The hottest Online Abuse Substack posts right now

Online mediation is reshaping intimacy and identity, producing experiences where people can feel arousal or connection while being disconnected from physical sexual participation.
A new pattern of harm is emerging in which someone uses sustained, platform-based communication to build coercive psychological control and push a specific person toward self-destruction without ever meeting them in person.
Existing criminal labels don’t capture this phenomenon, so we need a mechanism-focused category — a "mediated murderer" — for targeted, interactive, platform-dependent coercion that culminates in death without physical co-presence.

Roblox often links players to Discord and other off-platform chats, and those links are inconsistently enforced, which pushes children into spaces with far less moderation and higher risk.
Roblox leans on Discord so older players can have uncensored chat. But Discord doesn’t verify ages and depends on volunteer moderators, creating opportunities for predators, scams, and exploitative labor practices that target young users.
Roblox’s safety tools — heavy filters, AI moderation, and proposed facial age checks — are imperfect and under-resourced, and the company often seems to prioritize growth and PR over thorough protection, which has driven community members to take vigilante action out of frustration.

Gaslighters should not be debated by scientists as it can give them undeserved credibility and make the scientists look like nitpicking nerds.
Debating gaslighters can lead to a situation where the huckster's misinformation is seen as equal to well-established scientific principles.
It's crucial for the scientific community to find skilled communicators who can effectively counter the rhetoric of gaslighters like RFK Jr.

Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

Snapchat's face-swap feature is so disturbing it once featured in an epic poem, reflecting the app's ability to melt faces like warm wax
The internet culture of trolls and online abuse is highlighted in various articles that explore feeding trolls, Victorian teachings on online abuse, and the man behind 8chan
A collection of diverse and intriguing reads on digital culture is provided in a Friday newsletter, offering readers a chance to catch up and unplug

Online spaces are a frontline for gender-based violence: women face constant harassment, doxxing, impersonation, sexualized threats, and coordinated smear campaigns.
Armed conflict amplifies and globalizes digital attacks: when violence escalates online abuse surges, crosses borders, and platforms often fail to protect or wrongly remove victims' content.
Digital attacks have real-world consequences and strip identity: online violence can lead to surveillance, physical danger, social exclusion, and requires action against platforms and algorithms as part of stopping harm.