ICFJ report: Big tech business models and algorithms threats against women journalists

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 07/11/2022

Big tech’s business models and algorithms must be overhauled for women journalists to be able to work safely online. Big Tech’s business models and algorithms have been found to drive hate and prioritise profit over human rights, the International Centre for Journalists, supported by Unesco, writes in global report The Chilling: a global study of online violence against women journalists.

The report says online violence against women journalists is one of the most serious contemporary threats to press freedom internationally. 

“It aids and abets impunity for crimes against journalists, including physical assault and murder. It is designed to silence, humiliate, and discredit. It inflicts very real psychological injury, chills public interest journalism, kills women’s careers and deprives society of important voices and perspectives.” 

Recommendations:

• News organisations need to develop gender-aware protocols to respond to online violence, stop victim-blaming, and avoid disproportionate restraint on the speech of women journalists when they come under attack.
• Instigators and perpetrators of gender-based online violence must be held to account, and be de-platformed and penalised where appropriate. 
• A more inclusive approach should be adopted to recognise and call out the intersectional nature of online violence which exacerbates abuse against the women journalists targeted. 
• Law enforcement agencies need to develop gender-sensitive digital investigation capabilities, and work more collaboratively, while judicial actors should better understand the ramifications of gender-based online violence as a workplace safety, press freedom and gender equality issue, as well as a potential indicator of future offline harm.
• States need to take action to protect women journalists from online abuse, harassment and threats, recognising the risks posed to their safety and press freedom but legislative and regulatory interventions must respect international freedom of expression rights and obligations.”

Social media

The three-year global study on gender-based online violence against women journalists comprises 15 countries; inputs of nearly 1,100 survey participants and interviewees; 2 big data case studies examining 2.5 million social media posts directed at Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa (The Philippines) and multi award-winning investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr (UK).

The report identifies political actors who leverage misogyny and anti-news media narratives in their attacks as top perpetrators of online violence against women journalists. The report says the main vectors are social media platforms – most notably Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. 

Maria Ressa

Maria Ressa, co-founder of news outlet Rappler in The Philippines and Nobel Peace Prize winner. writes in the report:

“In the past six years, I have been repeatedly threatened with rape and murder, dehumanised in ways I couldn’t have imagined in a disinformation-laced campaign designed to shut me up, and shut Rappler down. Our data and investigations show these attacks are fuelled by the State, enabled by the technology platforms, and directly linked to the legal harassment I experience in the Philippines that threatens me with decades in prison.”

She says that when she first came under attack online in 2016 after Rodrigo Duterte was elected the President of the Philippines, “the deluge of hate was overwhelming. 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.”

The report is a vital, at times gut-wrenching call to action – one that we cannot afford to ignore”, she says.

Among findings:

• Nearly three quarters (73%) of respondents identifying as women said they had experienced online violence in the course of their work. 
• Threats of physical violence, including death threats, were identified by 25% of the women survey respondents, and sexual violence was identified by 18%. 
• Threats of online violence against women journalists radiate: 13% of women survey respondents and several interviewees described threats of violence against those close to them, including children and infants, as features of attacks. 
• One in five (20%) women-identifying survey respondents said they had been attacked or abused offline in connection with online violence they had experienced. A similar proportion of the interviewees also experienced offline harassment associated with online attacks, including the subjects of both big data case studies. These offline attacks ranged from stalking to physical assault and legal harassment.
• Mental health impacts were the most frequently identified consequence of online attacks, indicated by 26% of the women survey respondents. 12%  said they had sought medical or psychological help due to the effects of online violence, while a number of interviewees were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) connected to online attacks, and many more were receiving therapy as a result of the attacks they had endured. 
• When asked “How does the level of online violence you experience affect your journalism practice and your interaction with sources/audiences?”, most frequently (30%) of the women journalists surveyed said that they self-censored on social media. 20% described how they withdrew from all online interaction. Self-censorship was also a response noted by many interviewees, who frequently described this as a “chilling effect”.
• The big technology companies, often generically described as ‘the platforms’, are the main enablers of online violence against women journalists. 
• Facebook was the most frequently used (77%) service for journalistic work (closely followed by Twitter on 74%). It was also rated the most dangerous of the top five services used, with nearly double the number of respondents rating Facebook “very unsafe” compared to Twitter. 
• Gaps remain in news industry responses, with many media organisations still lacking formal online violence response protocols and the integration of holistic strategies that blend digital security, physical safety, psychological support, upward referral mechanisms and gender-sensitive/responsive editorial policies.