Another notification on my X account. It’s porn, again. They keep sending me porn.
This time it’s different. It’s my face. The woman in the image, being penetrated from behind, smiles back at me with my own face.
The thing is, it’s not me. There’s a photo of it, but this scenario never happened. They’ve turned me into ‘deepfake’ porn.
Over the last five weeks, my Collective Shout colleagues and I have been subjected to a sustained, intense campaign of misogynistic threats and abuse. Why? Because we successfully campaigned to get rape, incest and child sexual abuse games off a few popular gaming platforms.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been on the receiving end of threats of violence, harassment and abuse, given I’m a woman on the internet speaking out against men’s violence against women. Or just, given I’m a woman on the Internet. But this time is the most extreme it’s ever been. And while the abuse has occurred across platforms, it is the most intense on X (formerly Twitter.)
These misogynistic gamers have sent us rape and death threats, and images of weapons like guns and knives accompanied by descriptions of how they intend to use them on us. They send us violent porn depicting women being tortured and tell us this is what they will do to us. They send us CSAM [child sexual abuse material]. They threaten our families, our children. They encourage us to kill ourselves. They call us “c**ts” and “rapemeat”. They distribute whatever personal info about us they can dig up. They turn us into porn which they post on the public platform.
The abuse has been so extreme it has been condemned by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, who described it as “horrific” and some of the most serious she had seen.
This is horrific and i’m very alarmed by it.
— Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls (@UNSRVAW) August 5, 2025
It represents the most serious form of online violence against women human rights defenders i have seen a long time. All this because @CollectiveShout is doing its job in calling out misogyny and violence against females online.
I… https://t.co/Nz1HysVpbV
Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is, What new horrors await me today? following 7 or 8 hours of not constantly monitoring the abuse on X. I typically spend an hour or so blocking abusive accounts every morning, a process which continues throughout the day, every day. Screenshot, report, block.
What makes X unique is that there is almost no moderation. These men are permitted to post illegal threats, defamatory and false claims, and image-based abuse (sometimes known as ‘revenge porn’) for the most part without any consequences whatsoever.
I could not say how many X accounts I have reported over this period – a confusing and apparently futile process – but I can say that X allows these abusers to get away with it. I have received a few responses to my X reports to inform me they have “limited visibility” on some of the posts threatening to rape and kill me, as if that helps.
Sometimes X will let me know that a post does violate its policies, and they have removed it. But the accounts remain, and the user is free to post the same content again.
In most cases, X determines the abuse is not in violation of their terms. In response to my report about the creation and distribution of image-based abuse, which is illegal – an image of my face superimposed onto porn and shared on the platform – I was informed it did not violate X’s policies.
X collaborates with our abusers, facilitating their illegal abuse and even providing them tools like AI feature Grok to dox and harass us.
These men publish the names, positions and cities of my colleagues and myself alongside a call to “fight until [we’re] dead” and to “grape and merder” (sic) the women on our small team. They ask Grok where we live and where we get coffee.
In the past, when misogynists opposed our work campaigning against sexual exploitation of women and children, they had to invest hours to do their own research on us. Now, thanks to AI – like Grok – the work is done for them.
Maybe I could change the settings on my posts so that only my friends and followers can interact with me? Nope, they can ‘quote’ my posts and insert their abuse there. Or I could lock my account and “go private”? That doesn’t prevent these men from being able to send me abuse. Or I could just block them?
First, where previously X users could block individuals they didn’t want to engage with, or who were harassing or abusing them, the block function no longer prevents the blocked party from viewing the tweets. This allows for continued stalking and surveillance by abusers, leaving victims with little recourse if they want to remain on the platform.
Blocking also only applies to a single profile. When one user sent me death threats, I blocked him. He came back with a new account. I blocked him again. It became a game for him – he would taunt me, reappearing from behind new accounts with little hints for me, like the same image of a knife he had sent previously, or the same pornographic image he had made of me, and the words “Guess who!” To date, I have blocked and reported 22 accounts from this user who has made it his mission to terrorise me – enabled by X. Even if X terminates his account, he is permitted to make another, and another, and another.
In the midst of all this abuse, gamers are claiming we are making it up. That the abuse never happened, that we created and sent it to ourselves, or if it did happen, we deserve it.
In a state of emotional exhaustion and utter exasperation, I posted a screen capture of some of the threats and abuse I was being sent. What happened next? X punished me.
I am no longer searchable on X. If a person enters my username, I do not come up. I have been on X for 14 years as part of my activism, campaigning against men’s violence against women and girls. My ability to campaign on the platform, to speak out on these issues, or to network with others working in this space has been thwarted – simply because I shared the abuse men were permitted to send to me.
A close friend offered to take over blocking and reporting content on my account for me. Initially I refused, not wanting her to be traumatised. But after receiving an image of my face having been blown off, I agreed.
X was theoretically supposed to function as a “digital town square” where people could come together and discuss ideas. But X is so openly hostile to women it’s becoming clear that we are not welcome. The platform has become so porn-saturated it’s impossible to avoid, as any random post can have porn in the replies advertising various OnlyFans accounts. According to a report by the UK Children’s Commissioner released this month it’s also the online platform where young people were most likely to have seen pornography.
If X is supposed to be a place where free speech is protected, we have to ask whose voices are being heard, and whose are being silenced.
I came across a post that in ordinary circumstances I would have reposted on my X account, but I can’t, because to be on X is to endure ongoing threats to my life, new images of my face on porn, and bloodied images of women’s bodies alongside threats to rape my corpse.
The post by user BarbaraXLow read:
“It should be clear to everyone now, that even Elon wants a ‘women free’ internet. He won’t ban us, but he will allow for the platform to become so porn-soaked and anti-woman, that we will ‘self-exclude’.”
Where to from here? Do women opt out of public spaces where misogyny and harassment are permitted to thrive? Do we remain, on principle, that we have a right to participate in public life and discourse? I honestly don’t know any more.