- 6 months ago
From false rumours to manipulated images, gendered disinformation threatens women’s political participation and democracy itself. Amira Aisya Abd Aziz, Assemblyperson for Puteri Wangsa Abdullah Nishad Mohamed from KRYSS Network discuss recognising, resisting, and reforming the culture that enables it.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to It's About Youth. I'm your host, Fahna Sheh.
00:11Now, from false rumours to manipulated images, gendered disinformation has become a powerful weapon to undermine women in politics.
00:20Today, we'll unpack its impact and the fight back with two of our honoured guests.
00:25I'm Aisyah Abdulaziz, Adon Petriwangsen, Acting President of Muda, as well as Abdullah Nishad Mohamad from Chris Network.
00:33Thank you so much for joining us, you two.
00:35Thank you for having us.
00:36Okay, let's unpack what gendered disinformation really is because I'm sure a lot of viewers here don't really understand the term and would like to know more about it.
00:46So, how would you define gendered disinformation and how is it different from general online misinformation or even harassment?
00:53Amirah, maybe we can start with you.
00:54Well, first and foremost, it's important to understand that both misinformation and disinformation are basically false.
01:02They are false information and being spread to, you know, and then they cause people confusion because of it's being fake, for example.
01:11But the difference is that when it comes to misinformation, most of the time when people share misinformation, it's not particularly intentional.
01:19There's no malicious intent behind it.
01:21For example, I can share something from 1990 because I genuinely thought that it is something new.
01:27And I shared it to my followers, for example, and people thought that it is true, but it is misinformation.
01:33But I do not have any malicious intent behind it.
01:36But disinformation is, you know, news or rumor that is specifically put out there with a malicious intent behind it to spread fake rumors about a certain person or certain organization.
01:49And when you put gendered disinformation together with it, it becomes more nuanced towards a specific gender.
01:56And in Malaysia, most of the time, of course, that is towards women, to undermine women, to even entrench stereotype towards women.
02:04And as you've mentioned, gender misinformation became particularly more abhorrent towards politicians, women politicians.
02:14And these have been a very strong political weapon to undermine women politicians, whether it is, you know, most of the time it is most rampant during elections, obviously, to, you know, as a weapon to take down a certain candidate, especially a woman candidate.
02:31But it also can happen day to day. And this has caused, you know, a lot of people being unable to trust a woman politician and also to cause women politicians to feel not safe, to feel unsafe in politics.
02:49And subsequently, a lot of women are afraid to join politics because of gendered disinformation and also specifically gender-based harassment online.
02:59Right. I'm pretty sure most of these comments are very unsolicited and also, you know, from online keyboard warriors that are behind the scene and talking about, you know, politicians or whoever of a particular gender and spreading this sort of lies and false rumors, right?
03:17Abdullah, you know, Chris Networks spearheading a campaign against gender disinformation.
03:23Based on your research and experience, how widespread is this phenomenon in Malaysia and what are its common forms and how or do you think they actually discourage women in politics?
03:36Yeah. From our research, we can see that it is quite widespread.
03:41Like Amira mentioned, it's the use of narratives that we find are sexist and misogynistic against women.
03:49Right. And it can happen online and offline. So in online spaces, we can see like comments commenting on appearances, on their ability to lead, right?
03:59For women's ability to lead. But offline, we also see this in ceramah or in their lectures or in their talks online.
04:07It can also be in their political discussions. It can also be talks with their supporters.
04:13Right. So this can further entrench the stereotypes against women.
04:18In 2022, Chris Network, we interviewed about 17 women politicians and it was at the peak of general elections.
04:26And we could see that that was where there was a spike in gender disinformation.
04:30So we saw that there were a lot more attacks on women, women politicians and their abilities, their personal lives were also at stake.
04:39A lot of the comments that we saw were on whether they could lead because they're not married.
04:45If they were married, then they attacked their partner's race or the partner's appearance, for example.
04:51And then they also looked at, there was hypersexualisation that we could see as well.
04:58So they could be dressed in any dress as well.
05:00But people just sexualise them and say negative things about them.
05:04So the focus was then on their appearance or their personal lives rather than their platform, their agenda or the ability to lead, right?
05:13Ultimately, when this happens, women politicians, political candidates or people who are considering joining the political field, they feel that they second-guess themselves.
05:25They feel that if they were to join this, then the platforms that are there, digital platforms or non-digital platforms, are not for them.
05:32They're not supportive enough.
05:33And in political parties as well, it becomes an institutional thing where they think, oh, it's a risk factor if we put women political candidates forward.
05:43So that's how it impacts the life.
05:45I mean, it's really sad to hear because, you know, these people are generally trying to go forward and trying to make changes for Malaysia or for the world.
05:55And they're being put down just because of how they look or how they present themselves.
05:59And it kind of dampened the whole, you know, like, democratic system, right?
06:05The whole political process in Malaysia.
06:08I'm sorry to put you on the spot, Amira.
06:11But if you don't mind sharing, have you ever experienced this gendered disinformation and how have it affected you directly or indirectly?
06:21Unfortunately, I have.
06:23And unfortunately, I'm not, you know, a unique case.
06:27Because most, if not all of women politicians have experienced gendered disinformation personally, whether at the start of their career or the middle of their career or even now, if they are at a higher position, the more attacks that they are getting.
06:43I remember the first time when I was sort of like gang attacked.
06:49There was like a coordinated attack against me.
06:51And I think it's important to understand that most of the time when this kind of attacks happen, it is not in silo.
06:58It usually happens like in a coordinated way.
07:02And even if like one person started attacking, then it will be amplified and amplified.
07:06And I remember the first time I got it was when I was just starting out in politics.
07:11It was when I was 25 years old.
07:12And it was really, really, you know, that was the first time I had a full-on panic attack.
07:19When, you know, when you hear people, when you look at your Twitter at that point of time, it's still Twitter.
07:25And people talk about how you look like.
07:27People talk about your size.
07:29People talk about what you are wearing.
07:30People talk about, and you know, this kind of Malaysian nowadays like to use, and this is not back then.
07:37But now people like to use, oh, makcik kepam, and those kind of words.
07:40And that's not something that is unique to me.
07:43And I think what I'm particularly upset about was that there was this one time that, you know,
07:50there was a video of me on a street protest.
07:53And I was wearing a t-shirt, a black t-shirt.
07:55And there was like a lot of attacks on how I look like at that particular point of time.
08:00There was a comment like, oh, you're so fat like a refrigerator.
08:03And there was a comment like, you know, your fat is getting to your head.
08:07And those kind of comments.
08:09And there was this one particular comment that was made by a person who is not a fake account.
08:16And so that person is using his own account.
08:19And he stated something about, oh, her chest looks like she has given birth to 10 kids.
08:25And all those kind of like comments targeted to my chest.
08:29And so I lodged a police report against that comment.
08:32And I remembered at that time, there was a senior female politician that contacted me
08:37and told me, oh, Amira, you should not have lodged a police report.
08:41You know, as a politician, you should show that you are strong.
08:44Lodging a police report shows weakness.
08:46And, you know, you should show that you are not affected by any of this.
08:50And I realized why we can never move on from this kind of attacks is because back then,
08:57I don't blame that female politician.
08:59I think a lot of senior female politicians have been made to believe that in order for
09:04you to survive politics, you've got to show that, you know, you've got to like steal yourself
09:08and show that you are unfailing, that you don't care about all these kinds of attacks.
09:12But what happens is that not everyone can do that.
09:15And when you're in the position of power and you don't use that power to sort of ensure
09:19that the space is becoming safer and safer for the people that is coming after you,
09:23then there is no use of being in position of power.
09:27That's what I felt like.
09:28And so I told her that I'm not lodging this police report specifically for me
09:32because I know nothing's going to happen out of this.
09:34And exactly, nothing happened out of it.
09:36The guy was reprimanded.
09:38There was no action taken against him.
09:40But at least I made a statement out there to other young women
09:43that this is something that I am facing,
09:46that many other women in politics are facing,
09:48but we are fighting back against it.
09:50And I think that is one of the most important things for women in my position
09:55that have this kind of, I'm privileged enough to have the support
10:00and the coverage that I need to show to other young women
10:03that we are trying to make this space safer for you.
10:06And I think it's also important to note that this is not just unique to Malaysia as well.
10:11There was a report by IPU, Interparliamentary Union,
10:14that more than 60% of female politicians across Asia-Pacific
10:19have experienced gendered disinformation, online harassment
10:23to their personal look, body shaming or sexual harassment to their person.
10:32And this is something that if you do not fight for it,
10:35if you do not fight against it,
10:37then it's just going to be exacerbated because of the nature of social media itself.
10:41Right. I mean, to put it simply, if you sweep it under the rug,
10:45you kind of made it okay, right?
10:49When we voice out our, we voice out or we say that this is not okay
10:53and then we should fight against it,
10:56it signals that this kind of behavior isn't normal
10:58and it shouldn't be tolerated.
11:00I think that's the, you know, part of the essence of why we should talk about it
11:04and voice out concerns about it, right?
11:06Okay. So I guess drawing on that, Abdullah, in your view,
11:10do you think the public is aware, you know, based on what Amira said as well,
11:15how orchestrated this campaign of gendered disinformation often are
11:20and or do they seem, you know, just part of politics?
11:24You know, it's pretty normal during election time
11:27for people to say this, you know, as part of their campaign.
11:30What do you think?
11:30Yeah, I think in Malaysia, we are aware
11:34and many of the public are aware that gendered disinformation happens.
11:40There might not be a term put to it, right?
11:42But we do see it happening often during general elections,
11:46state elections, by elections.
11:48Sometimes in parliament as well.
11:49In parliament as well.
11:50Yeah. So people see it as part and parcel of politics.
11:54That's where the problem lies as well.
11:56So people know that there are cyber troopers or board accounts
12:00that are aligned to a certain political party, a certain candidate,
12:04but they might not know that it is targeted, that it is funded, right?
12:09And sometimes there are even call-outs specifying what type of arguments
12:14or narratives to use against a women candidate
12:17and different political party, for example,
12:20who are fielding women in political platforms.
12:24So it's something that people are aware of.
12:28It's just that the extent of it is not well-known yet.
12:31Right.
12:32There's no particular statistics or studies or deep dives into it yet.
12:36So people just label it as,
12:38oh, this person is making misogynistic comments or stuff like that.
12:44Yeah.
12:44Right. Okay.
12:45We want to talk more about how we can tackle this head-on
12:49with Amira and Abdullah, but we'll go for a quick break first.
12:52Hello and welcome back to It's About Youth.
13:09I'm Fana Shea and today I'm joined by Amira as well as Abdullah
13:13to talk about gendered disinformation.
13:15Now we've talked about what it is,
13:18what are some of the common forms and also personal experience
13:21based on what's happening in the politics in Malaysia.
13:26Amira, what's your take on this?
13:27You know, personally, who is, not to say responsible,
13:32but what are the main players or systems that are enabling this kind of behaviour?
13:37Especially during election, you can see that there's a hike towards gendered disinformation.
13:48I think that's a big signal that there's a certain coordination behind gendered disinformation.
13:56And I remember there's this one election where a political figure,
14:02a male political figure, he specifically mentioned that,
14:05oh, you know, don't vote for women, you know, because women are very weak.
14:09They can't execute their work.
14:12And, you know, if there's flood in your area at 2, 3 a.m.,
14:15they have to put on makeup first.
14:16They have to, you know, put on good clothes first before they go out.
14:20As if that's all we care about.
14:21As if, yes, exactly.
14:22And, you know, and unfortunately, number one,
14:25there's not enough noise among other male politicians
14:29to fight back against what that male politician is saying.
14:32A lot of women politicians are calling him out.
14:34In fact, even those from his own political party called him out and said that,
14:38oh, this is not true.
14:39Like, we don't, you know, even if it's 2, 3 a.m.,
14:41if we are caught, we are out there, hit the ground running.
14:43And this has been seen so many times that women politicians are just as effective
14:48or sometimes even more so than male politicians.
14:51But the issue is when other male politicians are not speaking out against it as well.
14:56And so it is seen as if, oh, of course, women, of course,
15:00you will want to defend yourself.
15:01And it's not seen as an, it's not seen like we have allies.
15:06Although we do, we do have male allies,
15:08but their voices are not as amplified as so much.
15:11And you can see that when it comes to coordinated gendered attack,
15:16gendered disinformation attacks, there are some political nuances behind it.
15:21So I feel that political parties is as much responsible when it comes to gendered disinformation
15:27as other regular public.
15:29Because when you started, and you can see, for example,
15:31the kind of posters that you produce, the kind of messaging that was produced behind it,
15:36this is not something that a regular man, you know, by the street can produce it.
15:41But this is something that you have a team to produce such thing.
15:44For example, I remember, I think it was during GE15 when there was like this whole posters
15:50about women in politics who are widows.
15:55And they were like, oh, this woman has married twice.
15:57This woman has been widowed twice.
15:59This person has, and you know, this kind of issues are specifically targeted towards women
16:04on the other side.
16:05And so you know who's behind it.
16:09And then at the same time, as I've mentioned, it wasn't being properly, you know, counted
16:16by each party.
16:18Because I, unfortunately, I feel that every party has a hand in it.
16:25Whether it is coordinated by the political party itself,
16:28or by certain individuals within the party, the messages were put out there
16:33to be circulated by their party bots.
16:39And then, of course, you know, people love sensational things.
16:42People love things that are seen as causing chaos online.
16:47And so they amplified these noises.
16:50I mean, let's not talk about women representation in politics, increasing representation.
16:54If we can't even handle, you know, the women that are already in politics
16:58and protect them from, you know, this kind of comments
17:01and this kind of very derogatory, you know, very sort of look-specific comments
17:08that are very damaging, right?
17:10Okay, so we've talked about the problems at hand.
17:14And we talked a little bit about what should be done and the players involved.
17:17So let's talk about solutions here.
17:19What are some of the immediate measures that political parties, governments,
17:25or even media, anyone involved can take with regards to protecting women in politics
17:30and making sure that we tackle gender disinformation head-on?
17:34Anyone can start first.
17:36I think number one on political parties, I have the privilege of being the leader
17:40of my own political party.
17:41And as a woman, I made it, you know, I made it compulsory for all my party members
17:50who wants to run in an election to go through a gender sensitivity training
17:55prior to election.
17:57And so they understand when it comes to election, you know, there are certain things
18:01that when you say this, this is considered as harassment.
18:04Because unfortunately, not everyone knows what constitutes harassment.
18:07And so they thought that this is a gura-gurau, you know, but then it's actually harassment.
18:13And so we want our members, especially those who wanted to contest in election,
18:16to understand this.
18:17Secondly, as I've mentioned, it's really important for political parties to take strong action
18:22against their own members and especially their political party leaders
18:25who have caused, you know, sexual harassment and also gendered disinformation.
18:31And we have practiced this before.
18:34We've taken, you know, we've suspended members, membership simply because they made a slight
18:42sexual harassment comment towards another person.
18:44And I think ensuring that that is in place will make your other political members feel that,
18:50oh, this is really serious.
18:52It's not, you know, it's not benda mai mai.
18:53and so they'll feel more guarded with what they're saying they feel you know more responsible and
19:01accountable to the things that they put out there online and so I think training and also
19:06accountability action are two things that political parties have to put in place and this is something
19:12that we do not have yet in Muda but we are moving towards it and I had this conversation with
19:18I was suggested to do this with one of the NGOs that I met which I forgot which NGO but one of the
19:26NGOs I met suggested that we have to put this specifically in our party constitution that
19:32gender disinformation and sexual harassment are not accepted and so that is something that you
19:38entrench within your constitution yes formalize it within your constitution it's not something that
19:43is just a general rule and I think that is something brilliant and we're going to put it
19:47as one of our amendment to our constitution in the future in terms of media I went to this one
19:55training because we were talking about gender disinformation and how media played a role
19:59to sort of exacerbate the comments made towards women instead of using or quoting these derogatory
20:07terms because I know that this it is more you know more sensational people might want it's more
20:13click-bait and people want to say it but instead of saying for example when I was attacked
20:17and being called all this for example when I was called fat instead of quoting Amira dipanggil gemuk
20:24you know you should have quoted what I say in response for example okay so turn the conversation
20:30turn the narrative yeah I think turn the narrative to a more positive thing because when you take the
20:36negative part people will only remember that instead of what are we doing to fight against it I think these are
20:43just two things that I think it's simple but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to execute yeah
20:52yeah in terms of global best practices in terms of policies as well there's not been a silver bullet or
20:59best practice or policy solution yet oftentimes they point the finger into different actors they talk
21:09about political parties they talk about government's laws against gender disinformation but what I'd like to
21:16focus on as well is tech platforms right so the sensationalization of social media as well is because of the business model
21:25model that kind of puts it up there so more people engage with this type of content
21:30and it's something that we do need to moderate as well so one of the
21:35earlier solutions that we can try is content moderation and we do have a government body in Malaysia content forum
21:43which has a content code and that content code kind of stipulates right what what are the things that you can
21:50say and can't say and it's like a guideline yeah it's pretty much been sidelined unfortunately being
21:56someone in media so yeah of course yeah it's something that needs to be entrenched a little bit more like
22:02to consider before you actually post things out on social media especially it's kind of hard to moderate
22:08because there's so much content going on on a daily basis and even hourly right there are different accounts
22:14posting the same type of content so you can't really filter through all of them so it's something that we do need to
22:20include in some of our codes and our laws as well and consider it as bad as online gender-based violence
22:28and even sexual harassment because most of these narratives are borderline going into the the territory
22:35of like being harmful to women especially women politicians another thing is of course something that
22:43Amira already mentioned political parties do need to start having these difficult conversations with
22:48their grassroots members with their party leadership and with supporters online right that it is not
22:54acceptable for us to use these kinds of narratives against women even though they are not from the same
23:00political party and sometimes it happens from within their own political parties right it's it's
23:05people keep talking about it it's normal yeah and once someone talks about it it becomes a talk of the town
23:12so to speak yeah yeah i mean i think if you want to put it simply it's everyone's job right political
23:18party government those in tech those in media um i think if you want to you really sort of not to say
23:25dumb it down but you know lay it out there um imagine this happening to your sister or to your mom or to
23:32someone you love you know people giving all this hateful comments about how they look or how they appear um i
23:38think once we have sort of that change of mindset we are able to sort of you know not be involved in
23:45doing this kind of things so other people i feel unfortunately we only have time for one or two more
23:51questions so um let's start with uh Abdullah in short um when it comes to civil society coming from
23:58chris network how can civil society support female leaders beyond just calling out abuse um for example
24:06a narrative building or even you know positive visibility right um yeah i think in terms of
24:12narrative building specifically right we we do need to do a little bit more um even in terms of global
24:20rankings for example malaysia ranks number one in terms of gender equality for education but we rank one
24:26of the lowest 134th when it comes to political empowerment and we are the lowest ranked in asian so it
24:33doesn't look good on us as a nation and it doesn't look good on us as the chair of asian this year
24:38right so focusing on that land specifically we should at least be trying to have these conversations
24:45about introducing laws talking about the actual issue of gender disinformation and tackling it before it
24:52becomes a bigger issue like we mentioned earlier right globally it's on the rise as well including the use
24:59of deepfakes the use of ai against women political candidates and women politicians what else could we
25:06do we should be starting to work together with political parties with male allies specifically as
25:13well because we should be looking for these male allies in parliament state legislative assemblies in
25:19political parties and in civil society because otherwise we will just be talking in an echo chamber
25:24um and we will just be talking amongst ourselves without action being taken so we do need that
25:30support um for us to push it forward right i mean if you phrase it in a in a nation building context
25:37right these things you know um equal representation woman representation you know making sure that we
25:43protect our women in politics these are all part and parcel of how we create a great nation
25:48if these are being sidelined in in in politics sooner or later or in parliament sooner or later it will
25:53come out and it will not be great especially you say we were chairing asian this year yeah and the
25:58statistics doesn't look too good right um okay um i mean let's wrap up with you what advice would you give
26:06young women who would like to enter politics and who fear this kind of thing and how would you advise them
26:12to tackle this head on um first and foremost this is a very personal advice because uh to me um you know
26:20you can say a lot of things but at the end of the day when you wanted to enter a space that is
26:26very very noisy and messy it is important to recognize your support system first and foremost
26:33if your family is supportive then they are your support system and if you enter a specific political
26:38party find your friends within that political party because it is so easy to make enemies in
26:44politics but if you found some good friends and they help you through it because even for me
26:51every time i was attacked the ones who helped me get through it uh people in my support system my
26:57family my husband my team and i think it's so important to have this in order for you to push through
27:04and secondly and this is an advice um from also a young politician is to always remember and and
27:11start your journey in politics um with what you are passionate about uh and remember why you are here
27:16in the first place is it worth fighting for is it worth staying in this noisy messy place is it worth
27:23getting all these attacks is it worth you know pushing through all these challenges because to me
27:29why i'm in politics is because i want to make a difference in a lot of things and to me that it
27:35is worth staying here and if you think that what you want to fight for is something worth fighting for
27:41uh then trust me you have more than uh you have a lot of people who actually are trying their best to
27:48make politics a safer space for you um for women myself and a lot of trailblazers before me uh have
27:55pushed you know we might not be able to break the ceiling tomorrow uh but we are consistently
28:00shattering it so that maybe one day someone will come along and you know it's shattered enough for
28:05you to just break the ceiling through yeah and we thank both of you for pushing through and for putting
28:11this um issue in the spotlight because not many people talk about it it's being normalized we know and
28:18it's good that we can have you know this conversation and put it to light that this is a serious
28:23matter and it needs to be tackled um for many reasons and we hope that it just gets better from
28:29now on and politics becomes a safer space for women and future girls if they want to join in the future
28:37right that's all the time we have unfortunately thank you so much amira and abdullah for being here
28:42with us thank you thank you for watching
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