Publication:
Legal and normative frameworks for combatting online violence against women journalists
Legal and normative frameworks for combatting online violence against women journalists
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Date
2022
Authors
UNESCO
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Research Projects
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Abstract
The role of internet communications companies in online attacks against women journalists cannot be underestimated. They operate in an era of digital journalism, networked disinformation, online conspiracy communities, and po-litical actors weaponising social media and misogyny as tools to attack women journalists. Their claim that they are simply operating as passive ‘platforms’ for third party use distracts from their role as vectors and enablers of gendered online violence. Firstly, they have an obligation to provide services that are safe to use, and to act against users who perpetrate online violence against others. Secondly, these companies should address their content recommendation al-gorithms, which are aimed at maximising user engagement and serve to esca-late abuse through the promotion of misogynistic content and groups engaged in online harassment and abuse (Spring, 2021). For many women journalists around the world, Facebook (along with the compa-ny’s other assets WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, which are now grouped under the new brand Meta), Twitter, YouTube and other services are essential tools for newsgathering, content distribution and audience engagement.1 But the necessity to work in these spaces has resulted in a double bind: women journalists are heavily reliant on the very same services which are most likely to expose them to online violence. This tension is a feature of news organi-sations’ dependent integration with big tech companies, a feature of what has been termed ‘platform capture’ (Posetti, Simon, and Shabbir, 2019), and it has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, which has made journalists even more reliant upon these technologies. This development may help explain why many journalists, including those interviewed for this study, said they had experienced “much worse” online violence in the context of the pandemic (Posetti, Bell and Brown, 2020)...
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Keywords
Periodismo,
Mujeres,
Violencia de género