“My haters and I ”: personal and political responses to hate speech against female journalists in Austria

ABSTRACT

Journalists are consistent targets of hate speech, which aims at silencing critical voices; yet female journalists encounter forms of hate speech that are unique to their gender. Hate speech against female journalists can have far-reaching implications on journalism practice and society as a whole. This study investigates the macro and micro dimensions of countering hate speech as a matter of policy and as a matter of personal resistance. Its first part analyses the legal and institutional means to counter hate speech in Austria while the second part juxtaposes the micro level of experiencing hate speech and forms of resistance through in-depth interviews with nine female journalists in Austria. The findings indicate that female journalists received more hate speech when they spoke about stereotypically male-dominated topics. They noted that receiving hate speech could have a severe impact on one’s personal life or work. As measures of countering those effects, female journalists responded by making the hate comments public, while others withdrew themselves from public altogether. Deterred from seeking support from the authorities, as they did not feel taken seriously, women turned to other women who showed solidarity. The paper concludes with suggestions of practical action deriving from both sets of information.

KEYWORDS:

• Hate speech
• female journalists
• online attack
• my hater
• online abuse

Introduction

Female journalists’ rights and duties to inform is increasingly threatened by the persistence of hate speech directed against them, both online and off-line, which is ironically practiced under the guise of freedom of expression. While there is no universal definition of hate speech, it can be understood as “an expression that is abusive, insulting, intimidating, harassing, and/or incites to violence, hatred, or discrimination” (Karmen Erjavec and Kovačič P. Melita 2012, 900). It can be based on ethnicity, nationality, gender, religious conviction, political views, sexual orientation, appearance and disability (Markus Kaakinen, Atte Oksanen and Pekka Räsänen 2018; Alexander Brown 2017).

Female journalists face hate speech which degrades, humiliates or threatens them and aims to intimidate and silence them. According to the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), around 65% of female journalists experience acts of intimidation, threats and abuse (IWMF 2014). The problem can take a different and extreme turn for female journalists of color or of “migrant background” who are additionally targeted by racist comments. According to Kaakinen et al. (2018), racism is a motivation for the perpetrators as 57% of the victims receive hateful comments because of their ethnicity.

The issue of hate speech is not new but is a growing concern across the world. Hate speech knows no borders. It is prevalent in countries with both authoritarian and democratic governments; and Austria is no exception. Grounded in feminist and intersectional theories, this paper examines in-depth female journalists’ experiences of hate speech which are unique to their gender as well as the double burden of those women belonging to racial or ethnic minorities in Austria. The paper analyses the available institutional means to counter hate speech and juxtaposes women’s experiences and means of response. Based on these two sets of knowledge, the paper finally turns its attention to discussing ways in which hate speech can be countered by other forms of governance where the personal experience forms a substantial guiding lesson for policies.

Hate speech against female journalists

Women, as a group, come under attack in the most intimidating and humiliating ways, which can have long-lasting implications on exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression. A 2018 research from Amnesty International shows that hate speech has a psychological impact on women using their right of free speech on Twitter. Women even stop participation on social media platforms because they are afraid of receiving threats against their well-being. Therefore, hate speech is robbing people of their right to free speech (Amnesty International 2018; see also Jessica Jessica Megarry 2014). The aforementioned research only examines hate speech on Twitter and how women in general experience it. Maria Edström 2016, on the other hand, conducts a study on female journalists’ experience of hate speech in Sweden. Her findings indicate that hate speech is done to silence women and that they are attacked because of “their visibility as women” (Maria Edström 2016, 102). Around 65% of 921 female journalists experienced acts of intimidation, threats and abuse (International Women’s Media Foundation 2014). Similarly, a study on journalists’ experiences of online hate speech finds out that women were far more likely than men to report often receiving hateful comments, and had stronger emotional reactions to online hate speech (Amy Binns 2017). A recent global study about online violence against women journalists conducted by UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) involving over 900 participants from 125 countries also confirms the persistent online abuse that female journalists endure (Julie Posetti, et al. 2020). The findings of the study show that almost third fourth of women respondents, 73%, said they had received online abuse. The ultimate goal of online hate speech is to silence, stigmatize, and intimidate female journalists (Article 19 2020; Maria Edström 2016).

Female journalists receive hate speech for several reasons, and from individual or group perpetrators. According to Maria Edström (2016), the reasons are misogyny and antifeminism. Kaakinen et al. (2018) report that 57% of female journalists received hateful comments because of their nationality, ethnicity or sexual orientation, and 42% receiving hate speech directed towards their appearance. Behind those offensive comments are people who either act individually or collectively. According to a study on hate crime by the Welsh government, hate crime perpetrators were twice as likely to be male than female (Colin Roberts, et al. 2013). The more serious the category of offense is, the higher the number of males as perpetrators. The mean age for offenders was 32.7 years (Dunbar Edward, Jary Quinones and Crevecoeur A. Desiree 2005). The socio-economic profile of the perpetrators indicated unemployed or economically inactive persons (Paul Iganski and David Smith 2011). Posetti et al. (2020) find out that the majority of women respondents identified the perpetrators as “unknown” or “anonymous”. Edward Dunbar, Jary Quinones and Desiree Crevecoeur (2005) also examine correlation between being a hate crime offender and being a member of a far-right extremist group. Their conclusion was that most hate crime perpetrators were not members of formal groups and that only 16% were members of such hate-orientated criminal gangs or groups.

In tackling hate speech, James Banks 2010 presents several technological solutions for encountering online hate speech, such as removing offensive content, and concludes “through the careful integration of law, technology, education and guidance, a reduction in the dissemination and impact of online hate speech can be achieved without adversely affecting the free flow of knowledge, ideas and information online” (James Banks 2010, 239).

The German government’s Network Enforcement Act puts the responsibility to fight online hate speech in the hands of social network providers as they have to react to complaints about hate speech within seven days with deleting the content or not. These seven days do not only silence hate speech but also legitimate opinions. In line with Banks’ conclusion, Bernhard Rohleder 2018, 35) criticizes this enforcement act and advocates that enforcement and law have to step in and make people “realize that their actions on the Web have consequences”.

At this point, it is noteworthy that the installation of hate speech policies “at respected and prestigious institutions has a ‘trickle down’ effect” (Gould B. Jon 2005, 176). Other institutions which want to keep up will also invite hate speech policies, according to Gould (2005). Yet, it is equally important to note that although some online platforms can setup policies to address hate speech, they may be slow to implement them. For instance, the major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have developed hate speech policies that could be applied in cases of online abuse against female journalists (Article 19 2020, 4). The problem is that the provisions “are often broad and vague, causing confusion, but also leaving platforms the flexibility to use these policies to their own needs” (ibid). This shows that self-regulatory measures may not effectively address the issue of online abuse.

Regulating hate speech online, however, remains a contentious area. Catherine O’Regan and Stefan Theil 2020 n.p) contend that regulating hate speech online requires “drawing a line between legitimate freedom of speech and hate speech”. Thus, the concept of freedom of speech has often been used by policy makers to refrain from developing legally-binding regulatory mechanisms. Instead, institutions including the EU have opted for strategies and policies that are of “soft” nature (O’Regan et al. 2020).

The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it is important to review the regulatory and policy understandings of and responses to hate speech at the macro level and further to explore in-depth the experiences and impact of hate speech against women at the micro-level. In the following pages, we review the current situation of hate speech at a macro level and the regulatory responses to the phenomenon in Austria. In the second part, we zoom in the experiences of female journalists in Austria through the analysis of nine in-depth semi-structured interviews with Austrian female journalists who made public that they were survivors of online harassment. The interviews yielded 80 transcription pages. The interviews were held in German and were translated by the authors and were analyzed through mixed method of deductive and inductive generation of categories (Margrit Schreier 2014; Jochen Gläser and Grit Laudel 2013).

Regulatory protection and reality in Austria

The press freedom index in Austria has decreased in recent years because of direct attacks against Austrian journalists by the Freedom Party (Reporter ohne Grenzen 2019). Austria dropped in the rankings from 11th place in 2018 to 16th place in 2019. The current score of 15.33 categorizes the press freedom in Austria as fairly good for the first time. A decade earlier in 2008, “Der Journalisten-Report II” focused on female journalists in Austria; 42% of all Austrian journalists were female which rose to 47% in 2019. Among the young journalists (under 29 years old) the percentage was even higher at 58%. Reasons for the rise of the number of female journalists in Austria were for example the higher education of women in general (58% of female journalists had an academic degree) and also the changes in the media market (Andy Kaltenbrunner, et al. 2008). Only 8% of women held leading positions compared to 14% of male journalists in Austrian media (Kaltenrbunner et al. 2008). According to “OnTHeLine” findings by the International Press Institute (2018), there is a distinction to be made between “abusive behavior” and “threats of violence”. The most commonly used antisocial behavior online was verbal abuse with 107 cases reported. In total, 115 cases of abuse and threat were recorded in a time period of three months in 2016. The report concludes that guidelines on how to deal with hate speech directed towards journalists were missing.

A recent study by the International Press Institute (2018) on Austrian journalists concludes that journalists were aware that especially emotionally loaded topics such as immigration, Islam and feminism were targets of antisocial behavior. Hate speech is most notably politically motivated and it is female journalists who are the main target of hate speech. There are rather few services that offer help for those who are affected by online hate speech in Austria. A typical example is the #GegenHassimNetz (Against hate on the internet) Counselling Service, which helps internet users affected by online harassment, cyberbullying or other abusive behavior to take action against corresponding online material and against those who have posted it. It is run by ZARA on behalf of the Austrian Government since September 2017. Another is the app “BanHate”, introduced by the Anti-Discrimination Office of the province of Styria in April 2017. The Anti-Discrimination Office is a Federal Government Office which is also found in other provinces. Through the “BanHate” app, users can report hate messages which are all reviewed and in severe cases taken to court.

Between September 1, 2017 and February 28, 2018 the helpline documented 701 cases of online hate. According to CounterACT!, 68% of the 701 reported hate postings were published on Facebook, 8% at newspapers or other online portals, 6% on Twitter and 5% on YouTube (Cäcilia Cäcilia Kappel 2018). The reasons why people are discriminated online are diverse; however, a trend can be identified. The most detected reason for discrimination, which was found in 23% of all cases, was “hate against muslims”; 15% of the hate-comments were based on “hate against refugees” and 9% on “gender” (Cäcilia Kappel 2018). In 2019, the Anti-Discrimination Office documented 1826 cases of online hate. Nearly 77% of these 1826 reported hate postings were published on Facebook, 15% at other online portals, 5% on YouTube and 2% on Instagram (Antidiskriminierungsstelle Antidiskriminierungsstelle Steiermark 2020). The most detected reason of discrimination, which was found in 53% of all cases, was towards ethnic origins. 23% of the hate-comments were based on political views and 22% on religious convictions (Antidiskriminierungsstelle Antidiskriminierungsstelle Steiermark 2020).

A similar picture is described by the Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus Arbeit (ZARA). ZARA stands for civil courage and anti-racism work. It was established in 1999 and its aim is to promote civil courage and counteract racism in Austria. It is funded by the Viennese Municipal Department “Integration and Diversity”. The organization reported 1,162 racist incidents in 2017 (ZARA 2018) and 2,521 cases of online hate speech from September 2019 until August 2020. Out of this number, 80.7% were racist incidents; 44% accounted for online hate speech. Compared to the previous year, there was an increase of online hate against people of other ethnicities, especially Muslims. Another campaign against online hate is #MediaAgainstHate which is a Europe-wide campaign led by the European Federation of Journalists. It provides support to journalists exposing hate speech who have become targets and victims of hatred and harassment for speaking out (European Federation of Journalists 2018). Two mentionable organizations which focus on hate speech and youth in Austria are the No Hate Speech Movement and the platform saferinternet.at. Saferinternet.at offers a wide range of guidelines, which help parents, teachers, teenagers and seniors in dealing with the Internet and more specific also in dealing with online hate speech. The No Hate Speech Movement is a youth campaign of the Council of Europe for human rights online. The campaign aims to reduce the levels of acceptance of hate speech and develop online youth participation and citizenship, including internet governance processes (No Hate Speech Movement 2018).

In the context of hate speech, Article 20 ICCPR is important to mention as it instructs to prohibit any propaganda for war and “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” (United Nations HUMAN RIGHTS—Office of the High Commissioner, ICCPR). The Austrian Law acknowledges several different types of speech that can be subsumed as hate speech. Article 283 StGB on so-called Verhetzung offers similar to Article 10 ECHR a detailed list on reasons for (hate) speech that is prohibited and stresses the public aspect of incitement to hatred. Another important article in the Austrian law concerning hate speech is Article 282 StGB, which prohibits public encouragement to commit a crime. Article 107 StGB prohibits dangerous threats in general and the 2006 Austrian Law introduces Article 107a StGB on stalking, which focuses on ongoing harassment in ways of telecommunication or computer systems and describes the more common term of Cyberbullying as a corpus delicti of its own (Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes). Moreover, another dimension of hate speech is considered under Austrian Law expressions with the aim to defend Nazi ideologies; several articles prohibit “Wiederbetätigung” which means any revivals of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—National Socialist German Workers’ Party) are prohibited in Austria and are to be sanctioned (Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes).

In 2012, the United Nations stated “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online” (United Nations—Human Rights Council 2012). The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Special Rapporteur on FOE) addressed its critics on handing over censoring online content in the hands of private organizations as it saw the only way to fulfill Article 19 paragraph 3 ICCPR was to take steps against illegal digital content based on enacted law. In 2016, the European Commission presented in alliance with several media actors in the digital world the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech. This non-legally binding agreement’s main point is the deletion of illegal hate speech defined by the Framework Decision on Combatting Certain Forms and Expressions of Racism and Xenophobia by Means of Criminal Law within 24 hours (Article 19 2018).

Austrian journalists are expected to abide with a set of Codes of Ethics. The Austrian Journalists Club (ÖJC) offers a set of rules focused on journalists and addresses general behavior, profession-focused behavior, voluntary self-monitoring and behavior towards other media and colleagues (ÖJC 2011). The Media Council of the Austrian Journalists Club is responsible to react to notifications of violations of the Austria’s Code for Journalists. Another Code of Ethics is presented by the Austrian Press Council. Its Code of Ethics for the Austrian Press addresses not only journalists but media altogether. Organised in eleven topics the Austrian Press Council specifies how to deal with different journalistic circumstances, for example, coverage of suicides is an important point in the Code (Österreichischer Presserat 2013). In contrast, the Austrian Press Council does not put the ethical responsibility with the single journalist but also with the publisher and other authorities in the media organization. While the ÖJC does not punish violations further than making them public on its website, the Austrian Press Council can penalize media organizations, which accept the arbitration of the Austrian Press Council. These media organizations are called members of the Austrian Press Council. Non-member media organizations can choose to accept penalties by the Austrian Press Council. These two sets concern Codes of Ethics focusing on journalistic news coverage. Other content, for example, from advertising and public relations departments published by media organizations, follows different Codes of Ethics by the Advertising Council and the Public Relations Ethics Council. Nowhere do these Codes of Ethics press on the possibility to apply an ethical responsibility of addressing hate speech on a collective or media organization level.

Female journalists’ experiences of hate speech

“I symbolize either the kind of woman they don’t like or a kind of migrant they don’t like, a kind of politics they reject” A.O.

To all interviewed female journalists, it is clear that they have been the targets of hate speech due to their gender, their race as wells the type of topics they cover. The attacks were personal against their appearance, their skills and their human rights. The interviewees stated that they have been told they were ugly, untalented, too fat, and should be sterilized. The attacks were not limited to online comments, but also involved telephone calls at home as well as being stalked. They received rape threats, death threats, and were encouraged to commit suicide.

When it comes to identifying the perpetrators, all respondents believed the attackers were men. Consistently, Roberts et al. (2013) note that the perpetrators of online hate speech are most likely to be male. The interviewees also noted that those men were politically far-right orientated. Again, the interviewees believed the perpetrators were younger as they tended to be computer literate. “Writing hateful comments is time-consuming. Those people seemed to have a lot of time and lead a privileged life; they had a job where they could produce hate speech” (Alex 2018). One of the interviewees could identify her perpetrator as a family man who published photos of himself and his children publicly. Others spoke of perpetrators as people who were mentally disturbed and who sought the attention not only from their victims but also from the public. These perpetrators appeared to be misogynistic and verbally attacked the women for their gender. Interestingly, one interviewee noted that the perpetrators seemed to use language that was taken from a guide book. Asked if she recognized a pattern in hate speech, one female journalist replied that she believed there was “a playbook of sexists and racists on the internet” (Alex, 30). She realized that:

all the conversations are the same and proceed in the same structure. A hater blames the victim for doing something. If she denies it, the hater blames her for doing something else. If she gives reasons, the hater talks about a different topic. The conversation has to keep going, the victim has to remain in a defensive position. The troll wants to be in the right (Alex, 30).

At large, the hateful comments were anti-feminist and directed at women’s physical appearance. Few of the perpetrators used their real profile, while others used fake accounts to hide their true identity. Their aim was to silence women in public life: indeed, a study by Amnesty International (2018) shows that women stopped expressing themselves. However, most of the interviewees were not intimidated. On the contrary, some even wrote back more aggressively to provoke the haters.

The women suggested that single haters did exist but most of the haters acted rather in a group. Although Edward Dunbar, Jary Quinones and Desiree Crevecoeur (2005) conclude that most hate crime perpetrators were not members of formal groups, the interviewees believed that working in a collective manner had been advantageous for the haters. Not only did they feel stronger and motivate each other but the groups also laid the foundation for individual haters who incited hatred, violence and racial as well as sexual discrimination. In a similar vein, Amy Binns (2017) indicates that several journalists reported receiving online attacks form politically organized groups such as the right-wing English Defence League and Scottish independence campaigners, and groups from Syria, Northern Ireland and Rwanda.

The perpetrators produced hate speech on different channels such as social media platforms, via private messages, posts and comments, mentioning of persons or links to articles on other websites. The downside of one’s own large number of followers can be that users tend to interact and share more posts. The female journalists were aware that if they wrote a critical comment about another person who had many followers, those followers would mobilize and start inciting hatred towards the journalists.

The reasons why the interviewed female journalists received hate speech were diverse. All interviewees agreed that the perpetrators’ motives were hatred, especially towards women, people of color, and people with migration background. One interviewee stated that she did not receive hate speech for being a woman but for her skin color. Antonia, 27, said, “For me it’s racism. I criticize racism and therefore I get racist hate comments.” According to Kaakinen et al. (2018), racism was a motivation for the perpetrators as 57% of the victims received hateful comments because of their ethnicity. Indeed, women of color experience more racism than sexism. Antonia, 27, further stated:

I think for me hate speech is a little bit different from many other people. Especially if you say ‘ok, journalists and hate speech’ and it’s about being a woman, that’s not the case for me. Hate speech is never about being a woman for me; nobody would insult me because of that. It’s all about the color of my skin, that’s what I get hate comments about. Being a woman is no problem. And I think that’s the reason why I can handle hate comments well, because I’m used to them. Since my childhood, I get hate in real life, the same hate I get online now (Antonia 2018).

Some of the interviewees mentioned that they were more likely to receive hatred when they covered male-dominated topics like politics, economy or technology whereas culture, lifestyle and society were considered rather female topics that were not likely to attract attack. The International Press Institute (2018) states that especially emotional loaded topics such as immigration, Islam but also feminist topics evoke antisocial behavior. This is in line with the findings of the recent study sponsored by UNESCO and ICFJ in which covering gender issues (e.g., feminism, male-on-female-violence, reproductive rights including abortion, transgender issues) was reported as a major trigger for hateful comments (Posetti et al. 2020). One interviewee stated that:

Once, it was mother’s day, I wrote something about how today everyone loves their mothers but in the next moment, they start discriminating working moms and the stay at home moms. So as a mom, you basically can’t do anything right. But on this particular day, everyone pretends like they worship mothers. After that comment, it was also really bad (Evelyn 2018).

In addition, politics is also a motif for perpetrators to incite hatred. One journalist confessed how she has been silenced by hate speech. It had been the first time she received hate speech and withdrew from working on political topics as a reaction to hate speech. She remarked that she had no prejudice about female journalists who decided to retreat from critical topics in favor of “writing about lipstick”.

You have to understand, that was my first ever article. Absolut trauma. Keyword “Silencing”. And that happened to me … But I totally understand if my colleagues say, ‘no I won’t do that to myself. I’m going to write about lipstick from now on’. I would totally understand that (Ariane 2018).

Two interviewees explained that mentioning influential persons in critical articles could also trigger hate speech. Those influential people had a huge number of followers who incited hatred towards journalists.

The interviewed journalists used different strategies to deal with hate speech. Some journalists read the hateful texts out loud, others published them online (International Press Institute 2018). But the first decision everyone who got targeted had to make was if they wanted to read the text or not. One interviewee said she read all the comments and emails she received, others said it depended on how they felt that day, and four journalists stopped reading the comments. They said ignoring the comments was kind of a self-protection and the healthiest way to deal with the matter as they received an unmanageable number of comments. Most of the interviewed female journalists deactivated the notification feature on twitter, or blocked specific users. One interviewed female journalist said, “It is kind of absurd to get notified that someone called you a cunt” (Alex 2018). Correspondingly, Amy Binns (2017) finds out that most journalists used blocking the user as a strategy to deal with online hate speech.

Another strategy on how to deal with hate comments is to delete them. This tactic is used to stop the haters from being heard. Four of the interviewees said they would not give the perpetrators any platform to spread hate especially if it was their own social media page. However, at the same time, for others a more empowering tactic is to answer the comments. Three of the interviewees answered every single comment they received. They said that sometimes a discourse would change a hater’s behavior and accept other points of view. Others said commenting was too much effort and did not change anything at all. While others used the answer option to provoke the haters by proving them wrong or making fun of them, exposing the authors of hate comments was also used in the form of retweeting the comments and writing articles about them. An interviewee said writing about receiving hate speech and exposing the authors gave her power over the experience. She believed “it’s important to try to control the narrative. It was a good chance to present my point of view. I wanted to regain control” (Alex 2018). Also, sharing those comments was used to “create awareness of the topic and to show others that they are not alone with this problem” (Evelyn 2018). Some said it was healthy to talk about hate speech publicly and to get support from followers on social media. Yet, using these strategies may not simply take away the emotional pain caused by the hateful comments. As Binns (2017, 198) contends, “Although the abuse itself may be deleted and cognitively dismissed as unimportant, the emotions it generates may not be so easily disposed of”.

Implications: silencing or empowering?

The aim of hate speech is to deprive women of a sense of security. Noticeable is also that the content of the threats is almost always based on their gender. The only exception for haters not to target predominantly the journalists’ gender is when they can expend the hate on the grounds of ethnicity or nationality. Receiving hateful messages regularly can affect one’s state of mind. While the interviewed female journalists felt different about receiving hate speech and everyone dealt with it differently, not one interviewee said hate speech did not have any effect on her whatsoever.

The threats the female journalists received online were often not taken very seriously, especially, if they happened via social media, visible for everyone to read. One of the interviewees said, “If someone really wants to hurt you physically, it would be really stupid to announce it online” (Alex 2018). The threat can lead to discomfort but not to real fear. As long as hate speech happened online, most of the interviewed journalists said they did not fear for their lives. This would change if the hate messengers moved on to women’s real life. Calls to personal numbers, or visits to home or workplace could have a more threatening impact. Even if female journalists thought that they did not fear for their lives, they believed hate speech changed their way of thinking and behavior. They said it was hard not to take comments about their person personally. Especially accumulated through a so-called “twitterstorm“, the comments can amplify self-doubts. Hateful comments can also lead to a state of fear where women involved are apprehensive that something might happen to them all the time. The interviewees said that hate speech was especially hard to handle at the beginning of their careers. Some were traumatized even years later; some of them still feel the effect of those events even years later.

When asked if they would repeat the actions causing hate reaction, some said no because the events were too traumatizing. One journalist said a consequence of this was that she would not write about certain topics anymore. “This [receiving hate speech] had an influence on my work because I’m not interested in writing on specific reportages or articles on one topic anymore. I try to incorporate the bigger picture in my writings and ask myself, ‘What is the frame?’ ” (Alex 2018). Most, however, said they got used to hate speech and would not be silenced by haters. Even so, most of them would think twice about how to phrase their sentences which could lead to self-censorship. Two of the nine interviewees said that receiving hate speech would make them write even more aggressively to provoke the haters. “Sometimes I’m happy. Hey, I upset this person … I think it’s somehow cool to make those people angry”(Annkatrin 27). In a similar vein, Jennifer L. L. Jennifer Lambe 2009 finds in her study that by age people are less willing to endorse censorship on hate speech and people with a strong commitment to democratic principles are less willing to “give in”. Also, while three women said they could understand that women who got regularly targeted stop writing about certain topics or even stop being visible in public altogether, others said that hate speech was something a journalist needed to endure and could not let influence their work.

Offered and missing support for female journalists confronted by hate speech

The interviewees have emphasized that hate speech is a social problem and concerns not only female journalists. In their opinion, everyone is responsible to report and tackle hate speech. However, solidarity is missing.

It is something structural and may people don’t know how to help themselves, this is why it is very important to go public, so that people can see. First, this is not just me and second what can I do against it (Hannah 2018).

When the interviewed women received inquiries from scholars who wanted to research hate speech, they said they felt valued and were committed to support the researchers. At that moment, they were a given a voice and could make hate speech a subject of discussion in society, because in order to combat hateful content, pressure needed to come from society. Otherwise, substantive changes may not take place. In making the topic public, a hate speech target might understand that this is not only a personal or individual matter but see it as of one with social dimensions; on the other hand, especially by people who are not affected by hate speech at all may begin to see the realities of the lives of people affected by hate speech.

By and large, the interviewees maintained that men did not know the feeling of receiving gender-specific hateful content as they were not aware of that issue and did not show sufficient empathy. While female colleagues asked about their wellbeing, male colleagues made fun of the hateful comments. “My male colleagues are like ‘Haha, are you annoying people again?’, while my female colleagues are like ‘Hey, are you ok?’ ” (Annkatrin 2018). Their advice was often to ignore the comments or block the users. In contrast, the women suggested going to the police. Men would listen but they would not start a conversation about this matter. The men who asked and were supportive turned out to be close friends of the victims rather than colleagues from work. Men who downplayed hate speech tend to be in privileged positions and did not want to be confronted with that issue. “Privileged men, also male journalists, denounce women for speaking in public about hate speech” (Evelyn 2018).

Reporting these cases to authorities or reporting hate speech has not been proven effective for our interviewees. The main reason for this was that a lot of women did not trust that the police would take them seriously and investigate the incident thoroughly. Moreover, they did not consider that the legal situation would allow them to proceed against hate comments and threats. They said it was too much effort to take this step for little to no outcome. Those who have had experiences with authorities confirmed that the police often were not informed or sensitized about hate speech and did not take the problem seriously. One interviewee said she had felt worse after talking to the police “It was horrible” (Agnes 2018). This can lead to a feeling of insecurity and powerlessness. On the recommendation of other women, friends or colleagues, some women had gone to the police. However, whether they received sufficient support or not depended on whether individual officers were sympathetic and sensitized enough. The fundamental problem was that police were not necessarily well trained to understand, recognize and address situations involving hate speech and they did not appreciate “how the internet works”. They often suggested deleting the social media account. Four women felt that the police did not inform them about the procedure and did not take the issue seriously. The interviewees stated that even after the comments were deleted by the author, the case should be followed. Two women had to prove that they experienced hate speech as the police did not believe them. In general, most of the interviewees did not expect much support from authorities as reports from other women colleagues repeat the same experience. In legal terms also, police see themselves as powerless to act, as for a threat to be attended it has to be specific such as “I’ll be at your door tomorrow at 1 pm” (Ariane 2018). In cases of real threats, the constitution protection examines whether the prosecution should intervene. To make things more complicated, freelance journalists felt significantly disadvantaged when confronted with authorities when they lacked the institutional backing of a media organization or the status of celebrity.

In contrast, the female journalists felt more comfortable in seeking support from other women. Those women can be colleagues, friends, women who also experienced hate speech or conducted research on that topic. Three women could find support from female friends outside that bubble and preferred talking to them as they did not want to interfere as much as women who had experienced hate speech. Conversely, one interviewee reported that she could not talk to friends from a different field as they did not experience the problem and did not have the appropriate advice (Agnes 2018). On online platforms, the women could exchange their experiences with hate speech and abusers. There, they could discuss procedures and potential risks. “I asked online how other people cope with this; if there was experience with this matter” (Antonia 2018). In some instances, they also encouraged other women to block or report their perpetrators. Generally speaking, women declared their solidarity with each other and were more sympathetic. Also, that was the reason why the interviewees preferred talking to female police officers.

At large, two extremes in regards to support from the workplace can be noticed. On the one hand, some workplaces have offered support in providing access to therapists and treating the issue seriously. Examples of supportive behavior mentioned were also “small” gestures, such as a (male) manager paying the taxi ride home after seeing the hateful comments his female colleague had received; support by colleagues in deleting or tracking hate content. Proactive attitude to the protection of the journalist also went a long way to strengthen one’s sense of empowerment. An interviewee spoke of this stance by her chief editor who offered access to training on how to deal with hate speech beforehand. At the same time, at some workplaces, the topic remained ignored and was not talked about. Two interviewees reported not receiving any help from their colleagues or from therapists and expressed their wish to be taken more seriously. The interviewees also criticized that in some agencies the click rates seemed to be more important than the hateful content that was produced by the perpetrators.

Two female journalists sought support from Austrian organizations which deal with hate speech. However, the women felt that those organizations lacked the capacities and financial resources. In addition, most victims did not know about those institutions as the organizations have not been that visible in society. Yet, those organizations can support people legally. For example, ZARA is known to hold workshops in schools to combat hate speech. In general, the women advocated for those information centers as they could be very supportive. Moreover, community managers, who are responsible for managing social media contents in an organization, could also be additional support. They intervened, moderated and answered in the forums. It is worth mentioning that the interviewees have been sure that people were more precise and better at moderating such forums than machines. “When this politician died, a user posted in the forum ‘This is my best day ever’. No algorithm would have recognized this as a hateful comment. A human being recognizes it and will delete it” (Anja 35).

The International Press Institute (2018) points out that in recent years more and more publishing houses invested in community management. Intensive live-monitoring is required in order to deal with hate speech. Nevertheless, some agencies do not combat hate speech sufficiently as they are more interested in higher click rates than their employees’ well-being. The interviewed women wished that more solidarity would exist especially from their male colleagues but also in society as solidarity was not only missing at workplaces but also in society. According to the International Press Institute (2018), solidarity amongst colleagues and employers supports journalists in coping with hate speech. It can make affected people feel better and comfortable when they discuss those hateful comments at work.

Regulating hate speech full circle: the way forward

When it comes to addressing hate speech, an important aspect is regulation, which can help prevent or even eliminate the phenomenon. According to the interviewees, this has still been a topic with a huge need to catch up. The interviewees suggested four main actors that should be held responsible for regulating hate speech.

One group is every social media platform, on which hate speech often occurs. Hate speech which reaches the concerned women through private messages has still not been regulated at all. Moreover, the women suggested implementing a more effective self-regulation process through a self-arranged code to regulate hate speech, as the national laws do not apply to big social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Also seen as responsible for hate speech are executive authorities, national law and politics in general. Most of the interviewees assured, that there was little chance to get help from the police when it came to hate speech. One reason is considered to be the inadequacy of the law, which is still not appropriate for online-related topics including online hate speech. Another reason is the missing education and awareness concerning social media platforms and their mechanics.

As the employers of the affected journalists are responsible for the content of the medium, they should also be responsible for their employees and how they are treated. On the one hand, they should offer psychological supervision and other kinds of support. On the other hand, a good community management team should take care of the hateful comments, which occur within the medium. As a community management team is responsible for managing the consequences of social media publishing, it can play an important role in monitoring and taking actions on hateful comments.

The fourth group considered to be responsible is society itself. However, awareness about hate speech is still missing outside the circles of people concerned with hate speech. It is still a fact that women get criticized in a different way than men. This can be an indicator of the position of women in society. Undeniably, several people suffer from hate speech every single day. As a result, hate speech and hatred is a problem in society. That is why, it is so important to raise awareness of this phenomenon, as it has not yet received the weight it deserved. The interviewees suggested that the first step to raise general awareness of this problem should be to give attention to hate speech in schools. Pedagogical awareness-raising for bullying on the internet is important. Bullying knows no difference between online and offline and anonymity has often been a big problem. At the same time, it is important to raise awareness of hate speech among the police to get better support. Without knowledge about the online-world, it can be hard to help properly people concerned with hate speech. Basic knowledge of platforms, apps, postings etc. should be self-evident and also taking the women concerned with hate speech seriously if they came to speak to the police. Another important proactive action is to educate people concerned with hate speech about organizations such as ZARA. These organizations can help avoid going to the police and support going directly to the public prosecution. The problem here is that anybody hardly knows about this option. Thus, the interviewed women thought it was crucial to inform people about those organizations which combat hate speech.

Last mentioned, action to prevent hate speech is the promotion of solidarity and interpersonal communication within society. Speaking in public about hate speech and its consequences is recommended as a crucial step towards greater awareness in society.

It is important to note that hate speech is not about a single hate comment or a message you get, it is about the big picture behind the phenomenon. Even if female journalists may expect to encounter hate speech because of their job, it should not be understood as “ordinary” that they receive hatred. Alex, 30, described it as “by now I think it is a symptom of something else. And that’s the lack of solidarity in our society, misguided bad feelings and so on” (2018). As Edström (2016) rightly argues, the ultimate goal of hate speech against female journalists is to silence them. Yet, she warns hate speech may not always stay virtual as “one never knows when words will turn into actions” Edström (2016, 102).

So far, self-regulatory measures have been taken to address online abuse against female journalists. However, such mechanisms may not be sufficient to bring any meaningful social change. There seems to be a need to include other regulatory measures including legislations to eliminate the persistent problem of hate speech against female journalists.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katharine Sarikakis

Katharine Sarikakis is Professor of Communication Science with specialization in Media Governance, Media Organization, and Media Industries at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna. ([email protected])

Bruktawit Ejigu Kassa

Bruktawit Ejigu Kassa is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna, and a lecturer at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Haramaya University, Ethiopia. ([email protected])

Natascha Fenz

Natascha Fenz is currently doing her master’s study in Communication Science at the University of Vienna. ([email protected])

Sarah Goldschmitt

Sarah Goldschmitt graduated with a Master’s Degree in Communication Science at the University of Vienna. ([email protected])

Julia Kasser

Julia Kasser holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Science at the University of Vienna. ([email protected])

Laura Nowotarski

Laura Nowotarski graduated with a Master’s Degree in Communication Science at the University of Vienna. ([email protected])