Jennifer Bubel & Will Gittins

TROLL GROUPS

target Amber Heard and other women online

A report by Bot Sentinel shows how internet trolls target abuse towards female public figures like Amber Heard.

Study found that Twitter trolls used manipulation tactics in order to get anti-Amber Heard hashtags to trend on Twitter.

Trolls used 'hashtag spamming' to boost reach, giving the impression of overwhelming negativity towards the actress.

Once they had got a hashtag trending, users would brag about their achievement and encourage others to join in.

They used 'copypasta' techniques - copying and pasting duplicated content - to amplify claims that Heard was lying.

Trolls also harrassed and abused Heard's supporters, sending death threats and doxxing their personal information.

One woman was targeted by trolls who created a fake account with a photo of her deceased child.

The Bot Sentinel report analyzed tweets and found that 24% of the abusive accounts were set up in the past seven months.

Hashtags included #AmberHeardLsAnAbuser and #AmberHeardLsALiar, spelled with an L instead of an I to dupe the algorithm.

Report described the abuse as "one of the worst cases of cyberbullying and cyberstalking... that we've ever seen."