Warning system to stop violence against women journalists

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 19/10/2021

An early warning system to identify and prevent violence against women journalists is being developed by The International Center for Journalists’ (ICFJ) with a grant from the UK Government.

In partnership with computer scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM), ICFJ’s research division will lead the project. It aims to identify key indicators and metrics signaling escalation of online violence against women journalists.

They will study the two-way trajectory between online and offline attacks to develop open-source digital tools to detect, monitor and alert key responders to high-risk cases.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa, editor of the digital media company Rappler, Philippines,  will serve on the advisory panel for the project:

“It is essential that we work out how to predict and stem online attacks on women journalists, which can so easily morph into offline harassment and abuse,” she said.

“I have been repeatedly threatened with rape and murder in a misogynistic and disinformation-laced campaign designed to shut me up, and shut Rappler down. It has been fuelled by the state and enabled by the platforms, and it’s directly linked to the legal harassment I experience in the Philippines that still threatens me with decades in prison.”

UNESCO-ICFJ research has earlier shown that 20% of women journalists surveyed had experienced offline attacks that they associated with online violence.