| dc.description.abstract | This report presents a snapshot of the first substantial findings from a global survey about online violence1 against women journalists conducted by UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in late 2020. Over 900 validated participants from 125 countries completed the survey in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. The findings shared here reflect the input of the 714 respondents identifying as women.2
Reporting to the UN General Assembly on ‘The Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity’ in 2017, the Secretary General wrote: “Women who cover topics such as politics, law, economics, sport, women’s rights, gender and feminism are particularly likely to become targets of online violence. While men journalists are also subject to abuse online, abuse directed against women journalists tends to be more severe.” (A 72/290). The two key impacts identified by the Secretary General - women journalists’ disproportionately severe experience of online violence and the correlation between certain subjects and heightened attacks - are underscored by the research presented in this report.
Online violence has since become a new frontline in journalism safety - a particularly dangerous trend for women journalists. The psychological, physical, and digital safety and security impacts associated with this escalating freedom of expression crisis are overlapping, converging and frequently inseparable. The phenomenon can be defined as a combination of: often brutal, prolific online harassment and abuse, including targeted attacks that frequently involve threats of physical and/or sexual violence; digital privacy and security breaches that can expose identifying information and exacerbate offline safety threats facing women journalists and their sources; and coordinated disinformation campaigns leveraging misogyny and other forms of hate speech. The perpetrators range from misogynistic mobs seeking to silence women, through to State-linked disinformation networks aiming to undercut press freedom and chill critical journalism via orchestrated attacks.
Online attacks on women journalists appear to be increasing exponentially, particularly in the context of the ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women during COVID-19. As this report demonstrates, online violence is also moving offline - with potentially deadly consequences. This makes the need to combat the problem even more urgent.
Another point highlighted by our research: most women journalists do not report or make public the online attacks they experience, in line with low levels of reporting when it comes to violence against women more broadly. As our respondents also demonstrated, many media employers still appear reluctant to take online violence seriously, in alignment with the evident failure of the internet communications companies - whose platforms and apps facilitate much of the harassment, intimidation, and abuse targeting women journalists - to take effective action to address this freedom of expression and gender equality crisis.
The aim of this report is to highlight key findings at the global level to guide action designed to improve responses to online violence. Thirteen infographics and 31 key findings are therefore shared here to illuminate not only the challenges faced by women journalists dealing with prolific and sustained attacks online, but also obstacles encountered by news industry managers attempting to address the problem, along with civil society organisations seeking to advocate and support efforts to counter online violence, and States wanting to develop policies and regulatory frameworks to better protect women journalists. | en_US |
