11 October 2020
Bigots and far-right extremists are using online violence to try to silence feminists and LGBT people. It’s a cowardly tactic since perpetrators don’t even have to meet their targets. We hear stories from two Europeans on the receiving end: Irantzu Varela, a prominent feminist in Spain and host of the popular YouTube show El Tornillo; and Simeon Vasilev, the co-founder and chief executive of the GLAS Foundation, an organization promoting the acceptance of Gays and Lesbians in Bulgarian society. The scale of the problem, which can include online harassment like doxing, is putting pressure on the EU to force platforms like Facebook and Twitter to do more to protect users as part of the forthcoming Digital Services Act. We get analysis from Asha Allen, a policy & campaigns officer at the European Women’s Lobby, and from Guillermo Beltrà, EU Digital Policy Lead at the Open Society European Policy Institute, which partnered with EU Scream in making this episode.
