Some people don’t just dislike women; they monetise that dislike. I got on to the internet, especially social media, a little earlier than most Kenyans, and so I have had a front seat to the evolution, progress, as well as the regression of the space. In the early days, social media was sold as this amazing platform where connection, fun, self-expression, and community were turbocharged; and in a lot of ways, they were. Twitter especially, in the beginning, was this carefree space where we felt comfortable enough to share our thoughts with strangers, very different from the Facebook model which was geared towards “friends.” This openness died pretty quickly when the weaponisation of misogyny emerged as a norm, and the platforms leaned into feeding the hate.
The first active Kenyan Twitter misogynists grew huge platforms off of bullying, threatening and disparaging women. We watched them become celebrities, influencers and make money with brands, and build careers off of terrorising women. Fast-forward to a decade later and hatred, including misogyny, has become a guaranteed scalable business model. The internet is full of podcasters, YouTubers, and influencers whose entire claim to fame is the hatred of women, because it pays. It pays so well, in fact, that self-styled manosphere “experts” are living large off their disciples' views, likes, and contributions. What used to be slimy bar talk is now content, strategy, and a revenue stream. If outrage equals eyeballs, misogyny delivers reliable ROI.
The Hustlers of Hate
We all serve The Algorithm, and The Algorithm rewards two things above all else: emotional volatility and conflict. A man whining about “gold diggers” will reach more people than a woman discussing systemic inequality. A thread sexualising a female politician will trend faster than her actual policy platform. A smear campaign goes viral because society is already conditioned to find women’s “flaws” believable, and platforms amplify what produces engagement, not truth. It doesn’t stop at individual influencers either. There is a shadow industry of paid misogyny, especially during elections or scandals. Women politicians, feminists, journalists, and activists often become targets of coordinated smear campaigns funded by political actors, and even corporations threatened by reporting or speech against them and their policies.
Digital Violence Is Still Violence
For years, we’ve been told to treat online attacks as noise, with statements like “ignore them,” “don’t feed the trolls,” “it’s just banter” and “just log off.” This minimisation of tech-facilitated violence while it continues to do real harm is a slap in the face of victims. The internet spills into real life. Careers have tanked because of digital smear campaigns; politicians have lost elections because of coordinated trolling; women have been blackmailed, stalked, silenced, and retraumatised and then told it is merely “online drama.” Let's be honest, it is violence. It is psychological, reputational, sexual, political, and economic harm delivered through screens. For women, especially those who dare to be visible, this violence is the cost of participation.
One of the most insidious accelerations of digital misogyny is non-consensual intimate image abuse. Women are blackmailed, extorted for money, and their humiliation made public amusement. AI has scaled the abuse. Now, women don’t even need to have taken a sexual photo for one to exist. AI tools undress or “dress” women digitally, insert their faces into porn, clone their voices into “confessions,” fabricate screenshots, stage them in compromising scenarios, and mass generate lies that appear “real.” We are basically living in late-stage digital violence where AI has now automated violence against women.
As we observe the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, we have to reckon with the fact that the digital economy is driven by misogyny, and as long as this is the case, tech-facilitated violence is not going anywhere. Sure, we have laws that criminalise aspects of this, including cyber stalking, harassment and sharing intimate images without consent, but without serious implementation, they remain lip service. We have to ask ourselves how long we are going to allow people to profit off of the pain of women. How long are we going to pretend that this insidious violence is harmless fun and not an intentional and deliberate tool to harm women? How long are we going to allow the internet to be a boy’s club that is trying to keep women out through hostile manoeuvring? How long are we going to let these platforms play innocent while they fill their coffers off of this? As there’s profit in digital misogyny,the show goes on, and I think it’s about time for it to come to a hurtling end.
By Mwende Ngao.