Network of Women Journalists for Digital Rights stands in solidarity with Asma Shirazi, Amber Rahim Shamsi, and women journalists subjected to online abuse and gendered attacks

Summary

Adding sarcasm or insinuation while reproducing an abusive post gives that abuse a wider audience and renewed visibility. It also circumvents the boundaries women have established to protect themselves. Such posts can function as dog whistles, signalling whom to target while allowing those amplifying them to deny responsibility.

The original words may belong to someone else, but the decision to circulate misogynistic abuse, religious insinuations, or hate speech carries its own responsibility. Journalists must recognise how their participation can fuel online harassment and targeted trolling of women colleagues. Dismissing women’s experiences as playing the “woman card,” policing their clothing, and making sweeping insinuations about their professional integrity reinforce the prejudices used to silence women.

This conduct is no less harmful when it comes from another woman. We are not naming individual journalists responsible in this statement. In our next statement, we will name names and present evidence of their conduct.

If we condemn abusers, we must also hold our fellow journalists and our professional community accountable when their actions enable, amplify, or encourage harassment. Our responsibility cannot end with calling out anonymous trolls. Journalists’ work, opinions, remuneration, and professional decisions are legitimate subjects of scrutiny.

That scrutiny must be specific, grounded in evidence, and conducted without personal humiliation or gendered attacks. We call on journalists, editors, media organisations, and professional bodies to challenge this behaviour consistently. Colleagues must stop amplifying abusive accounts, take responsibility for the material they circulate, and speak out against harassment even when it comes from friends or political allies.

This summary (253 words) is drawn automatically from the report's own text: every sentence is Digital Rights Foundation's, selected to represent the report, in the order the report gives them. Some context is necessarily lost; read the full report before quoting it.