Bihus.Info journalist Svitlana Stetsenko, who faced online harrassment following the release of her investigation “The Truth About U420 ‘Souvenirs’: Expertise Findings”, contacted the police over the dangerous psychotropic substances her investigation revealed, but did not report the harrassment and verbal threats targeting her, Stetsenko tells the Institute of Mass Information journalist Valentyna Troyan.
“I did contact the National Police, but not about the harrassment, because that has stopped by now (at least in private messages). I asked them to open a criminal law investigation into the dangerous psychotropic substances discovered during the journalistic investigation,” Stetsenko said.
She said that individuals involved with the U420 network had tried to contact her between the announcement of the investigation and its full release.
“They said through intermediaries that they would ‘sue us.’ And they even wanted to meet. But after the video was released, they seemed to have changed their mind for some reason. I think it could have been an attempt to make us ‘change our mind’ about releasing the video. However, it did not influence our plans. It was personally important for me to tell this story,” Svitlana Stetsenko said.
She added that after the investigation was released, overnight on 2 April, a coordinated social media campaign targeting her began.
“It was a mass attack by bots with comments on nearly all social media platforms, as if by the numbers: Instagram, Threads, YouTube. They went like, ‘U420 sells legal cannabis, not what you are alleging here,’ ‘you would be better off doing something about gambling and alcohol and leave legal marijuana alone.’ Which, of course, is not true, because we have official confirmation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs laboratory, which clearly states, ‘A particularly dangerous substance outlawed by the Cabinet of Ministers has been detected,’” said Svitlana Stetsenko.
She added that she had also received abusive private messages containing obscene language, but she did not take them to be violent threats.
“[This was] aggression (which is absolutely not normal!), but nothing more,” she said.
The day following the release of the investigation saw a wave of online comments accusing the journalist of corruption and claiming the evidence was insufficient.
“Unfortunately, hate and public attempts to smear the investigation’s author or the entire team are nothing new in our line of work. However, thanks to our experience, this online attack, this kind of pressure, did not have the result that the ‘attackers’ expected. Meaning, this did not stop me or the team,” Stetsenko said.
She added that she was unsure if the attacks had stopped or would resume in the future, since her work on the subject continued.
“Right now our lawyers and I are doing all in our power to get the National Police to respond to our investigation accordingly,” Svitlana Stetsenko said.
