among them.” Ferial Haffajee, a prominent news editor in South Africa, has experienced targeted harassment and threats due to her investigative work and shared with Global Witness that: “After 29 years as a journalist, I should be bolder and more confident than ever but online hate and the threat of offline violence exhausts and terrifies me. It’s not just attacks from individuals, troll armies are often weaponised to cause insurmountable levels of abuse, which are impossible to stem through deleting and blocking alone. Along with many other journalists, I have tried to use the social media platforms’ reporting mechanisms and even contacted the companies directly, but it is to no avail. They knowingly turn a blind eye while playing host to assaults on women’s rights and media freedom.” (6) (3) In September 2022, former South African President Jacob Zuma and his legal team filed criminal charges in a private prosecution against News24 journalist, Karyn Maughan and Billy Downer, a local prosecutor, for violating Section 41(6)(b) of the National Prosecuting Authority Act (NPAA) by claiming that Maughan published a news article on President Zuma’s medical condition using confidential information that was unlawfully accessed. The court ruled in Maughan’s favour and found that the alleged medical information was, in fact, public and had already been filed in court before her news report. (4) The judges stated that the attempt at the private prosecution of Maughan was an abuse of the court process and was violating media freedom and that the media’s right to freedom of expression was “not just (or even primarily) for the benefit of the media: it is for the benefit of the public”. Women journalists such as Caryn Dolley, Pauli van Wyk and Marianne Thamm shared their experiences of cyber-misogyny, cyberbullying and death threats through a documentary, Section 16 which reveals how the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Section 16, Chapter 2, of the constitution is violated through gender-based violence targeted at women journalists with very little in the way of accountability and recourse. Maughan was also subject to vicious harassment, abuse and threats on social media. Journalists in South Africa supported Maughan in the case, and media organisations such as SANEF, CFE and MMA appeared as friends of the court to argue that the case was not intended to pursue justice, but a SLAPP, to intimidate and create fear. (5) The lack of adequate protection measures, as well as effective prosecution of perpetrators, creates a culture of impunity for harassment and violence against women journalists. It further creates a culture of fear with women journalists opting to keep quiet about dangerous encounters. SANEF stated that the case highlighted how gender-based violence is also entrenched and fuelled online. In a study by Msimanga et al. (2023), an anonymous South African female journalist states, “A lot of the time we work with a lot of anxiety, fear of offending the harasser and fear of being left out of work if we say something and this has been my experience. Even out on the field, the newsmaker could be extremely inappropriate but because there is pressure to bring back a good story, we don’t say anything. A lot of the time I feel like I navigate this complex issue on my own, which is unfair. Those of us working in this industry suffer in silence.” (7) Cases such as that of Maughan are only a fraction of the targeted online attacks and harassment that women journalists face in South Africa. This is further fuelled by the poor content moderation mechanisms on social media to combat not only misinformation and disinformation but increasingly violent forms of hate speech and attacks. A test by Global Witness revealed significant limitations of social media’s automated and AIassisted content moderation systems, which are at times unable to detect extreme forms of hate speech such as death threats. Women journalists also face harassment, sexist stereotyping and hostilities in the newsroom. (8) In September 2023, Standard Bank security guards assaulted and manhandled Daily Maverick journalist Lerato Mutsila while she was covering the Extinction Rebellion protest at the bank’s headquarters in Rosebank, Johannesburg. A recent report by UNESCO, “The Chilling”, revealed that out of the 901 women journalists from 125 countries, 73 percent had experienced targeted online violence, with 20 percent stating that they have also experienced offline attacks stemming from online harassment. Mutsila was subjected to intimidation by the Standard Bank employees even after explaining 71 STATE OF PRESS FREEDOM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 2023