Journalists and bloggers are increasingly the victims of online harassment, including death threats, verbal abuse and smear campaigns as well as technical attacks involving malware, defacement or other means. The aggressors in these cases share a common goal: to intimidate journalists into silence and therefore put a stop to critical commentary or investigative reporting that serve the public interest. It is clear that developing an efficient approach to dealing with online harassment against journalists and the resulting fear and self-censorship requires us to face a diverse array of challenges. Therefore, any approach needs to have a multidisciplinary perspective.

Beginning the process to develop such an approach was the main objective of the session “Shields up! Protection against online harassment of journalists, bloggers, citizen reporters”, which IPI organised at the RightsCon event in San Francisco from March 30 to April 1, 2016.

“Shields Up! Protection against Online Harassment of Journalists, Bloggers, Citizen Reporters”

  • Date: April 1, 2016
  • Recommendations on protecting journalists from online harassment available here 
  • RightsCon programme available here
  • Contact person: Javier Luque Martinez, Digital Media Coordinator, International Press Institute  at jluque(at)ffreemedia(dot)at

The IPI panel brought together journalists, press freedom advocates, Internet intermediaries, media houses, legal experts, technologists and representatives of intergovernmental bodies.

The session was part of IPI’s project “Ontheline”, which aims to strengthen the opportunities that online platforms and digital tools offer independent journalism by analysing and addressing the challenges that such technological developments carry with them.

This was the first session in a series of discussions aimed at defining a multidisciplinary approach in the next two years.