April 27, 2021- Marianna Spring, an award-winning reporter covering disinformation and social media for BBC News was subjected to incessant online trolling. The journalist faced a barrage of hateful comments for her reporting on the conspiracy theories that were being promoted around the covid19 pandemic. Marianna said that she was bombarded with horrific abuse and threats. CFWIJ condemns this toxic culture of intimidating women journalists online. This dangerous trend has now prevailed all over in our online spaces and has made it hard to engage in civic discourse. We once again urge social media tech giants to come up with some solution to end this pattern of online harassment against women journalists. 

Marianna shared on her Twitter on Sunday, April 25, that “ After reporting first-hand on the online conspiracy theories about covid promoted at protests, I have been bombarded with horrific abuse and threats.” The journalist shared a few screenshots of the kind of threats people have given to her on Twitter. She further said that this has been extreme and coordinated.

Most of the threats mentioned in those screenshots can not be put into words. Trolls have not only threatened Marianna and called her slurs, they even targeted her family and wished the worst for them. They even accused her of being a propaganda machine and a disgrace to her profession.

Marianna emphasized in the thread she wrote that she is happy to engage in conversations but she stands by all of her reporting. She has no option but to block all those who incite violence and coordinated abuse towards her safety. She further shared how a few positive messages have had her feeling overwhelmingly positive. “I’m also investigating the online abuse - get in touch!” said the journalist.

Several women journalists shared their support for Marianna while describing their own unfortunate experiences of online trolling. Crime correspondent and columnist for the Belfast Telegraph, Allison Morris quoted Marianna’s tweet and said “The online abuse I get is fairly nasty, last week was particularly bad, some people should really pay more attention to what’s going on in the High Court. I am minded to ignore them because they don’t deserve my time but fair play to Marianna for highlighting this”. Allison suffered death threats for herself in February when graffiti with her name and crosshair was drawn in North Belfast. 
The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the vitriol of online hate against Marianna Spring. We believe that no woman journalist should be subjected to such a tormenting online experience. We hope that social media handlers running these platforms come up with some tangible policy to tackle this unjustified hate culture in online spaces.