INTERSECTIONS/ Shamed Into Silence
In this special interview for “Intersections,” we look at how digital transnational repression is used to target women engaged in human rights defense.
Human rights defenders run a range of risks — from threats to their families to attempts by their home governments to monitor and intimidate them overseas. For women in the field, these threats can be even more numerous, and serious. A new study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab finds that exiled and diaspora women who are human rights defenders face gender-specific forms of online harassment, abuse, and intimidation on top of the same digital threats facing their male colleagues.
Lingua Sinica spoke with three of the authors behind this report to learn more about how gender is being weaponized for digital transnational repression, targeting rights activists as well as journalists and researchers. You can download the full report on Citizen Lab’s website here.
Dalia Parete
CMP Researcher
Lingua Sinica: What are some of the ways states use gender to silence their critics?
Siena Anstis: One of the tactics we have seen used by states that engage in digital transnational repression is an attempt to shame women into silence through the use of derogatory comments and other threats related to women activists’ gender, bodies, and sexuality. Such comments and threats can take many shapes and forms, and the risks of being silenced are particularly amplified for women who come from communities with conservative values — for example, those with certain strong expectations regarding how women should dress and behave in the public sphere.
The risks of being silenced are particularly amplified for women who come from communities with conservative values.
In one case we reported on, a Uyghur journalist working for a media organization in the US explained how an anonymous Facebook account posted private photos from her personal Instagram account with degrading comments. As she explained to us:
They used these photos and shamed me on Facebook, saying how I dress and where I go with my friends. Just to falsify the work that I do and my credibility by attacking my personal life, rather than what I actually report as a journalist.
LS: China isn’t the only country engaging in these tactics, but is there anything in its behavior that sets the PRC apart from other repressive regimes?
Marcus Michaelsen: China’s campaign of transnational repression is remarkable for its global scale and persistence. The Chinese government relies on methods like coordinated online harassment and defamation campaigns to intimidate human rights defenders and journalists abroad across the globe. In the cases of the Uyghur human rights advocates we interviewed, a widely used method was video or audio calls from the homes of their relatives in Xinjiang by local authorities.
China also leverages its consulates and the large diaspora for threats against activists abroad.
These calls were meant to threaten activists abroad so that they could stop their public advocacy. At the same time, China also leverages its consulates and the large diaspora for threats against activists abroad. Respondents told us that they were being followed and harassed in public, either by agents likely affiliated with the embassy or by loyalists among the Chinese overseas populations. One respondent told us that a lecture she gave at a university in the US was repeatedly disturbed by a Chinese student in the audience. So while China seems to refrain from using more blatant physical threats against exiled activists — at least in Western countries — it relies on a combination of online and offline tactics of persistent and subtle intimidation.
LS: What advice do you have for women facing this kind of harassment? Are there steps they can take to protect themselves?
Noura Aljizawi: First, to enhance digital security hygiene, make sure to keep both your devices and apps up to date; use strong and unique passwords; enable two-factor authentication; don’t click on suspicious links or attachments; leverage platform privacy settings; limit or avoid sharing private information on social media; try to use different devices for personal activities and activism; and, when possible, use end-to-end encrypted applications like Signal or WhatsApp to communicate and set up disappearing messages.
Second, seek help from digital rights organizations like Access Now’s Digital Security Helpline. Third, while I know it can be draining for targeted persons, it is very important to document digital attacks like abusive messages and disinformation campaigns and report these to platforms. It’s also important to seek help from host state institutions.
Fourth, targets may find it helpful to build or engage in allyship networks, talk to advocacy organizations, and seek emotional support to avoid feeling alone in the face of such attacks. Finally, if security conditions allow, be proactive and speak out about the attacks to combat disinformation campaigns.
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