Sexual and misogynist trolls have also targeted journalists Tanja Milevska who comes from North Macedonia and works in Brussels and Anja Kožul, a journalist living and working in Croatia. For Anja, the online attacks were tailored to her life and family background: her family history as war refugees, her height, build and looks were all included in a facebook post targeting her on a page that has thousands of followers from a militant, right-wing nationalistic online community. The personalisation of the threats to Anja had a direct impact on her as she had few options available to her, instead choosing to remove personal writing she had published looking at her family’s background and her status as a refugee.
When there are few support options, self-censorship may be one of the few options available to many.
Nationalistic insults against Tanja Milevska did not end when the government changed and the nationalist party became the opposition party. Instead the journalist who works for MIA, the national news agency journalist had to face a new threat – this time from gamers, who reviled her because of a tweet in which she suggested that they were sexist. Throughout her journalistic career, while the source of the harassment may have changed, the methods were similar, gendered insults, threats of sexual violence, attempts to doxx her and leak personal information and rewards offered to hack her accounts. Soon social media platforms, such as Twitter, so important for her work, became little more than a bed of toxicity threatening Tanja and encouraging her to step away from her important work, something that nearly happened – “Every year I think about leaving”.
Read more details here at the Mapping Media Freedom platform.
While Anja, Tanja and Patricia work in three different countries, each with their own complex political and social context, many of the threats, aimed at discrediting, isolating and intimidating the journalists, were similar. Whether it was paramilitaries, far-right political communities, gamers or elements of organised crime, each group represents an endemic source of risks for all journalists, but especially pronounced for women, journalists of colour and the LGBTQI community.
The aim of these smear campaigns was to isolate the journalists until they have nothing left but to leave the profession. However, while all three journalists confided that this had crossed their mind – “who wouldn’t think about leaving the profession?” Patricia asked after she outlined the heinous threats against her infant child – the three journalists said it was important for them to speak out. Patricia Devlin called to the general public: “Support journalists and realise they are working for you”.
