New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India (EGI) condemned Tuesday the continued online harassment and organised trolling of women journalists. It demanded the government take urgent steps to dismantle such ‘misogynistic and abusive’ digital ecosystems. The EGI claimed that most of these attacks were targetted at those who were outspokenly critical of the government and the ruling party.
Citing a recent investigative new report, the EGI urged the Supreme Court to order a probe into the use of the Tek Fog app to harass women journalists with abusive tweets in view of allegations that influential people linked to the ruling party may be involved.
A report on news portal ‘The Wire’ had claimed that people associated with the ruling BJP’s IT cell were using the app to take control of inactive WhatsApp accounts, send messages to frequently contacted numbers, and ‘hijack’ trending topics on social media platforms.
“The EGI condemns the continued online harassment of women journalists. It includes targeted and organised online trolling as well as threats of sexual abuse,” it said in a statement Tuesday.
What is further disturbing is that most of these attacks are targetted at journalists, who have been outspokenly critical of the current government and the ruling party, to silence them, the EGI said. “This is a travesty of all democratic norms, and in violation of law,” the EGI added.
The Guild noted that the latest instances of such ‘organised trolling and harassment’ have been revealed by the investigations done by news portal ‘The Wire’.
“The purpose of these deeply hurtful messages was to instil fear in journalists and to prevent them from expressing themselves freely and go about their jobs,” the EGI said. “According to the reports, several women journalists were subjected to thousands of abusive tweets,” the Guild added.
The guild also took note of the recent instances of online ‘auction’ of Muslim women, which included the journalists critical of the government, on two open-source apps on the ‘GitHub’ platform.
“The Editors Guild demands the government take urgent steps to break and dismantle this misogynistic and abusive digital eco-system and thorough investigations are carried out to identify and punish the culprits and entities behind it,” the EGI said.
“Further, given the allegations that there may be the involvement of influential people linked to the ruling party with the app Tek Fog, the Guild demands that the Supreme Court takes cognisance of the matter and order a probe into it,” the EGI added.