Luverta Jeffreys son used to be on Twitter all the time. The 19-year-old was a big Kamala Harris supporter and loved discussing the then-presidential candidate online last year with fellow fans. But, after some research, he decided Harris was no longer his candidate.

We dont need you fags anyway, a tweet popped up on his phone from someone identifying themselves as a member of Harris digital army of fans, dubbed the KHive. The loosely organized fan group is an online community of ardent Harris supporters who backed the Democratic senator from California first during her presidential run and now as Joe Bidens pick for vice president.

Jeffrey came to her sons defense, thinking that she was up against a few online trolls nothing she hasnt seen on Twitter herself. But things quickly got ugly.

Self-identified members of the KHive started replying to and retweeting Jeffreys tweets about her son, Jeffrey said, which led to her getting swarmed when anywhere from several to dozens of accounts start tweeting at or retweeting one person at the same time.

They used her past tweets about being a victim of sexual assault and domestic abuse to harass her. Multiple people also told her she should try to kill herself, citing prior tweets in which she discussed having suicidal thoughts.

They spent time retweeting my posts and calling me a white supremacist, a coon and all sorts of derogatory names, fueling others who began to DM me telling me I was a sell out because I was Black and I shouldve killed myself when I had the chance, Jeffrey said. I was mocked and harassed for being a sexual assault survivor, a domestic abuse survivor, and was told by the KHive that it was good for me and they hope it happens again, since I dont support Harris.

Members of the KHive, which one member estimated is made up of 50,000 to 60,000 Twitter accounts, see themselves as defenders and boosters of Harris, particularly as she faces an onslaught of racist and misogynistic harassment as the first Black and first Asian American woman to be nominated for vice president by either major party. Harris and her allies have shouted out the group multiple times.

Its not surprising Harris has such a devoted group of supporters and defenders, given the historical significance of her candidacy. And the inevitable vitriol faced by women, particularly women of color, in politics helps to explain why some supporters are passionate in their defense of her reputation online. But, according to nearly a dozen people who spoke with HuffPost, some members of the KHive have crossed the line from ardent fandom to overt harassment and threatening language.

Nearly a dozen people said accounts identified as part of the KHive often kicked off or instigated harassment campaigns against them for originally backing Democratic candidates other than Harris. Often, after the harassment began, self-identified KHive members and other accounts swarmed them on Twitter.

The harassment included slurs about peoples ethnicity, including calling Black people house slaves for backing other Democrats. One Elizabeth Warren supporter, who identifies as gay, said he was told that all Warren gays should be chemically castrated, after he was the target of a harassment campaign kicked off by a KHive member. A recent high school graduate who supported Bernie Sanders said a volunteer organizer for Harriss presidential campaign tweeted that he hoped I would be raped in a gas chamber by MAGA nazis (the teen is Jewish). The Harris supporter deleted the tweet minutes after posting it, according to the teen.

Multiple people said their personal information was published online, forcing some to move their families to a different location temporarily for fear they were in physical danger. Two women said KHive members made veiled threats toward their children. One of the women said she received a call from child protective services about her 17-month-old child after an incident with the KHive.

This behavior is not reflective of Harris as a candidate or Harris supporters as a whole. No politician or celebrity is responsible for every tweet by a supporter, nor is every member of an online movement responsible for its most aggressive element.

And it can be difficult to cleanly sum up the behavior of loosely organized political fan groups that form, often online, around our most popular political candidates, like the Yang Gang or the Bernie Bros.

A former aide on the Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, who experienced the fallout from the sometimes harmful behavior of the Bernie Bros, said he believes the toxicity in political fan groups is a reflection of the nature of online fandom, not the politician or celebrity themselves.

Between 2016 and 2020 weve seen this happening on the internet much more. Politics is only one sphere of where this [online fan culture] happens, said the former aide. You see it with celebrities who have stans who can be extremely hostile, like [fans of] Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift.

But Harris could be one of the most powerful politicians in the country come January, and her rise has in part been shaped by her online image.

Obviously, politicians cannot be held accountable for an individuals behavior, but they can certainly influence it and make it clear that they denounce that sort of behavior, said one Warren Democrat who asked to remain anonymous since they have received death threats from KHive members.

In response to a HuffPost inquiry about this article, Sabrina Singh, press secretary for Harris, said: The campaign does not condone doxxing, derogatory language or harassment of any kind.

Harassment Moves Offline

Some of the KHives highest-profile members have said the group is close-knit and has led to lasting friendships, often between Black women and other people of color who are excited to see a Black and Asian American woman have a chance at the office.

Ive seen a lot of situations where people who are KHive were going through difficult things medically, financially, emotionally, whatever the case might be and a lot of us will rally around them and support them, said Chris Evans , a KHive member with over 55,000 followers on Twitter.

Julie Zebrak , KHive member and co-founder of Joe Mamas 2020 and Mamas4Kamala , said theres a lot of love on a personal level for Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. The KHive has been there both to support her, to support each other in our support for her, and to connect with each other, she said.

Reecie Colbert , another member of the KHive with a large profile, added that the KHives mission to defend Harris was born in response to the intense scrutiny shes faced.

Harris had one of her strongest moments during the last round of the Democratic debates in late June when she criticized Biden for his record on busing . Although she was widely applauded for her standout moment, Harris immediately received an onslaught of attacks on Twitter , including that she was a fraud and sellout, as well as racist birther accusations that she was not authentically American or Black.

Its really important that the KHive is out there fighting for Kamala, said Colbert. Thats something I think people are very unaccustomed to, particularly when it comes to a Black woman.

The KHive has made its mission clear: amplifying and celebrating Harris while defending her against the onslaught of harassment and misinformation she faces online. But, as with most loosely-organized online groups, it does not have a unified set of tactics, and bad actors are hard or impossible to control.

While many self-identified KHive accounts tweet praise of Harris and criticism of her detractors, some veer into abusive and threatening language. Some of the online harassment reviewed by HuffPost appears to be from smaller Twitter accounts that self-identify as part of the KHive. In other cases, it came from accounts that did not identify themselves as KHive members in their profiles.

One alleged bad actor, in particular, stands out. Bianca Delarosa, who has a large following and multiple Twitter accounts, claims to be the founder of the KHive. Nearly all of the people HuffPost spoke with said much of the harassment they experienced started with Delarosa.

She definitely encouraged the harassment, one former Warren Democrat said of Delarosa. She was constantly trying to bait Warren Dems into interacting with her by tweeting about us from various accounts with our Twitter information so that her followers and fellow KHive members would tweet and message us.

Evans and Colbert both disputed Delarosas recent claim that shes the only one who speaks for KHive.

She absolutely is not the only person who speaks for the KHive because there is no spokesperson, Colbert said. She has a faction of fans who consider her their leader, but a vast majority of KHive is simply people who support Kamala.

No one person speaks for the KHive including myself. Regardless of what they might claim, Evans added.

Delarosa has amplified harassment against almost all of the people HuffPost spoke with. She has also encouraged harassment, they said, and called non-Harris supporters Nazis, leader of the Lynch mob, and Stephen from Django (Samuel L. Jacksons character in Django Unchained ).

Delarosa denied accusations of doxxing and harassment in a comment to HuffPost. I admit to being a deliberate pain in the ass, but nothing I ever did went beyond basic overzealous championing, and perhaps a bit of ridicule, she said. (Delarosa tweeted after receiving the request for comment that she was being targeted by an anti-Bianca smear campaign.)

Alex Lawson, a Warren supporter who says she was harassed and later doxxed by KHive members, told HuffPost that Delarosa instigated much of the harassment she experienced. After Lawson reported one of Delarosas tweets in which Delarosa claimed she was going to write a blog post on Warrenites that will explain how what theyre saying is white supremacy, multiple accounts lifted and doctored Lawsons profile image.

The doctored photos showed Lawson wearing a fake Ku Klux Klan hood, with big letters spelling white supremacist and KKKunt across the images. Lawson said Delarosa retweeted the image, which was created by another KHive member.

Delarosa confirmed it was a friend of hers who photoshopped the image of Lawson and wrote white supremacist on it. Delarosa also said she immediately blocked Lawson after the initial Warrenites tweet. Lawson said that Delarosa did not block her until August.