My name is Ann Lewis, and I'm the Chief Technology Officer at MoveOn. I'm writing because MoveOn is under attack by Donald Trump, and we need your help.

Here's the situation: Over the past few months, as Donald Trump has campaigned from city to city, MoveOn members have turned out for peaceful demonstrations against his carnival of hate.

In response, Trump attacked us in the media, calling MoveOn members "not a good group of people," while his media surrogates explicitly blamed MoveOn for violence he incited at his rallies.1,2

That's when things started getting ugly. We've been flooded with hate mail, spam, and personal threats to our staff and online security.

As a result, we're conducting a top-to-bottom security audit to secure our systems in advance of the general election. We won't back down from Trump, but we need to be prepared. Will you chip in?

Over the years, MoveOn has gone head to head against everyone from Dick Cheney to Sarah Palin to the Koch brothers. But what we’re seeing from Trump and his supporters is something different—and scary.

We've all seen the videos of Trump supporters punching and shoving protestors—as well as Trump's explicit statements encouraging violence. What the public doesn't see is the avalanche of threats that come in through email and social media. It's more hate mail of a more vicious nature than we received even when we took on the NRA or helped take down the Confederate Flag. It's frightening.

The Trump strategy is clear: He picks a target, demonizes them, and then tries to bully them into silence. It's what he's done to Muslims, women, immigrants, reporters, people with disabilities—and now, he's trying to do it to MoveOn.

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10:00 pm

Forum

Online Harassment in the Spotlight with #MoreThanMean

A video released last week by sports journalists Julie DiCaro and Sarah Spain is rekindling the conversation about online harassment. In the video, titled #MoreThanMean, men read aloud rude and offensive tweets about the two journalists as they sit and listen. The tweets range from mild to threatening, with some expressing a desire to see the journalists beaten, raped or killed. The problem is widespread: A 2014 Pew report finds that 40 percent of internet users have experienced harassment, and women are especially vulnerable. We'll discuss the #MoreThanMean video and efforts to promote more civil discourse online.