But disappear is exactly what she did next. Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, a well-known provocateur, hacker, and anti-Semite, circulated her home address and Social Security number online. He also made false statements about her being a battered wife and a former prostitute. Not only did Sierra find herself a target for identity theft, but all the people who had threatened to brutally rape and kill her now knew where she lived. So, she logged off and didn’t return to the web until two months ago. She gave up the book deals, speaking engagements, and even fled her home. An anonymous internet group had chased her off the web and out of tech, and it finally managed to hijack her offline life.

Despite everything, Sierra says she’s lucky. She told The Verge, in her first interview since 2007, that she knows things could have been far worse. “What happened to me pales in comparison to what’s happening to women online today,” Sierra said. “I thought things would get better. Mostly, it’s just gotten worse.”

It’s not hard to find support to back that statement. In July, Caroline Criado-Perez — a British journalist who led a successful campaign to get the image of author Jane Austen on one of the UK’s banknotes — received thousands of threats on Twitter. “Women that talk too much need to get raped,” wrote someone using the handle Rapey1 in a tweet to Criado-Perez. Another user called Catch-me-if-you-can wrote: “Shut your whore mouth now, or I’ll shut it for you, and choke you with my dick.” The threatening tweets were then directed at male journalists who were critical of the attacks. Paul Mason writing for The Guardian said his Twitter timeline became full of threats, and some demanded he “respect free speech.” As he explained, “I’ve been treated to graphic descriptions of child rape, outrageous accusations designed to evoke disgust, plus numerous other commentaries on my appearance, professionalism, life.”

For more on Wikitroll “Weev” see here en.wikipedia.org

More: The End of Kindness: Weev and the Cult of the Angry Young Man