Fake social media profiles hide hate speech

The #MeToo movement that began in early 2021, brought cascading revelations about sexual and verbal violence and harassment in the field of sports, in Greece and Cyprus. The users of social media instagram, twitter, facebook, through real and fake profiles, expressed themselves with hate speech and disdain. The same thing happened in the controversial articles of the news websites, where readers with comments actively participated in expressing their opinion.

Ms. Spyridoula Irida Spanea is a journalist, engaged in sports reporting and has specialized in Olympic, non-football and basketball, and non-Olympic sports. From 1999 until today he works in the newspaper "Kathimerini". In 2020 she was honored as a sports editor with the highest prize of the Botsis Foundation. The journalist closely followed the issue of harassment in the sports arena and the comments that took place in the communication field of social media. I asked her about hate speech in journalism and sexism in the workplace:

Recently, the Deputy Ministry of Sports, in the framework of the Council of Europe's program for the "Protection of Children in Sport", organized an online workshop on "Break the Silence – Speak, Do Not Tolerate". There, the Olympic champion of sailing, Sofia Bekatorou, made public her personal abuse by an agent of the Federation of the sport. You have been reporting and you are following the matter closely. Would you like to tell us a few words about this?

First of all Sofia Bekatorou and like other athletes are my friends. When you are 20-21 years old with people in the same place, your relationships take to another dimension. I can say congratulations to Sophia for taking the courage and denouncing. Of course, Sofia complained in order to feel good psychologically and decided to do so when she learned that he was harassing teenagers. Sofia deserves double congratulations because it was thanks to this act that mouths from other professions were also opened.

Sports journalism was a male-dominated professional space. Have you ever felt discrimination because of your gender or sexist behavior by colleagues, supervisors and athletes?

Definitely in my first steps. But I had already covered the Piraeus-Maritime reportage, which is a "male" reportage, it was at least now I don't know how it is. One moment I was talking to shipowners and the next moment I was in Korydallos prison and I was interviewing convicts. When I went to sports reporting it was funny for someone to treat me with distinction or try to "tell me" it. My initial contact with a very difficult reportage, the Piraeus-Shipping, played a role, which at least in the era when I did it, I consider it the father and mother of all reports.

How should such discriminatory behaviour be dealt with?

Let's take it a little differently. There are many colleagues who have given colleagues everything in order to move up in business. Let's not just see the side of the man that a woman will approach, let's also look at the woman who uses her gender to evolve. Either they are worthy and it is worth taking a place in a job or on a channel with all that this entails, or they are not worthy, like the many examples that happen. On the other hand, the woman, when she is clear and shows her position, has nothing to fear. The woman as well as the man must keep their place. We saw this with Sofia Bekatorou and other women and fellow men. As with the subject of a well-known colleague who came to be a principal on a public channel without a high school diploma.

Violence in sport. Have there been incidents of violence, verbal, psychological, physical, financial during your career or have you witnessed such incidents? 

Bad lies, at the beginning of my career, before working with Kathimerini, I had a lot of pressure and as a result I left jobs because I did not agree or because they wanted other things and I did not agree and there was no way to get into the payroll. Of course, in Kathimerini there was none of the things I had faced, because there was professionalism there and I entered with my knowledge and my degrees.

In January 2020, the official website of the European Parliament announced that the pay gap between men and women in Greece amounts to 12.5%. In your long career there have been jobs for which you were paid less or worked more, than a male colleague of yours, for the same money? 

Our payroll is fixed depending on the years of work, so the money is specific. Beyond that, there were times when I had to work more to prove that I am as worthy as a man.

After the publication of the Bekatorou issue, several incidents of abuse from other professional fields came to the surface. Some expressed doubts about the motives of the victims and underestimated the seriousness of the events. Some others called the abuse flirting. How do you comment on these incidents of people, who either by name or anonymously, expressed themselves with "hate speech" on social media?

Let's start with cases of at least three that I know on twitter, covered behind pseudonyms, but I know which faces they are, who tried through their followers, to construct a climate against Sofia. The one particular lady who organized this, is paid to the Federation, and this is a troll who does not hesitate to reach blackmail yet in order for the greek sailing players to manage to stay there, so that she can remain the same. And the rest of the profiles were hers in order to create a negative atmosphere against Sophia. But the truth is that the healthy twitter audience reacted and as a result they treated her quite harshly. On the other hand, what can we say about anonymous accounts when the secretary of the General Sailing Federation, surnamed, uploaded an ironic comment on facebook, writing in a market style that at the age when Sofia was abused, she was a teacher in a tutorial. Again the healthy part of its users attacked and forced and downloaded it. Of course, the post became a screen shot and exists because the writings stay.

And the use of technology helps, the spread of hate speech, however the healthy part of twitter took its measures. 

Exactly. It is no coincidence that the hashtags Sofia Bekatorou were for two or three days the main hashtags on twitter.

From the 1990s onwards, when digital news websites and digital journalism gradually began to be established, readers actively participate, as citizen journalists and as users of social networks and commentators. Was there hate speech in the era of traditional journalism? 

It has always existed and always will be! Let's not forget that there are also media that are part of a party or a football / sports team, so it is expected that they will serve the interests of the medium they work for. For example, you cannot write in the newspaper "Champion" how good Panathinaikos was and how useless Olympiacos was, because it is a newspaper whose audience is Olympics or vice versa with the newspaper "Athletic Echo.

Or with the newspaper FOS, why are we in Piraeus? 

Yes or the LIGHT! 

After an extreme incident of current events, for which you felt pain, anger, injustice, have you ever felt the need to write or comment with "hate speech" against him or her who caused it? 

Many times I want, not exactly for hate speech, but to write things on social media about people who do similar to what I described before, but at the last minute I decide not to press enter and not to publish them because I think about the work I do and that I will not give value to anonymous trolls who do not have the courage of their opinion, to speak by name. I write my views and sign them.

On social media, you have a lot of interaction with your audience. When you write about a topical topic that can be socially reprehensible, is hateful comments received on that topic from your readers? How do you manage these audience expressions?

Let's take the subject of Wisdom again. On this topic anyone who would write something negative underneath, because I have been in sports reporting for years, I also understand why he did it, so it was not worth it to bother to deal with it at all. I would leave them to the rest of the audience to answer them. I watch everything but I have no interaction on such topics. If of course someone becomes offensive, fortunately technology gives us the right to delete the comment and block it.

Before closing I would like you to share with us, what characteristics a journalist must have in order to be timeless, quality and loved by the public. 

The most basic thing is to love what he does. To never stop putting herself in the place of her audience. That is, I have been with a question in my mouth since I was a child and what I want to know, my audience definitely wants. To respect herself and her audience and to try to have an honest relationship with him. I suggest respect, research, love and relationship with the audience.