Online Political Harassment Targeting German and Swedish Trans Advocates: Does Platform Governance Make a Difference?

Online platforms are crucial for political activists worldwide, but platform affordances also enable harassment and silencing of marginalized groups. Platform regulations are one of the main ways to curb hateful attacks, and democratic states are increasingly adopting legislation that targets big tech companies, including their content moderation. Focusing on the polarized 2024 debates around new gender self-identification laws in Sweden and Germany, this study explores how trans advocates experience online political harassment, with particular attention to their exposure to and the impacts of such attacks, and whether national platform regulations, such as the German NetzDG, shape these experiences. Drawing on interviews with leading LGBTIQ+ advocates, the findings suggest that such regulations make little difference in practice. Advocates in both Sweden and Germany reported unprecedented levels of harassment on social media during the debates, with significant consequences for their mental health and continued political engagement. The impact was particularly severe for advocates with intersecting marginalized identities, who often lacked institutional support and were targeted personally for being trans. Respondents also noted increased attacks from trans-exclusionary feminists, underscoring the need for closer scrutiny of these actors in countries regarded as frontrunners in gender equality and LGBTIQ+ rights protection.