Note on November 4, 2022: The Editors Guild of India had issued a statement condemning online abuse of women journalists on January 11, 2022. In it, it had mentioned The Wire‘s investigations into the Tek Fog app as well as more recent ones. In late October, The Wire’s Tek Fog stories were removed from public view pending the outcome of an internal review.The Editors Guild of India noted on October 28: “Since the Wire has removed those stories as part of their internal review following serious questions on the veracity of their reporting, the Guild withdraws the references made to all those reports.” The body wrote that it reiterates that online trolling of women journalists remains an important issue, and that better safeguards need to be put in place, including a strong and effective complaints and redressal system for the victims.It also wrote, “The Guild is also disturbed by the recent turn of events with respect to the reports published by the Wire on Meta. The Guild is conscious of and emphasizes the need for extra care in investigative journalism, and urges newsrooms to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks.”The Wire‘s report on the Guild’s January statement is below. The references to Tek Fog have been removed from it. §New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India has issued a statement condemning the continuing online abuse of women journalists. The statement highlights recent apps created on GitHub to ‘auction’ Muslim women.“What is further disturbing is that most of these attacks are targeted at journalists who have been outspokenly critical of the current government and the ruling party, in an effort to silence them under the intimidation of such attacks. This is a travesty of all democratic norms, and in violation of law,” the Editors Guild has said.“The purpose of these deeply hurtful messages was to instill fear in them and to prevent them from expressing themselves freely and go about their jobs. According to the reports, several women journalists were subjected to thousands of abusive tweets,” the statement continues.“There were also the recent instances of online auction of Muslim women by at least two open source apps on the GitHub platform, which included journalists critical of the government. Though law enforcement agencies have arrested those supposedly behind such apps, there is need for further investigation in order to ensure that all those behind such despicable acts, even beyond those arrested, are brought to justice.”The government must take urgent steps, the Editors Guild has said, to ensure that those behind these apps and organising the targeted harassment of female journalists be brought to justice.
