Viktorya Vilk

Aug 28, 2024 | pen.org | Viktorya Vilk |Amanda Wells |Malka Margolies |Lisa Tolin

HomeProtecting Your Digital Footprint: A Guide for Journalists In the lead-up to the U.S. election, journalists and writers face increased risks of online abuse and threats. In response, PEN America joined forces with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Women’s Media Foundation to run a free webinar series, U.S. Election Safety Summer, designed to empower journalists with the strategies and resources they need to safely cover this election season.

Apr 3, 2024 | pen.org | Viktorya Vilk |Jeje Mohamed

IntroductionOnline abuse stifles freedom of expression, undermines equity and inclusion, and threatens livelihoods. In the United States and around the world, it has become a major occupational hazard, affecting everyone from scientists and academics to election officials and journalists. Journalists in particular, whose work can involve challenging the status quo and holding the powerful to account, have become lightning rods for online abuse.

Apr 2, 2024 | pen.org | Viktorya Vilk

HomeU.S. Cyber Defense Agency Launches Website for High-Risk Communities, with Digital Safety Guidance from PEN AmericaIn the fall of 2023, the U.S. government’s cyber defense agency—Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—approached PEN America for insights to inform a key initiative of their 2023 Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative agenda: protecting communities at heightened risk of online attacks.

Jan 19, 2024 | msmagazine.com | Viktorya Vilk |Jeje Mohamed

Online abuse can feel like an enormous, insurmountable problem, but we are not helpless, and we refuse to be silent. Together we can fight back to make the internet safer, more equitable and more free. Online abuse can cause trauma and even trigger a fight, flight or freeze response. Remember: This is not your fault and you’re not alone in experiencing it. If you feel physically unsafe, consider filing a police report and bringing along someone you trust.

Jan 18, 2024 | msmagazine.com | Viktorya Vilk |Jeje Mohamed

In 2011, I was a young student marching alongside millions of Egyptians to demand the removal of then-president Hosni Mubarak, who brutally clung to power for nearly 30 years. As I washed off tear gas and blood and patched up protesters violently attacked by the police and military forces, I made a fateful decision: I would leave my premedical studies to pursue a career in journalism to expose human rights abuses. Covering human rights abuses under a dictatorship was hard.