A discussion with Viktorya Vilk and Matt Bailey of PEN America
One of the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents’ central goals is to promote free expression in journalism. Considering this, the Association recently spoke with Viktorya Vilk, the Program Director for Digital Safety and Free Expression, and Matt Bailey, the Program Director for Digital Freedom at PEN America. The interview was a frank discussion of the greatest threats to free expression in the United States today, as well as things that the average person can do to help stop this cycle of abuse. Vilk and Bailey also touch on how companies are doing regarding preventing online harassment before the two go on to give advice to reporters who may be the victims of online abuse. This manner of censorship is not as visible as jailing reporters or physically attacking them, and as a result, the media reports on it far less. Nevertheless, it is a serious problem with far-reaching implications for free speech and free press. The following interview is an important read for both journalists as well as those looking to get involved in the fight for free press.
What do you think is the greatest threat to free expression in the United States today?
I wish I could point to just one, but in the last few years, we’ve seen a significant escalation in multiple threats to free expression. The environment for the press has become increasingly hostile, from an intensification of rhetoric encouraging violence against journalists to an unprecedented increase in physical attacks: according to the US Press Freedom Tracker, there were 142 arrests and 415 assaults of journalists in the US in 2020 alone. We are also deeply concerned about online attacks, including the use of coordinated harassment and disinformation campaigns to intimidate, discredit, and silence journalists, as well as writers, artists, academics, and others trying to express themselves online.
We know that online abuse disproportionately impacts women, religious and ethnic minorities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Given that so much of public discourse now takes place on social media, online hate and harassment pose a direct and pressing threat to the free and open exchange of ideas, stifling underrepresented voices and chilling speech. In addition to alarming physical and digital threats, we’re also seeing a deliberate legislative assault on the First Amendment. At the state level, there is a rampant proliferation of bills seeking to curtail protest rights and academic freedom, including by restricting what teachers can teach and what students can learn.
Seeing as the online abuse is directed towards journalists (whose job it is to report), one would imagine that this crisis would be discussed much more. And yet, the media rarely mentions this problem. Why is that?
We know that online abuse puts journalists and newsrooms at risk, but it also causes self-censorship, damages professional prospects, and undermines efforts to make the media industry more equitable and inclusive. According to a recent UNESCO/ICFJ global study of female journalists, nearly 73% of respondents said they had experienced online violence and 20% said the attacks and abuse migrated offline. Furthermore, 30% reported self-censoring, 38% reported retreating from visibility, 11% reported missing work, 4% said they quit their jobs, and 2% said they abandoned journalism altogether.
Media organizations have a responsibility to take online attacks against their journalists seriously, but the industry has been slow to invest in protecting and supporting staff and freelancers facing abuse. There are multiple reasons for this. First, online abuse disproportionately impacts groups already underrepresented and marginalized in the media industry, including women journalists, journalists of color, and LGBTQ+ journalists. Second, the problem is escalating so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up. Third, the journalism industry has been experiencing significant financial stresses over the last decade, which constrain resources at precisely the moment when more resources are needed. And finally, the media industry does not always like to report on things happening within the industry itself--journalists are trained not to make themselves the story.
The good news is that there are many steps media organizations can take to support their teams in preparing for, responding to, and mitigating the damage of online abuse. Newsrooms are increasingly recognizing the imperative to do so. The first thing they can do is to acknowledge the harmful impact of online abuse and make it clear that it’s taken seriously. Newsrooms need to create an environment in which employees feel safe and supported enough to come forward. To understand the scale and scope of the problem, it can also help to run an internal anonymous survey. Media organizations can then put protocols and policies in place and offer concrete services and training.
In our Field Manual against Online Harassment, PEN America provides detailed best practices for employers and also guidance for employees who choose to inform editors and managers about their experiences. Through PEN America’s Online Abuse Defense training program, we also work closely with media organizations, publishers, universities, professional associations, and other institutions to develop policies, protocols, training, and resources to better protect and support those facing online abuse.
Which companies do you think are doing the best job right now of protecting users from online abuse?
Honestly, all the major social media companies have a long way to go. Hate and harassment did not begin with the rise of social media. But because sustaining user attention and maximizing engagement underpins the business model of these platforms, they are built to prioritize immediacy, emotional impact, and virality. As a result, they also amplify abusive behavior. In prioritizing engagement over safety, many social media companies have been slow to implement even basic features to address online harassment.
PEN America recently published a report, No Excuse for Abuse, which provides detailed recommendations for what social media companies can do right now to better protect and support users disproportionately impacted by online abuse without inadvertently constraining free expression. In the last year, in response to sustained advocacy from PEN America and across civil society, we’ve seen platforms making some long-overdue changes. Several platforms have launched new features to combat abuse, including Twitter’s Safety Mode and Instagram’s Limits, which represent steps in the right direction.
But there’s so much more they can do. Platforms should treat online abuse like toxic spam, so users don’t have to see every hateful slur and sexist insult lobbed their way. They should create an SOS switch that users can activate amid coordinated or severe harassment to instantly trigger more robust protection & support. Platforms should empower users to enlist allies to help document, block, mute, and report abuse. Platforms should hold chronic abusers accountable by creating a transparent system of escalating penalties and enforcing them consistently, with recourse to speedy appeals. I could go on and on…
You can learn more about the changes we’re advocating for through our Sick of this S#!T campaign to #FightOnlineAbuseNOW, spearheaded by PEN America in partnership with the Coalition Against Online Violence.
In advocating for victims of online abuse, do you ever receive pushback from critics that may suggest that you are “limiting free speech” or simply “being too sensitive?”
People often position limiting online abuse and protecting free speech as incompatible - and it’s a false dichotomy. The fact is that online abuse is deliberately deployed to stifle and silence speech. It’s hard to practice free speech if you’re being bombarded with rape threats, sexual harassment, and hateful slurs every time you open your mouth. It’s hard to practice free speech when an abusive troll threatens your family and publishes your home address. This is compounded by the fact that online abuse disproportionately impacts people already marginalized or underrepresented in public fora. In other words, online abuse makes the internet less equitable, less inclusive, and less free. We don’t talk enough about whose speech is suppressed by abusive behavior online. Taking a hands-off approach to online abuse is not a neutral position.
That said, there are undoubtedly tensions between protecting free speech and fighting online abuse, and there are approaches that would be problematic from a free expression perspective. Whether or not something is perceived as harassment can depend on context. A slur can be used as hate speech, but it can be reclaimed as a form of empowerment, and the trouble is that both AI and human content moderation are not always good at telling the difference. To further complicate matters, many measures to counter online abuse can be deliberately weaponized against the very people they’re intended to protect. To give just one example, time and again we see state-sponsored trolls exploit reporting mechanisms to get journalists, artists, and dissidents booted off social media platforms.
These tensions and challenges are real, but they are too often used by social media platforms as an excuse to throw up their hands and do nothing. Platforms often hide behind the free speech argument, when in fact there are many steps they can take to empower targets and their allies and raise the stakes for abusers without undermining free expression.
What would you say to a reporter who is questioning the validity of their task due to online abuse?
Online abuse is not your fault. Abusive tactics are deliberately deployed to humiliate, intimidate, discredit, and silence journalists globally. But you are not alone. In the US, according to a 2019 CPJ study of women and nonbinary journalists, 90% identified online abuse as the biggest threat they face. It’s a pervasive problem.
When experiencing online abuse, it is important to recognize the very real and devastating impact it can have on your mental health and physical well-being. Reporters facing online abuse can lessen its destructive impact by prioritizing mental health care and self-care, as well as turning to friends, family, colleagues, and other allies for help and support. Talking about online harassment can be difficult—because there is still so much stigma, shame, and victim-blaming around abuse. But reaching out and asking for help is a way to fight back. Remember: online abusers, like all abusers, are actively trying to isolate you.
In our Field Manual, you can find detailed guidance about how to protect yourself, respond, take care of yourself, talk to friends and family, and engage support communities. And we’ve also teamed up with the anti-harassment nonprofit Hollaback! to offer tips for allies who want to help.
Many see social media as a tool for free expression, while others see it as a spreader of misinformation and dangerous rhetoric. Do you have any rules of thumb that you use when toeing the line between what is considered “free speech” and what is considered “dangerous speech?”
The truth is that social media is both of those things, which is why we believe it is imperative to find solutions to disinformation and online hate that do not themselves infringe on free expression. As private companies, the platforms are largely free to set their own policies for what speech they will or will not tolerate on their platforms. But because these companies have also become such important venues for public discourse and debate, they have gained a vast amount of power over public speech, so there is a strong public interest in transparency into how they are making these decisions. Fundamentally, our view is that there is no simple standard and that this is a legitimately hard issue that will continue to evolve with technology and with our politics and culture.
Even in cases where it is clear, we should draw a line--for example, incitement to imminent violence--it can still be difficult to distinguish that speech from what we would consider protected speech, and the platforms have demonstrated that their content adjudication mechanisms leave much to be desired. The problem is that the platforms generally continue to provide the bare minimum transparency into how they are handling these issues and try to avoid scrutiny and dialogue wherever they can. The result is that even in places where it is possible to draw lines or have basic rubrics for what is permissible and what isn’t, we’re left guessing how well those rules are being applied.
It’s also about power. There are real threats posed by the spread of online disinformation, harassment, and hate, but we are wary of a solution that simply empowers private, profit-driven corporations that are unaccountable to the public to make sweeping determinations about what speech is acceptable and what is not.
What are actionable steps the average person listening can do to get involved in the fight for free expression?
Join PEN America's Sick of this S#!T campaign to #FightOnlineAbuseNOW. We need to change the conversation to make it clear that online abuse is more than a personal attack—it chills free speech and undermines equity. We need to demand that social media companies build better tools to protect users from abuse while also safeguarding free expression. And we can all actively protect one another—as allies, friends, colleagues, and employers.
Join PEN America as a member and become part of a community of journalists, editors, novelists, poets, screenwriters, essayists, playwrights, publishers, and other literary professionals. We regularly mobilize our members to defend free expression, celebrate literary excellence, amplify marginalized voices, and foster dialogue across political and ideological boundaries.
Write and speak openly about media-industry challenges, including the decimation of local journalism, the growing threats to press freedom, and the impact of online abuse. Given the vital role that journalism plays as a cornerstone of democracy, we must push back against public and private forces trying to suppress a free press. And shed light on free expression threats closest to home.
