Georgia: Codastory’s Natalia Antelava Harassed Online Following Article On Disinformation – CFWIJ Calls On Social Media Companies To Act
Location: Georgia, Tbilisi
Date: February 17, 2023
Award-winning journalist Natalia Antelava has received hundreds of abusive messages since publishing an article on Codastory. The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the sexist nature of the abuse and the attacks on her credibility as a journalist. Social media platforms need to shut down the accounts of perpetrators. Women journalists should be free to work without online attacks.
After writing an article on February 14 criticizing Seymour Hersh’s report on the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, Natalia Antelava has been subjected to harassment online. She told CFWIJ that she received hundreds of messages containing sexist abuse and accusations of her being a “CIA spy”. Antelava feels that this flood of abuse, “seems more aggressive and like I hit a nerve with the subject matter. Lots of accounts with a few followers, which did make me wonder whether it's coordinated but I am not sure it is.”
Prostitute, presstitute, slut, vile, enemy of the people, CIA agent, spy….The list of twitter’s new names for me goes on…this short read really hit a Twitter troll nerve👇🏼 https://t.co/SvkEowc1vN
— natalia antelava (@antelava) February 16, 2023
Anteleva’s article detailed her criticism of Hersh’s reporting and how its findings were being used to fuel a disinformation campaign online. She wrote that his conclusion that US and Norwegian governments were behind the pipeline explosions was based on a single anonymous source. She highlighted how Hersh’s story was dismissed by many in mainstream policy and journalism circles, but it had, “metastasized elsewhere, spread by Russian propagandists, American leftists and conservatives, Indian and Chinese outlets, Edward Snowden, Sky News Australia and even publications like the Times of London.”
Antelava is the editor and co-founder of Codastory, a non-profit news site that investigates disinformation and technologies that are used by authoritarian regimes. When asked if she thinks her work with the publication has made her the target of an organized trolling campaign, she said she wasn’t sure, but that she is definitely “being targeted because of the article that I wrote.”
Natalia Antelava is an award-winning, Emmy-nominated journalist and a former correspondent for BBC. She has won several awards for investigating human rights abuses in Central Asia, Iraq, and the USA. Antelava has also written for the Guardian, Forbes magazine, and the New Yorker.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism calls for the harassment of Natalia Antelava to stop immediately. It is unacceptable that she is being sent abusive messages targeting her gender and attacking her credibility as a journalist. Sexist name-calling of women journalists is used to silence their voices and discourage them from contributing to discussions. We call on social media networks, and Twitter in particular, to shut down accounts abusing women journalists.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.