Ashley Judd refuses to be bullied by online abuse in this defiant speech

When Ashley Judd, an actress and humanitarian, tweeted in defense of her beloved Kentucky Wildcats during March Madness in 2015, she didn’t expect it unleash a hateful cyber mob. Her mentions were quickly full of sexist slurs and tweets about rape. 

Judd already dealt with online abuse and misogyny but this was different. Judd described the response as a “tsunami of gender-based violence and misogyny flooding my Twitter feed” in an essay for Mic. 

In November, Judd spoke candidly about the episode at TED Women in San Francisco, calling for an end to online harassment that targets girls and women and drives them away from the internet. TED made the video of her speech available for the first time on Wednesday. (Editor’s note: The video opens with Judd repeating the graphic language directed at her via social media.) 

“I’ve tried to rise above it, I’ve tried to get in the trenches, but mostly I would scroll through these social media platforms with one eye partially closed, trying not to see it,” said Judd, who also mentioned that she pays someone to “scrub” her social media feeds of hate speech. 

The comments can leave a lasting emotional and psychological impact. One tweet directed at Judd included a specific sexual assault scenario that she had actually experienced as a child. 

“I’ve tried to rise above it…but mostly I would scroll through these social media platforms with one eye partially closed.”

“That tweet brought up that trauma, and I had to do work on that,” she said. 

The cost of being a girl or woman online is even higher, Judd added, when harassers attack someone not only for their gender, but also aspects of their identity like sexual orientation, race and ethnicity. 

Judd offered a handful of solutions in her talk, including improved digital media literacy, updated laws that reflect modern technology and ending sexism in the tech companies that oversee social media platforms. 

“Only when women have critical mass in every department at your companies, including building platforms from the ground up, will the conversations about priorities and solutions change,” Judd said. 

The 16-minute talk comes at an awkward moment for Twitter. The company has been pressed to ban President-elect Donald J. Trump because of tweets and commentary that arguably violate its terms of service by targeting people and groups based on their race, ethnicity, national origin and religious affiliation. 

On Jan. 3, writer and feminist Lindy West deactivated her Twitter account, arguing that the service might be impossible for anyone but “trolls, robots and dictators” to use. 

Judd remains active on Twitter and Facebook, but has committed herself to developing solutions that make it safer for girls and women to use. 

“We must as individuals disrupt gender violence as it is happening,” she said. “We must have the courage and urgency to practice stopping it as it is unfolding.” 

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