Harassed, Yet Resilient: Muslim Women Journalists Fight Gendered Disinformation
Gendered disinformation against female Muslim journalists represents a dangerous blend of sexism and Islamophobia.
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(This report is completed as part of the pilot study "Gendered Disinformation: Deepening Perspectives and Designing Responses," an initiative led by Meedan in collaboration with The Quint, Digital Rights Foundation, and Chambal Media. Funding was provided by the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. The purpose of this study is to better understand local and hyperlocal manifestations of gendered disinformation in South Asia.
It is also one of the three deep dives from the project that captures individuals' and communities' lived experiences of gendered disinformation. Using a codesigned methodology and Meedan's Check platform, the participating groups in this effort collected and annotated 450 public social media posts that contained potential instances of gendered disinformation.
As an exploratory pilot study, the purpose of this data collection was not to draw conclusions about the prevalence of gendered disinformation in South Asia but rather to understand some of the local and hyperlocal manifestations of this issue and to offer recommendations for counter-responses and future research. Visit meedan.com to read the full report and featured recommendations.)
When people and ecosystems attack a person’s work, not because of the work itself, but their identity, every day can be an uphill battle.
Data collected on instances of gendered disinformation in India showed examples of how the work done by women journalists was delegitimised over their gender identity.
One such instance can be seen in an X (formerly Twitter) post against one of the subjects in this deep dive, Fatima Khan.
When she shared a post about a story she did, which explored cases where Muslim vendors were harassed after shoppers found out their religious affiliation while paying via UPI (an instant payments interface), one of the commenters asked her why she went to a cleric for ‘halala’ and invited her to do it with him.
(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)
In Islam, a man is permitted to marry and divorce the same woman twice. However, if they choose to get married a third time, the woman is required to marry another man and consummate her marriage.
If this new husband dies or willingly divorces her, she is free to marry the first man again. This ritual is called ‘Nikah Halala’, and is what the commenter is referring to.
The Quint gathered over 150 items which were specific to India — where the context or target was India-centric. Some of the most common instances were posts targeting women politicians, Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty, and narratives against Muslim women in the public sphere.
Among the Muslim women who were targeted, we noticed several posts against Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist and author, given her prominence in India and across the globe.
This topic was also selected due to the lack of existing literature or studies in this domain.
This specific form of harassment aims not only to silence these journalists but also to delegitimise their work by attacking their gender and religious identity.
Disinformation campaigns against female Muslim journalists often employ various tactics. These include the creation and dissemination of mis- or disinformation, doctored images, and videos that misrepresent the journalists' views or actions.
Social media platforms are rife with coordinated attacks, where trolls and bots amplify derogatory content, making it viral.
Ayyub has often been targeted with such disinformation, which The Quint has fact-checked.
In 2022, after actor Will Smith assaulted comedian Chris Rock on the stage during the 94th annual Academy Awards, a fabricated satirical article on Ayyub, which claimed she said ‘Hinduism makes people violent’, because Smith identifies as Hindu.
This led to people targeting Ayyub, believing satire to be a real statement by the journalist.
(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)
The Quint spoke to three such journalists, who have a combined experience of over 16 years in their profession, to understand the depth, reach, and impact of gendered disinformation they faced in the past.
Aliza Noor, 27, has been targeted on multiple occasions over the course of her career, with the most recent instances being comments on her “personal and religious identity,” after her reports on communal violence were published.
Whenever she reports in the video format, apart from comments referring to the organisation she worked for, she faces remarks “which are reductive and humiliating in nature.”
The “Congressi” remark is sometimes used against media persons reporting on incidents that criticise the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing them of being biased towards the Indian National Congress (INC).
Fatima Khan, too, highlighted similar patterns. In her experience, these instances of gendered disinformation “have often come following stories that are either about hate crimes such as lynchings of Muslims, or after covering harassment of women.”
However, she has especially faced “mammoth” backlash when she has covered the intersection of both these issues.
The slur was widely used by pro-Hindutva social media users to target, troll, and humiliate Muslim women who spoke up in public spaces.
According to the Software Freedom and Law Centre (SFLC), globally, an estimated one in three women have been subjected to at least one violent incident in their lives.
With growing internet penetration, online violence has also escalated, with women working in journalism, activism, politics, academia, and human rights facing a higher rate of violence.
'Bulli Bai' and 'Sulli Deals'
Hosted on developer platform GitHub, as an “open-source project”, the Sulli Deals app put up for ‘auction’ Muslim women, by sharing their photos and hosting links to their social media accounts in 2021.
A button on the app prompted users to ‘find your sulli of the day’, hosting photos of several Muslim women, including the subjects of this case study, with the tagline “Sulli Deal of the Day,” making bids about ‘selling’ them while users shared blatantly misogynistic and derogatory comments about them.
GitHub deplatformed the app and suspended the account which hosted it after it gained widespread attention. Following suit, another app called ‘Bulli Bai’ emerged in 2022.
‘Bulli’ is the feminine derogatory counterpart of the Islamophobic slur ‘Bulla’, which targets Muslim men. Many of the women ‘sold’ on Bulli Bai were the people who spoke up against Sulli Deals, and were harassed and humiliated on social media in the same manner.
Despite massive backlash and the apps being mentioned in the United Nations, all accused behind these apps and mock auctions were granted bail by courts.
Ismat Ara, 25, called the ‘Bulli Bai’ app “one of the worst experiences” for herself, because it created “a sense of unsafe situations around me.”
Ara’s experience isn’t restricted to her work on the internet. It seeps into her personal social media accounts and posts. “When I post pictures, I am slut shamed by trolls who don’t like my reportage — I am often called names like ‘jihadi’ and ‘mulli’.
When asked about how they deal or cope with the outcome, Noor said that people expected her to be thick-skinned and “take on whatever is thrown” at her.
It’s easy to internalise all the hate when it comes often, Aliza told us. Commenting on the attacks coming from the Hindu community, she said that the kind of messages that she received ranged from “graphic abuses to directly targeting my name and even calling for a mass report/block on my story.”
Khan, too, echoed this sentiment, saying that much of the targeting she faced was a “consequence of (her) identity, combined with the nature of stories” she does.
Ara resorted to self-censorship after the ‘Bulli Bai’ incident, by making a figurative “cocoon” around herself.
On the other hand, she found it effective to “ignore it" most of the time, “because one can only pick so many fights!”
These repetitive disinformation attacks have seeped into Noor’s process of working on a story.
This, in turn, led her to either “keep a false identity or keep mum and let anyone speak if they're agitated and seem dangerous.”
Ara adopts a similar approach. “In most cases, I try not to bring any attention to myself — my name and religious identity. I try to be a fly on the wall, only listening to the subjects, even if they say problematic things like ‘Muslims want to take over India’ or ‘Muslims are terrorists’.”
As a reporter, Ara does not argue with their statements or object to them.
“I feel like I am faced with a dilemma, but my choice is already made; which is that I will honour my role as a reporter more than anything else when I am on the field.”
‘Ad Hominem Attacks’ After a Story
One of Noor’s stories, where she explored the life of a pro-Hindutva activist Kajal Shingala, better known as ‘Kajal Hindusthani', put her at the forefront of extensive hate and trolling on X.
“Her whole army of supporters came at me, along with the usual right-wing trolls,” who started questioning the facts in the piece despite them being supplemented with evidence, Noor recounted.
“They twisted the entire piece and then posted disinformation about me and the piece, apart from calling me names.”
(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)
Speaking about another story on electoral bonds donations made by a cattle meat exporting company, she again faced trolling.
The attacks were ad hominem, Noor recalled, telling us that those targeting her “choose to pick one thing, misconstrue it and then come at [her] repeatedly instead of focusing on the subject matter.”
Khan’s work, which often lies at the intersection of religion and gender, has provoked attacks from people across religious lines. While her identity and gender are targeted, on occasion by “right-wing Hindutva trolls,” it has also come from “within the community.”
Her recent story on a conspiracy theory called ‘Bhagwa Love Trap’ where Muslim women were being physically and virtually harassed for hanging out with non-Muslim men as part of a campaign alleging that they are being 'brainwashed' and/or lured by them.
Muslim men targeted her and spread “all sorts of lies about my personal life.”
The ‘Bhagwa Love Trap’ theory is a parallel to a conspiracy theory called ‘Love Jihad’, a term which refers to an alleged plot by Muslim men who aim to entrap Hindu women, primarily for religious conversion.
Both theories are built on the bones of gendered disinformation, because they paint women as helpless, unsuspecting people who believe their potential partners’ intentions to be true.
They exclusively address and target women, both Hindu and Muslim, with posts warning or threatening them of consequences for being romantically or intimately involved with men of the other religion.
Does It Impact Their Health and Well-Being?
Khan said that such gendered disinformation “can and does have very real repercussions.”
Noor spoke about questioning the value of her work on occasion, whether it made any difference. Her mental health “takes a hit” if she finds herself reading too many comments.
Khan said that though the past decade had made her develop a thick skin and not get as affected, the times when “auctioning lists are taken out, or your personal faith is questioned,” gets under her skin.
It is imperative to preserve oneself amid these incessant, targeted attacks. However, one might find oneself unable to cope with them, needing a reliable and trusted support system.
If one faces such online gender based violence (OGBV), a guide on the UN Women’s website suggests reporting to the platform, the police, at one’s workplace or school and seeking help from civil society organisations.
Khan and Noor opt for many of these options, and more. Earlier, Khan “used to be very stingy” with blocking people on platforms, blocking maybe one in 20 troll accounts. “I have gotten far more generous now,” she quipped, emphasizing on the importance of the action to preserve her mental health.
Bringing up Gen-Z slang, she said it was important “to touch grass” and spend enough time offline.
Noor, on the other hand, said that she has found relief in drawing a line between online and offline. “I mostly take my work just as something that is a part of my life, and not my life.” She focuses on being a person beyond her work, and reading, jogging, sketching, or taking frequent breaks “to do nothing and something.”
Who Can Combat This?
Combating gendered disinformation requires concerted efforts from social media companies, legal authorities, and civil society to create a safer and more equitable environment for all journalists, Noor and Khan opined.
Those facing this disinformation need support beyond what is currently available, and must not bear the onus of combating it at their individual levels.
All respondents told The Quint that they did not feel that social media platforms had appropriate redressal mechanisms to help mitigate the impact of gendered disinformation on the targets.
Khan, however, found X to be arbitrary with the accounts it chose to take down when they were reported for gendered abuse. “There never really seems to be a real person checking the reported tweets, but the entire system seems to be entirely driven by the algorithm.”
Several organisations, such as NewsGuard, Foreign Policy and Digital Forensics Lab have reported that misinformation and disinformation has flourished on the platform after Musk took over X (formerly Twitter), with accounts which were known to spread falsehoods receiving more followers and engagement.
Several accounts that The Quint has previously fact-checked for spreading communally charged m/disinformation are now ‘verified accounts’, which receive an engagement and monetary boost from sharing incendiary and hateful content.
Prateek Waghre, the policy director at the internet Freedom Foundation, had told The Quint in 2023 that for a majority of the people, the blue mark still carried the same credibility as it did before Elon Musk took over.
Disinformation spread by accounts with this kind of false credibility add to the worries of the female Muslim journalists. Sometimes, they have feared for their safety.
“Soon after ‘Bulli Bai’, I had to visit the field to cover Uttar Pradesh elections,” Khan narrated. There, a man walked up to her and told her that he recognized her. “Instantly, my mind went to Bulli Bai and I was convinced he would have seen me on that list, as he inched closer to me.”
Thankfully, she said, he had recognized her because of her earlier work. The incident made her realise “how the line between online and offline violence is really blurred, Khan said.
Noor’s experience was similar. Some of the times when she was heavily trolled caused her to be scared for her and her family’s safety, “because I thought it’s easy to figure out where they live.”
When asked about their opinions on the legal system and any possible changes which would make it easier for them to face and report gendered disinformation, Khan spoke about the importance of one’s awareness of their rights, while Noor focused on holding platforms accountable for negligence.
A report by IT for Change, a Bengaluru based non-profit working in digital justice and gender, listed several points for the judiciary to help the targets of OGBV. It mentioned an “urgency” for courts to not trivialize the violence, and understand the “online-offline continuum” to address “hybrid offenses appropriately.”
The report also mentioned how courts need to hold online platforms accountable for platforming harmful content, while also being “safe spaces for marginalized groups seeking justice.”
Gendered Disinformation Contributes To Broader Societal Attitudes
“It adds to the stereotypes about Muslims and Muslim women as victims,” Ismat posited.
Khan thinks that for many people assumptions or pre-conceived notions make them “end up judging you by your religious identity.”
Even with “fair and just” work, Khan says that the assumptions make them question the reporters’ credibility and cast judgements.
Noor, too, said that this active targeting based on religious identity undermines their work and makes them easy targets, making people feel like they do not need to give Muslim female journalists “a general respect that they should be given.”
Ara had made it one of her life’s purposes to break these stereotypes, “to show that Muslim women like myself can be, and excel in the field of media, which still lacks Muslim voices.”
Opining on the roles of civil society organizations and governments, Khan said that the former needed to “be far less selective In their outrage over gendered crimes,” adding that they must acknowledge the intersection of hate when it comes to Muslim women.
Noor held the opinion that holding talks to educate people about the lived experiences of Muslim women journalists would help show people the reality, and how it deters more voices from the community pursuing the profession. She also said that holding workshops to teach other female Muslim journalists how to combat this, would also be useful.
Support Systems, Institutional Responses, and the Way Forward
Speaking about addressing gendered disinformation against female Muslim journalists, Khan said people and media stakeholders need to “be more vocal” in their criticism of it, without clubbing it with “generic gendered violence.”
Without these steps, she said that there “won't be a single voice which truly understands what's at play.”
“Most gender-inclusivity workshops et al today don't account for intersectionality”, Khan concluded.
Her counterparts agreed with this idea, adding a point about using certain tools to fact-check and report this disinformation.
The best way to ally with them and support Muslim women journalists in created safer, inclusive environments starts with listening to their experiences and creating safe spaces for them to express themselves.
The future did not look very hopeful until things changed, Khan said, because “they're not only targeted for being a journalist (who is not welcomed in India today) but they're also faced with numerous attacks for being a woman and a Muslim, it's a three-layered attack,” while Noor spoke about the need for greater diversity in journalism to address these issues, Ara expressed some optimism and the desire for an “equitable country” where she, or other Muslim journalists did not “feel scared to tell their names.”
She is a part of “solidarity networks” and groups of Muslim women trying to combat this issue. On the other hand, Khan said that some news organisations, such as The Quint’s WebQoof, Boom, and AltNews share their experiences, which is all the existing support that they see in India.
Calling the issue “structural and systemic,” Noor concluded that spaces where conversations can be initiated and respected would help “better deal with” the problem, which one hopes can be addressed and dealt with in the near future.
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