Guidelines for Monitoring Online Violence against Female Journalists

"There is increasing evidence of a correlation, and even a causal relationship, between online threats towards female journalists and offline attacks."

This tool has been produced to guide the monitoring and recording of online violations against female journalists in order to aid key responders in their efforts to prevent the escalation of online violence to offline harm. The tool presents a set of 15 research-derived indicators for online violence escalation, a gendered online violence typology, and examples of violations mapped to international codes and standards. The specific objective of this resource is to support a monitoring approach that helps increase awareness of online violence threat escalation along with a standardised approach for recording violations designed to systematise reporting. The guide was commissioned by the Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media and produced by researchers from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the University of Sheffield.

As explained in the guide, evidence from research suggests that "gender-based online violence against journalists could be a predictor of physical violence, including murder with impunity. Online violence is also a feature of the enabling environment for the legal harassment and persecution of independent journalists. It is therefore essential that online violence targeting female journalists be effectively monitored, recorded and transparently reported by the actors responsible for ensuring their safety - both online and offline - including the platforms, media employers, press freedom NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations such as the OSCE. Only then, can key responsive organizations and mechanisms take more effective protective action."

While acknowledging the important work that has been done in the field of monitoring online gender-based violence against female journalists, the document makes the point that there are still significant gaps in the areas of gender-responsive monitoring and reporting on female journalists experiencing digitally-enabled attacks. Methods, tools, and indicators at present are limited in their ability to detect, predict, and ultimately help prevent the escalation of online abuse, harassment, and attacks against female journalists into even more serious situations - both online and offline. There is, for example, a lack of acceptable country coverage and agreed-upon methodologies and a need for more sophisticated contextual analysis that takes into account the many forms of online attacks and threats, as well as the whole spectrum of abuse - rather than just the most extreme instances.

These guidelines are designed to address these gaps and include the following sections:

• Section 1: Introduction and context - This section defines gender-based online violence and offers eight features of gender-based online violence. It also outlines the gaps in existing methodologies for monitoring online violence against female journalists.
• Section 2: 15 key indicators for online violence escalation - This section outlines a set of 15 research-derived indicators for online violence escalation (with examples of manifestations and tailored monitoring guidance). The indicators for online violence escalation are intended for use by social media companies, intergovernmental organisations, States, news outlets, civil society, and academia to inform threat assessments and guide the monitoring and recording of online violence against female journalists. They reflect the signals that are designed to trigger action in cases of female journalists under attack online, and each indicator is accompanied by tailored monitoring guidance for responders. The indicators are:
  1. Death and rape threats
  2. Identifiable or suspected State/foreign State actor, or political extremist involvement
  3. Proximity to attackers and relative threat level associated with perpetrators (e.g., presidents, organised crime gangs, and paramilitaries)
  4. Threats associated with impunity cases
  5. Targeted attacks on or threats against identified family members and close connections (e.g., children)
  6. Doxxing as a signal for potential escalation to physical stalking and violence
  7. Evidence of targeted surveillance and/or interception
  8. Transference of online threats to physical contexts (e.g, physical stalking, abuse in public with disinformation narratives prevalent online, graffiti reflecting online threats)
  9. Long-range or large-scale attacks with associated risk of significant psychological harm (e.g., networked gaslighting)
  10. The seeding of hashtags and trending narratives associated with judicial harassment, detention, and arrest
  11. Evidence of coordinated disinformation operations (e.g., repetitive and apparently networked false narratives)
  12. Evidence of orchestrated attacks (e.g., large-scale and instantaneous pile-ons)
  13. Misogynistic hate speech (e.g., witch tropes, #presstitutes)
  14. Intersectional abuse (e.g., racism, sectarianism, religious bigotry, homophobia in combination with misogyny)
  15. State, fake, or partisan media involvement in targeted online violence.
• Section 3 - How to systematically record digital threats - This section looks at what to monitor and how to record the data, as well as how to categorise threats and abuse. It offers a gendered online violence typology, as well as examples of violations mapped to typology of human rights violations and according to the most relevant International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS) codes. In addition, it looks at the need to gather qualitative and quantitative data.
• Appendices - Includes:
  • A model template for recording digital violations against female journalists (which could also be adapted for other high-risk targets) and instructions for its use, with mock entries to help guide implementation; and
  • A comprehensive directory of resources and organisations providing assistance.