In doing so, we had also criticised the foreign minister. Both things are possible at once. This approach represents a nuanced but principled attitude and a willingness to compromise – the kind of political strategy we pursue at CFFP. Because when dogmatism dominates the debate and only one perspective is considered legitimate, democratic discourse is stifled.

Rationally, I understood where this violence was heading: it was never about (constructive) criticism, but about wearing us down. Being forced to justify ourselves for things unrelated to reality drains the energy needed for truly important work. This probably sounds familiar from the current state of politics. But while politics has institutional checks such as parliamentary systems, there are no limits on the digital madness in comments sections, DMs and Instagram stories. Misogynistic violence, which mixes its substantive arguments with a general effort to discredit women, is the rule – not the exception.

I might have “coped” with all this, but then two members of our international advisory board[2] at the time publicly accused us, on social media, of “silencing” and “mistreatment”. Again, it was about the war in the Middle East. For weeks, they tried to pressure my co-director Nina Bernarding and me to align our work with their positions, regardless of our expertise, areas of focus, beliefs or networks. We refused – not only because we had no resources for such work, but also because we did not share their public positions. Since October 2023, our work on the war has followed our expertise, our charter and our mission, and has included projects on the impacts of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza on international law, international norms and militarisation. We made it clear that we would continue to shape our work according to these principles. The conflict escalated because we refused to bow to the pressure of those two board members. Another member summed it up well: “It’s not a good feeling to feel the choice given you is to comply or to be damned.”

Accusations of mistreatment and silencing are among the most serious you can make in the feminist movement – and rightly so. At the same time, they are difficult to measure: anyone who feels uncomfortable for any reason can interpret this as mistreatment. And anyone who doesn’t win an argument can accuse the other person of silencing. The absence of any clear definitions intensifies the emotional impact of these accusations – and their power to mobilise. The post by the former advisory board members, published on LinkedIn, was eagerly picked up by the mob on Instagram, amplified, sharpened, and embellished with ever more absurd imaginary details. The machinery of outrage was out of control. Subsequently, people associated with us – even our lawyer – were publicly defamed. The calculated digital witch-hunt turned into a collective lynch mob, determined to destroy us. This wasn’t a shitstorm – shitstorms die down. The aim was to annihilate us. My co-director and I experienced physical symptoms we’d never had before: weeks of panic attacks, utter exhaustion, breakdowns. For weeks, we were in free fall. Digital violence doesn’t stay online. It has real, devastating consequences.

We, CFFP’s managing directors, decided to publish a statement. We wrote that refusing demands is not silencing. Nor is it mistreatment. And we pointed out that it is our right to make independent decisions. Our disinformation experts had warned us against such a statement: they’d said it wouldn’t stop the lies or the violence. And even though we didn’t follow that advice, we passed the relevant evidence – email threads and more – to the proper authorities: lawyers, investigative journalists[3] and courts. The places where judgements are based on due diligence, facts and the rule of law. Not on Instagram. And not by a reckless and ill-informed mob, which kept spreading the lies and fuelling the witch-hunt.

At this point, it felt as though the mob was trashing our office, setting it on fire, smashing the windows. The whole team was deeply affected, and we – the main targets – were verbally beaten senseless. Time and again I asked myself: if the mob had inflicted physical violence and then simply shrugged and said “But they didn’t do what we told them to”, would we as a society have accepted this justification? Probably not. So why is it possible online? Everyone needs to understand that digital witch-hunts can push people to despair and to the brink of psychological breakdown. They can destroy organisations in the blink of an eye.

Out of control

Everyone has the right to view our work critically and to disagree with our positions. But no one has the right to destroy people and their livelihoods out of blind rage. A few years ago, former US President Barack Obama gave a speech at an event hosted by the Obama Foundation. He warned against retreating behind ideological walls and stressed the need to engage with people who hold different views. His key message was this: “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right… I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself … But that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

The stone-throwing directed at us continued: ever more baseless accusations surfaced in the form of vacuous Instagram tiles. We were said to have fired employees for their pro-Palestinian stance. Investigative journalists examining this accusation (along with a supposedly „open“ but in fact anonymous letter) searched for alleged victims. But none could be found. As part of legal proceedings, I clearly refuted these new claims with a sworn affidavit, as well as with personnel files and contractual records. But none of this mattered in the anarchic world of social media. The mob simply moved on to other topics and other escalations. One of the main actors – a young man full of hatred – continued (and continues) to incite and post. Too many have followed his lead. There was, and is, no recourse. The hatred spread from small accounts to larger ones. People with tens of thousands of followers picked up the defamatory statements and shared them in their Instagram stories. Organisations, misled by the false information, called for a boycott against us. Funders cancelled projects. The financial damage was severe, but even worse was what followed: we had to immediately let go of two project managers whose salaries were entirely covered by one of those projects. While self-proclaimed “left-wing internet activists” celebrated their digital crusade for intersectional justice – without ever leaving the virtual world – they simultaneously destroyed the livelihoods of two women with Afghan roots. Women who, through our project, were working to improve the situation of women in Afghanistan.

Next, allies and organisations we had worked with turned away from us. Not because they believed we’d done anything wrong. On the contrary, they told us openly that they were aware of the toxic tendencies within the feminist movement and of the dynamics on social media. They assured us that we were merely a projection screen. And yet they could no longer work with us. The fear of being targeted by hatred themselves was too great. I had to cancel several readings and events myself; others were called off at short notice by the organisers. When I did appear at events, organisers were forced to consider additional security measures. For months, the attackers systematically contacted our partners, urging them to distance themselves from us. To protect ourselves from further digital violence, we had to take the CFFP website offline for several months, and I had to deactivate my social media accounts. This was a targeted attempt to destroy livelihoods.

I was constantly wondering: what will happen next? Was the confidentiality order on my address – which I’d had to apply for due to years of online abuse and threats, especially from the far right – truly secure? Would an angry mob show up at my front door – or at our office? Were our families safe? Which other projects would be taken away from us? Who would be next to turn against us? Would we have to let more staff go? Would the organisation survive?

I kept asking myself why the main actor and his followers wouldn’t stop. The answer lies on two levels: one sociological, the other psychological. From a sociological standpoint, collective violence doesn’t require all participants to share the same convictions. All it takes is a few individuals who harbour the will – or the lust – to destroy. The rest will follow. For the followers, other motives are often sufficient: outrage as a form of self-affirmation, the desire to belong, or the urge to be on the “winning side”.

From earlier centuries, we know that punishments were often staged as spectacles for the masses. And the masses came. Often in their Sunday best, they flocked to watch public torture and executions. Today, the same fascination with violence and transgression can be experienced far more conveniently in front of a computer or smartphone – without even getting up off the sofa.

Philipp Hübl’s book Moralspektakel – Wie die richtige Haltung zum Statussymbol wurde und warum das die Welt nicht besser macht (Moral spectacle: how the right attitude became a status symbol and why this doesn’t make the world any better) gave me the answer to the second, psychological dimension. Even if I’d been knocked to the ground, I was still a public figure. And for many people, moments in which someone is publicly pilloried present a welcome opportunity to seek attention by demonstrating their own moral superiority. Point scoring in a perverse moral competition, in which the goal is not justice but self-elevation. And that elevation comes cheap: it takes maybe five seconds to share an Instagram story – and hey presto, you’ve safeguarded your moral prestige, without any real effort. As I’ve written in Empathy and Resistance, constructing is hard; destroying is easy.

And there’s another thing that makes social media such fertile ground for moral outrage. In Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, the long-deceased philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas wrote that the face of the other is what prevents attempted murder – because it reminds us of the dignity, vulnerability and humanity of that person. But in digital spaces, there is no face of the other. “The fact that we don’t have to look into the eyes of the person being destroyed makes it easier. […] Perhaps that’s exactly why [social networks] are so popular”,writes philosopher Svenja Flaßpöhler in her book Streiten (Arguing). Veronika Kracher, who studies online hate campaigns against women, adds an important nuance: to spare attackers from having to confront the real suffering of their targets, the humanity of the victim is erased. The person is no longer perceived as an individual with feelings and vulnerability, but is portrayed as the embodiment of evil. According to Kracher’s analysis, this is done through projection (“This person represents everything bad”), a lack of empathy (“This person deserves punishment and shouldn’t complain”), and reduction to a one-dimensional villain (“This person has no redeeming qualities and is purely bad”). One especially insidious feature of digital culture is “memeification”: the affected individual is turned into a joke, their suffering mocked through easily shared memes.

As with historical lynch mobs, evidence and fairness – the imperative to hear the other side – play no role in the condemnation of the accused. But while our analogue societies have, over decades, evolved legal frameworks and journalistic standards to ensure accountability and due process, none of this applies to social media. In theory, there are legal standards of due diligence, but enforcing them is often difficult, if not impossible. Effective protection against baseless accusations – such as we repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested from Meta – is largely lacking in practice. Likewise, the journalistic verification standards that apply to classic reporting barely function in the digital realm. In the anarchic world of social networks, such standards are hard to enforce. Thus, almost anyone or any organisation can be accused of anything online – without factual basis, and with virtually no means of defence.

Victims of digital hate campaigns and witch-hunts are left feeling completely isolated and powerless. The judgement is instant; the public execution follows through mass defamation, threats and social ostracism. These processes are no coincidence – they follow the logic of the attention economy. Digital platforms reward outrage, polarisation and escalation. The more radical the accusation, the greater the reach. That’s their business model. And one more factor feeds into the equation: gender.

Dogmatism + misogyny = hate²

An analysis of the witch trials of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period by historian Claudia Opitz-Belakhal found that while women were rarely perpetrators in other serious crimes, they were the object of 50 to 90 percent of witch trials, depending on the region. The misogyny of the accusers served as the spark, while sexist legal practices – bolstered by the Malleus Maleficarum, a manual for the subjugation of women – acted as fuel. The current treatment of women in the context of social media mob justice is comparable.[4]

Society’s hatred of women amplifies gender-specific violence to an almost unimaginable degree. For instance, PR manager Melissa Nathan wrote with visible satisfaction to Jennifer Abel, the publicist of actor Justin Baldoni, about the success of her smear campaign against actress Blake Lively: “It’s actually sad because it just shows you people really want to hate on women.” Last year, on Baldoni’s behalf, she deliberately turned his co-star into a persona non grata – and the strategy worked. The ever-present readiness to hate women is a cornerstone of our societies, a deeply embedded part of patriarchal structures. Those who know how to exploit it can systematically damage women – and rely on broad, often unconscious complicity.

The goal is not merely individual destruction. The true targets are all women who speak out in public, who take a strong and visible stand. The message is: you could be next. The fear instilled by such digital witch-hunts causes many to remain silent or avoid taking a stance – due to exhaustion, the desire for self-preservation, or the sad but true realisation that a mob that has already passed judgement cannot be persuaded by reason. This is why it’s so dangerous when we accept these mechanisms or, worse, participate in them. Because this doesn’t just threaten women – it endangers our democracy itself.

Misogyny is deeply ingrained in society. Almost everyone has internalised it, and unless it is actively unlearned, it is reproduced – often unconsciously. Author Veronika Kracher, who has intensively studied unrestrained online violence against women, shows that even people who see themselves as progressive and emancipatory often show condescension, hypocrisy and a disregard for boundaries in their behaviour towards left-wing women in particular. Why? Because they’ve been taught to. The constant evaluation and condemnation of women is so entrenched in our culture that it often goes unnoticed. Blake Lively, Meghan Markle and Amber Heard are just a few examples. One doesn’t have to like these women, but to devalue them solely because of their gender – as happens daily in the media – is misogyny. The moment of their (alleged) failure is especially lucrative. The thrill of watching a woman “fall” is burned into our cultural fabric. Nothing gives the patriarchy more satisfaction than seeing successful women fail. Or, as Gloria Steinem puts it: “Men are liked better when they win. Women are liked better when they lose. This is how the patriarchy is enforced every day.”

Our Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy stands for winning – it is a success story. It was founded by women and is shaped and developed by them. In just seven years, we built a highly effective human rights organisation from nothing, with numerous projects, a seven-figure budget and a committed team of more than a dozen employees, mainly women. We’ve helped to shape German foreign policy in recent years, encouraging a feminist orientation with a stronger focus on women’s rights and their funding. Our work range from projects to help women in Afghanistan and the victims of nuclear testing to collaboration with the queer community in Uganda. We support human rights activists from Belarus, Kenya, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia in their stand against authoritarian structures and regimes. We’ve advised governments, organised international conferences, spoken at the United Nations, and played a significant role in ensuring that the threat posed by global anti-feminist networks is taken more seriously today. We’ve driven the international debate on gendered disinformation, analysed links between anti-feminism and right-wing extremism, and advocated worldwide for more feminist foreign and security policies. We’ve built structures, laid groundwork. Social media is an important tool for communicating our work, but we are not full-time content creators. Our real work happens elsewhere.

What have these hate-filled actors and their followers actually achieved? They initiated and fuelled a digital campaign against us. They garnered support by defaming our successes. They elevated themselves by degrading others. I perceive the ringleader as deeply misogynistic – and his hatred of women serves as a political tool for many of his followers. The attempt to justify this hate with supposedly substantive criticism – from the left as well as the right – creates a dangerous alliance that influences even those who claim to fight for women’s rights.

In the quest for public figures who embody feminist ideals, perfection and infallibility are demanded. If this ideal is not met, admiration turns into contempt. Patriarchal reflexes kick in: the person is ridiculed publicly for their supposed failure – as loudly and as widely as possible.

Democracy in danger

As I mentioned above, it only takes a few individuals with strong convictions within a group to unleash violence. In addition to the perpetrators, there are the active followers and the submissive majority – the audience. The instigators, often driven by ideology, but also by frustration or a lust for violence, tend to be few in number. Far greater is the number of those who are susceptible to this outrage and who join in by commenting or liking (the followers). Larger still is the mass of people who, though not actively involved, look on in silence out of uncertainty or fear of retaliation, or distance themselves from those affected (the submissive majority). It is precisely members of this last, largest group who could make a crucial difference – if only they refused to let hatred, lies or defamation go unchallenged.

The key pattern behind such smear campaigns has been described as the DARVO principle – deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. First, the perpetrators’ own aggression is denied, then the counterattack begins, and finally the roles of victim and perpetrator are reversed: the harassed individual is no longer seen as the victim – instead, the aggressors present themselves as such. Any attempt at self-defence is reframed as hostility. Third parties pick this up and further escalate the dynamic, sometimes unwittingly. Phrases like “Well, it was bound to happen, with all the demands they were making,” which have been said about us, follow the same logic as classic victim-blaming – such as explaining sexualised violence by saying that “Her skirt was too short”. For victims of digital lynch justice, it often becomes impossible to defend themselves without this self-defence being held against them. The consequences for democratic discourse are devastating: the victim is ultimately left with no way out of the dilemma. Every reaction – even the most measured rebuttal of falsehoods – is interpreted as a fresh attack. Defending oneself is seen as a sign of “immaturity”, “aggression”, or “lack of insight”. At the same time, failing to respond can be equally problematic, as it allows the lies and defamation to stand unchallenged and take hold in the public imagination. It’s impossible to get it right.

In recent months, I have met several women who are in the public eye and have also been subjected to this form of violence. One of them described how, after being targeted by a smear campaign, she lay in bed with depression for months, lost her entire income, and eventually – under immense pressure and with a sense of detachment from reality – uploaded an apology video to social media. Although she had nothing to apologise for, she had been worn down to the point where she simply wanted the abuse to stop. But the video was torn to shreds and became fresh fodder for even harsher attacks.

What becomes evident here is a tried-and-tested pattern of violent escalation. First, the targeted person is systematically portrayed in a negative light, to establish and maintain their status as villain. This can intimidate the targeted person and make them question their sense of reality.

Next comes defamation: statements are taken out of context, exaggerated, or wilfully distorted. At times, outright lies are spread – and people believe them because they reinforce existing prejudices.

Once the target person has been established as a villain, the violence knows no bounds. Sexism, personal attacks, obsessive fixations, even direct threats suddenly become legitimised – with the argument that the person in question “deserves” all this. Violence is no longer merely tolerated, but is justified in support of a supposedly “noble cause”.

Leftist dogmatism: from emancipation to aberration

What is particularly disturbing about my story is that one of the main figures behind this witch-hunt is not an unknown actor, but a young man who styles himself as a „left-wing activist“ and has long been notorious for his misogyny: „Jonpeaceman“ (Jonathan Fridman). Until a few months ago, his Instagram bio explicitly identified his account as a hate page targeting a prominent and successful woman German human rights advocate. She was able to ensure that Fridman had to sign a cease-and-desist order with a penalty clause for spreading false claims. Numerous women had already been targets of his attacks before me and my organization – he consistently uses the same strategies of defamation and digital violence.

It is possible that, following the publication of this text, „Jonpeaceman“ will once again fire up his misogynistic hate machine. All it takes is a woman voicing dissent, and violent men immediately escalate to the next level. „Jonpeaceman’s“ months-long campaign of defamation, lies and slander has already caused existential harm – and continues to do so.

Within just five days before, during and after our press conference, he published over 50 posts on Instagram about me and CFFP, including a three-minute video in which he ranted about us directly to camera. Whenever he selects a target, it turns into a full-blown obsession. This pattern can be observed again and again.

In the analogue world, such conduct would be referred to as stalking – and steps could (hopefully) be taken to stop it. In the digital world, one is largely defenceless against such smear campaigns. Platforms such as Meta shirk all responsibility.

In these posts, sometimes only seconds apart, “Jonpeaceman” spread the lies mentioned above – about the press conference, its funding, our political views, and our team. And a hate-filled crowd was ready to blindly join his crusade against us – and to believe his every word. Twisting facts and deliberately lying have become his modus operandi. We took legal action against him.

In March 2025, he claimed to have won against me in court. In truth, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg merely decided not to admit our request for expedited proceedings for formal reasons, supposedly due to a missed deadline. The court did not assess the content of his statements.

This decision reflects the bitter reality faced by many women who seek legal recourse against (sexualised) digital violence: justice is rare. Despite the absence of clear deadlines, our application was deemed late – because, at the request of the opposing party (!), we spent weeks attempting to reach a settlement, which „Jonpeaceman“ scuppered on the very day it was due to be signed. The settlement would not have brought me justice, but it might have ended the violence. It seems clear that he deliberately set out to undermine our chances of legal protection.

Furthermore, „Jonpeaceman“ appears to be actively evading legal consequences. He is officially deregistered from Germany and claims to be abroad. Yet we were able to prove that his name remains on the doorbell of a clearly identifiable residence in Germany. This should constitute a valid address for service of documents, which is a requirement for legal proceedings. Nonetheless, he and his lawyers deny this and he refuses to grant his lawyers a power of attorney that would allow them to officially receive documents on his behalf. Everything points to a systematic effort to evade criminal and civil accountability. Further legal proceedings are ongoing.

He avoids judicial litigation, never shows up in person, and shuns direct confrontation. Rather than taking social responsibility, he engages in cowardly couch activism – activism that has no interest in education or change, but solely in destruction.

Many women – even beyond Germany – view „Jonpeaceman“ as a serious threat. And yet there are also individuals who consider themselves feminists and publicly support him. Numerous prominent „feminist“ authors, activists and content creators deliberately fuel the violence he initiates by uncritically sharing his statements. In doing so, they help to stir up hatred.

For instance, the author Emilia Roig not only spread false claims about us and called for „solidarity with Jonpeaceman”. She also urged her tens of thousands of followers to support his GoFundMe campaign, in which he solicited donations for supposed „SLAPP lawsuits“ – cases which, in his view, were meant to suppress criticism. But the term is being deliberately misused here: these are not intimidation lawsuits, but necessary and legitimate legal steps taken by several women – including us – to defend ourselves against targeted defamation and digital violence. Such proceedings are rooted in the rule of law and serve to protect those under attack.

Many so-called „feminists“ are thus celebrating a misogynist. Significant parts of what was once an emancipatory left are increasingly falling into authoritarian dogmatism – with destructive consequences for anyone who does not fit into their rigid worldview. Why? For ideological reasons. Philosopher Susan Neiman describes this development in her book Left Is Not Woke: in the history of ideas, she argues, authoritarian tendencies within the left lead increasingly to a convergence with right-wing patterns of thought. Core leftist values – such as the pursuit of justice or universalism – are being replaced, according to Neiman, by power games and an identitarian tribalism: us versus them.

A similar analysis is offered by Jens Balzer in After Woke. He writes: „In the postcolonial regime of truth, where people are rigidly divided along colour lines into Black and white, Jewish people are considered privileged white individuals – and thus placed on the side of oppressors or colonisers […]. Those on this side are deemed to have no right to speak of their own experiences of discrimination.“ According to Balzer, this also explains why many “woke”, hypersensitive, postcolonial actors were unwilling or unable to clearly classify the terror of Hamas after 7 October. „They were simply too convinced of their Manichean worldview, of the binary division between oppressors and oppressed – and of their moral superiority, of the unassailable truth of their convictions.“

This rigid worldview is propagated by authoritarian, dogmatic leftists. Here feminism is declared a secondary concern, members of patriarchal-fascistoid groups such as Hamas are romanticised as freedom fighters, and misogynistic digital violence against those who resist this dogmatism is tacitly accepted.

Within this brand of activism, violent men – men who perpetrate the worst violence against women – are accepted simply because they serve the activists’ own ideology. And parts of the left are complicit. The recent Netflix series Adolescence has shown a broad audience the devastating consequences of toxic masculinity and the radicalisation of young men through social media. My position on this is crystal clear: I will never accept a misogynistic feminism.

The future of democracy in the digital realm

Critical scrutiny of my own work and our work as an institution is both permissible and desirable. Over the years, we have repeatedly received constructive criticism and responded to it: we have revised our strategy, ended programme areas,[5] worked with experts to improve internal processes, and redefined positions. Constructive criticism and respectful, democratic debate are essential for developing areas of work and finding better solutions. Yet unfortunately, this is precisely what is often missing in the digital world – instead, there is a deliberate effort to discredit people with different views. In our specific case, it poses an existential threat, but it is by no means an isolated incident.

The world is heading towards a perilous situation that stems directly from the state of digital debate culture. Eva Menasse points to this in her book Alles und nichts sagen – Vom Zustand der Debatte in der Digitalmoderne (Saying everything and nothing: on the state of debate in digital modernity), in which she analyses the consequences of digitalisation for our communication. She observes a rise in demands, impatience and hatred, while the space for nuance continues to shrink. It has become habitual, she writes, not to argue with the opposing side but to delegitimise it – to mark the “others” as inferior in order to symbolically “eliminate” them. It is a language rooted in the rhetoric of war.

Once people have been publicly “taken down”, another process begins: the more often false or exaggerated accusations are voiced, the greater the scepticism towards actual instances of violence and discrimination. This not only undermines democratic culture but especially harms feminist and anti-racist movements – those that rely on nuance, credibility, and the protection of those affected. This threatens to dangerously narrow the democratic spectrum.

If such mechanisms destroy those working for social progress, who will still have the courage to get involved? Who, despite financial insecurity, will found a non-profit organisation, build structures, fundraise, forge networks, realise projects, recruit people, win political allies, conduct years of research, make compromises, and develop strategies – when a lynch mob of Instagram activists can destroy it all in no time? Who will do the hard political groundwork when others are eagerly waiting for a chance to tear it down?

The mob needs influencers: these individuals are defined by their enormous digital reach and possess a precise understanding of platform algorithms. They shape public discourse and can mobilise communities – for positive causes as well as to amplify problematic content. Katja Muñoz, a researcher from the German Council on Foreign Relations, has closely examined this phenomenon. In her policy paper Influencers and Their Ability to Engineer Collective Online Behaviour, she analyses the consequences of this development. She shows that besides the small number of “mega-influencers” who dominate social media, there are “smaller influencers” – accounts with just a few thousand followers – which are also influential. In Alles und nichts sagen (Saying everything and nothing), Eva Menasse aptly describes the destructive dynamics of the spiteful, cynical “Twitter super and middle powers, the most prominent Instagrammers, and opinion leaders across platforms” – and the fear they inspire. She illustrates how these mechanisms operate: “If ten of them tweet that NGO so-and-so is transphobic/antisemitic/racist, then we really do have a problem.” Or, in starker terms, “They can destroy us”. As soon as someone points out that the allegations are demonstrably false, the response is awkward silence – followed by the revealing, yet difficult-to-counter phrase: “That’s not the point.”

In an era of declining trust in traditional institutions, such “powers” have established themselves as alternative sources of trust. With their ability to strategically deploy their reach and claim authority on certain issues, they are increasingly determining online discourse – and thereby influencing social dynamics in the real world. Their digital presence makes it much easier to conduct coordinated actions – including hate campaigns – than it would be in face-to-face discussions. Moreover, as Muñoz states, “the increased prevalence of such collective influence campaigns is now being leveraged to engineer social trends at scale in political communication, raising significant concerns about the integrity of democratic discourse.”

It is becoming increasingly evident that people don’t necessarily care whether the information they read and share is actually true. They want to believe certain sources – including influencers. And the qualities expected of these sources have changed: today, trust is often no longer based on journalistic due diligence or fact-based research, but on personal connection and emotional congruence. If we want to reduce the impact of hate campaigns, orchestrated online mobs, and ultimately digital lynch justice, we need a resilient information society. One that can withstand disinformation, manipulation and digital threats. This includes robust mechanisms for uncovering the truth, critical media literacy among the population, and the protection of democratic discourse. Unfortunately, however, we are still a long way from achieving this.

One reason for this is that media education lags far behind the rapid pace of technological development. Another factor is neurological processes. Journalist Maik Großekathöfer summarises the state of research in an article in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, entitled “Im Labyrinth der Lügen” (In the labyrinth of lies). Here he notes that our brains are wired to find fake news particularly attractive. Studies have shown that false reports spread significantly faster and further on social media than true ones. False information spreads especially quickly because it triggers strong negative emotions, thus capturing our attention and appearing more credible. Furthermore, our brains classify content that is stated more than once as true, regardless of its factual accuracy. If something is repeated often enough, it sticks.

Another factor is social pressure: people feel uncomfortable standing alone with their opinion and tend to align with the majority. The more likes, shares, or comments a false piece of information receives, the more likely it is to be perceived as credible – and spread further. This is reinforced by social media echo chambers, where users are mainly shown content that aligns with their existing worldview.

This is exploited by political extremists who rely on simplistic arguments and are thus less burdened by contradictions – especially the (undemocratic) right. And we, with our widespread intransigence and inability to forge alliances or build bridges, become their most effective enablers. While the left and feminists tear each other apart, the undemocratic right acts quickly, strategically and efficiently – and watches gleefully as the democratic centre and moderate left-wing movements self-destruct.

There is no justification for destructive witch-hunts

Just as people have historically resisted the arbitrary exercise of power, (patriarchal) violence, and mob justice, we must also expose and confront such phenomena today. To do so, we need to transpose the principles of our democratic rule-of-law-based society into the digital world. In analogue reality, it is taken for granted that everyone has the right to defend themselves and to be heard (audi et altera pars). In the digital realm, however, this principle is overturned – here it is the mob that rules, not the law, and not even a minimal standard of fairness.

The wheels of legislation turn slowly, and it takes tremendous effort to effectively counter digital violence by recourse to the law. But some things can be done immediately: we must not allow fear to guide us. We must defend spaces for nuanced debate, critically examine what we read online, reflect on social media and the associated amplification effects, recognise projections – and refuse to become part of a system that does not seek justice, but annihilation. Because those who remain silent today may themselves become targets tomorrow.

Those who wish to defend democracy, human dignity and the rule of law must not trivialise digital mob justice as “criticism”. The noose around civil society – particularly around feminist civil society – is tightening. Our work has never been comfortable, but today the space for feminist and human rights work is more restricted than ever – worldwide. Examples can be found in both democratic and anti-democratic contexts.[6] Right-wing media outlets are openly calling for NGOs to be pilloried and their work sabotaged. Budgets for development cooperation, human rights initiatives and women’s rights work are being cut or even eliminated entirely. The global shift toward authoritarianism and far-right extremism is the greatest current threat to feminist and civil society work. This makes it all the more worrying when parts of the political left also adopt authoritarian tendencies and thus become an additional threat. It is absurd. The world is burning – wars and conflicts have reached a record high, autocrats and right-wing extremists are dismantling democracies at pace. Yet some on the left evidently have nothing better to do than attack and defame one of the few newly founded, successful and effective feminist NGOs. I wish that decency and humanity would go viral instead of hatred and outrage. There is no justification for destructive witch-hunts.