Canada: CFWIJ Condemns The Sexist Online Attacks Against Journalist Christy Somos
Location: Canada, Toronto
Date: September 23, 2021
Journalist Christy Somos received vile emails after politician Maxime Bernier tweeted out her email addresses alongside several of her colleagues. Displeased by their coverage of his work, and their line of inquiry, Bernier encouraged his supporters to “play dirty”, thus initiating a violent targeted harassment campaign against the journalists. Although later taken down, the journalists faced hostile digital attacks as a result of his statement.
Christy Somos tweeted about the deeply gendered threats and attacks that she was forced to confront due to Bernier’s tweet. Notorious for his provocative rhetoric and far-right populism, Bernier has managed to mobilize extremely dangerous and majoritarian sentiment within the country. Him, purposely targeting women journalists and journalists of color in his tweet only worsened the situation
Bernier’s tweet brought forth widespread condemnation from journalists, and the tweets were eventually taken down because they violated Twitter’s rules and regulations.
In case you’re wondering what your inbox looks like after Bernier tweets about you pic.twitter.com/qf6PpJWcBp
— Christy Somos (@C_Somos) September 22, 2021
A journalist emails a political party for comment (due diligence), her email is tweeted out by the party leader and her inbox is flooded with this 👇 We are all responsible for this. Especially those in our industry. Don’t search for legitimacy when it is not there. https://t.co/fOUv0xVeTs
— Reshmi Nair (@reshminair) September 23, 2021
Journalists have a legal and ethical obligation to send questions and request comment from our politicians. Going after them for doing their basic duty is unacceptable and dangerous behaviour. pic.twitter.com/bJhrEEJBOk
— Canadian Association of Journalists (@caj) September 22, 2021
It took Twitter about 8 hours to do this but I'm considering this as a win for the right of journalists to ask questions of anyone running for public office. pic.twitter.com/t7w122v2wB
— Fatima Syed (@fatimabsyed) September 23, 2021
The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the actions of Maxime Bernier. This was a willful attempt to intimidate journalists and prevent them from asking difficult questions.It is no secret that right wing sentiment can be provoked on social media fairly easily, resulting in real life consequences for members of vulnerable communities. Social media platforms need to devise more vigilant ways to prevent incidents like these. Bernier should issue an immediate apology for the distress he caused.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.