Journalist in Zaporizhzhya faces bullying on Facebook for coronavirus news
Igor Huryev, a journalist with “Accent” website in Zaporizhzhya, is being harassed on Facebook for commenting on news about the coronavirus. He reported about it to the representative of IMI in the Zaporozhzhya region.
According to him, if previously insulting comments with hate speech had been impersonal, then today, they began to mention his name.
In particular, they contain insults, threats and wishes for the journalist's death. The authors of the comments accuse the author of news about official statistics on the disease of COVID-19, lockdown, preventive measures implemented by the authorities, of speading news on "far-fetched pandemic" and so on.
According to Igor Huriev, some comments of the kind had happened before, but they were rare and related to various news.
"We now see such comments at least five times a week, sometimes several times a day. They are all related to the topic of coronavirus and lockdown. At the same time, if earlier the comments were impersonal, now my name is mentioned more and more often, - the journalist said. – Usually, this is posted in the comments under the news. Once this was posted to my personal message, but this was rather an exception to the rule. I also noticed: if before the comments were left by the owners of fake accounts without a photo and with fictitious names, now they write comments openly. And if before it was just insults, now there are wishes of death and aggressive messages in the same vein.
As IMI reported, the journalist of the Zaporozhye edition 061.ua Kateryna Maiboroda became the object of cyberbullying .
It will be recalled that tips on how media professionals can deal with cyberbullying are available here.
Help us be even more cool!
