A University of Arizona graduate student and president of the Pima County Young Democrats has received several threatening messages via social media since October, a few months after she began posting political content on TikTok.

Abby Cox, 28, received the most recent message last week that said, “We’re gonna find you. And when we find you we’re gonna rape you and then beat you to death. We’re not gonna stop until we find you. Be ready.”

The message, the third since October, came from an anonymous account.

“Most people just say that they want me dead and want to follow through with it,” she said.

Cox began posting political content to her TikTok page last summer, with one of a video o going viral in July, something she said was completely unexpected. In the video, Cox shared her thoughts on why Vice President Kamala Harris' interns deserved a raise.

Since then, she’s amassed 23,000 followers and more than five million likes.

“I kept doing it,” she said, referring to her videos. “But I soon realized that not everyone liked that.”

The notes, all of which are on TikTok, are never posted publicly on her page. Instead, anonymous accounts send messages directly to her through inbox – making it nearly impossible to track who they’re from.

And despite Cox’s screenshots, along with reports to both TikTok and Tucson police, she has little recourse to stop the harassment.

When she reported the messages to TikTok, the popular social media app told her there was “no violation to be found.”

As president of Pima County Young Democrats, as well as the vice president of membership for Young Democrats of Arizona, Cox is aware of her own public position — especially given the history of political violence in Arizona.

When she moved to Tucson from Indiana two years ago to attend the UA, Pima County Young Democrats was an inactive organization. She reached out to some of the previous members, whose first question was if she wanted to run the group.

“If it means it starts up again, then yes, I would,” she told them.

While she works towards her master’s in legal studies, Cox has juggled her education, political organizing work, and now online threats. Last week, Cox reported her most recent threat to the TPD non-emergency line. Days later, she’s still awaiting a response.

Cox has done what she can to try to combat the risks that come along with both the position she holds and the content she posts.

She says she’s taken precautions on the internet to ensure people can’t access her information as easily and remains steadfast in her efforts to keep everyone in her own organizing work safe within the community.

“It’s hard to tell if these people are in your state, or in a state near you, but I also think that’s the scary part of it,” she said. “Not knowing exactly where these people are at and if they can get to you easily.”

Even as the threats and risks to her safety persist, Cox says her main concern isn’t necessarily her own personal safety, but the people attending her events who are involved in the Arizona political space.

Their safety is her “top priority,” she says. And when it comes to the future of her online activism, Cox has no plans on stopping.

“It’s not fair for the people who I’m trying to advocate for, for me to let them scare me,” she said, referencing the anonymous accounts and messages. “That’s what they want me to feel.”

Cox said she’s determined to continue to speak to “things that are happening right now,” and not allow any kind of vitriolic attacks online to deter her – a sentiment that she says lines up with how she started and why she began to post in the first place.

As for a solution? Cox says there are tough conversations that need to be had, and additional steps that need to be taken to keep the organizers safe.

“At first, it’s really jarring to think that someone would even want to send that to somebody,” she said. “I think that’s a conversation we need to have in itself, why people think it’s acceptable in this political climate.”

Olivia Krupp is a journalism major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at oliviakrupp@arizona.edu.

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