September 9, 2020, London, United Kingdom -- Marianna Spring, a specialist reporter covering disinformation and social media for the BBC and BBC World Service has been targeted by vicious online attacks over her recent coverage on conspiracy theories regarding Covid-19 and “anti-mask” movement.

Marianna Spring, who also specialises in hate speech and online abuse received misogynistic online harassment and threats on several social media platforms. “My beat and gender has resulted in a fair high level of abuse.” said Marianna Spring in a twitter thread where she exposed the harassers.

From calling her a peadophile (a form of smear campaign used by right-wing trolls across the world) to explicit threats such as "I certainly hope you get what's coming to you" and "watch when you are seen in public", Marianna is the latest target among several women journalists who are abused online on a daily basis.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism, the first three quarters of this year alone documented 40 cases of online harassment against women journalists. Trolling, even though a tool that can be used by internet users of all ideologies, when employed against marginalised communities and social movements speaking truth to power, takes on a more sinister character. It often does so with the intention of silencing a community that encounters multiple battles and is denied access to power and visibility otherwise. Online attacks against women journalists are not only misogynistic in their character but also are attempts at silencing free press. Online harassment targeted against women which is also coined as “gendertrolling” aims to ensure that women are kept from male dominated areas.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism finds online attacks targeting Marianna Spring utterly despicable. We demand authorities to apply safeguarding rules as prescribed by the EU agencies to protect journalists against any kind of intimidation and threats. Misogynistic attacks should be considered as hate speech and the perpetrators should be dealt with accordingly.