Online threats increasing against women journalists
Women journalists face greater threats online in the course of their work, and the trend is increasing, one expert has told an international conference in Italy.
“There is significant potential for online violence to escalate to offline harm,” said Julie Posetti, research director of the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ).
“Women tend to face greater threats online,” she told delegates at the Perugia International Journalism Festival. “The kind of threats they face are increasing.”
That toxic environment was being “facilitated by Big Tech companies”, she said, accusing them of “a failure to take responsibility”.
In a joint Unesco-ICFJ study in 2022, nearly three-quarters of women journalists interviewed said they had experienced online violence or abuse in connection with their work. They interviewed 900 journalists from 125 countries.
Attacks online included insults, sexist and sexual comments, and physical threats, including death threats to journalists and their families, the conference heard.
Increasingly sophisticated attacks include blocking accounts, hacking, publishing private photos and creating “deep fakes” – fake sexual images of people without their consent.
Violent threats tend to increase when combined with discrimination linked to skin colour, religion or sexual orientation.
Posetti and two other researchers have built a guide and toolbox on the topic targeting journalists, together with the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe.
Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was a victim of online abuse, she wrote in the UnescoICFJ report.
“I was a CNN war correspondent for two decades, but nothing in the field prepared me for the orchestrated, misogynistic attacks on me and our women-led news outlet, Rappler,” she said.
BBC disinformation specialist Marianna Spring received an avalanche of abusive tweets last year, which threatened to kidnap her or slit her throat. Much of the abuse followed her investigation into the takeover of social media network X, then known as Twitter.
In some cases, online threats can translate into physical violence. One-fifth of women surveyed said they had suffered attacks or insults in real life that were linked to online abuse.
The consequences can be far-reaching, with some journalists dissuaded from covering sensitive topics and some choosing to opt out of the industry.
Paris-based media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders has warned this type of harassment forms a new threat to press freedom.
French journalist Nadia Daam said she received a flood of hateful messages in 2017 after a column that criticised an online forum.
Since then, she has moved house twice and tends to stay away from social media, but said she still got cyberbullying messages and “doesn’t work the same any more”.
However, she thinks there is more awareness of the problem now, saying that she believes the wider industry “talks more about cyber-harassment”, with more severe legal sentences.