Unethical journalist Elahe Izadi (Washington Post) relies on retracted UN report on ‘cyberviolence’ to push an ideological agenda Antonio Follow Jun 26, 2016 · 4 min read

First Polygon’s Colin Campbell, now the Washington Post’s resident biased hack Elahe Izadi. There is no shortage of ideological ‘journalists’ who are all too willing to cite an article even after it has been demonstrated to be false, and even retracted by the agency issuing it. We’re talking about the absurdly bad UN report on ‘cyberviolence’, of course.

Yes, this is actually the UN report on ‘cyberviolence’.

As you will remember, the UN report on ‘cyberviolence’ was widely criticized for, among other things: claiming that video games turn children into ‘killing zombies’, citing LaRouchite articles, referencing the author’s C-drive and omitting many references entirely. Even such people as the purported anti-harassment advocate Zoe Quinn joined in on the criticism of the article.

Recent research on how violent video games are turning children, mostly boys, into ‘killing zombies’ are also a part of mainstreaming violence.

In this article, I will look at Izadi’s major journalistic failure in citing a report not only widely criticized, but even retracted in absolute embarrassment. Afterwards, I will examine why journalists continue to cite such embarrassments.

Harassment narrative

On 22 June 2016, Elahi Izadi published an article cheering Australia possibly sending a man to prison over internet comments to a feminist, said to be rape threats (though the only example given that mentioned rape was not a threat). In this article, she used the aforementioned UN report on ‘cyberviolence’ to demonstrate that women are the greater victims of ‘harassment’ on the internet.

Small problem: the report was actually discredited and retracted. It is also not a secret that it was retracted. Sites such as Ars Technica, Gizmodo and VICE reported on it. As of June 2016, the link to the UN report still does not work. It is supposedly under revision, though after nine months, one can imagine that the Broadband Commission is attempting to put this absolute embarrassment behind it.

The second paragraph is also misleading in that it creates the impression that Izadi actually got a statement from UN Women, while in reality she just copy-pasted the statement from the website of UN Women. All she changed was to add ‘in a statement’ and ‘Executive Director’. Even the splitting of the quote is in the exact same place.

This is not the only thing she copied from the UN Women website. While she attributes several quotes to the UN report on cyberviolence, all are actually form the UN Women press release talking about it.

Elahe Izadi’s article

UN Women press release

You will note that the UN Women press release does not use quotation marks. That is because they were paraphrasing the report, and not directly quoting it. Yet Izadi copies these paraphrases and claims that they are actually from the UN report itself.

This suggests very strongly that Izadi did not read the original report (even though it’s still available on the website of UN Women), but instead relied on a press release. Journalism in 2016, ladies and gentlemen.

Narrative over fact

Why do journalists continue to cite a a zombie report that has already been discredited and buried? Because it suits the narrative they want to advance. Izadi has earlier used the term ‘mansplaining’ in her articles, which should tell you everything you need to know about her.

It is troubling when journalists become more interested in advancing a political and ideological agenda than in informing people. Whether through carelessness or mendacity, Izadi saw an opportunity to advance her narrative, and pounced on it without as much as a second thought.

Indeed, the way she described her own article on Twitter is rather telling.

Not harassment, not harassment of people, harassment of women and women specifically. Her entire article was intended to create a feminist victim narrative about women on the internet. She even cited the notorious Anita Sarkeesian as a victim, completely ignoring the fact that she is actually hated for lying and conning people out of money.

What now?

After being criticized by John Bain, the most prominent games critic on Youtube, Colin Campbell finally amended his article to reflect the fact that the UN report had been withdrawn. It remains to be seen whether Elahe Izadi and the Washington Post will show this minimum amount of integrity, or whether they will persist in echoing claims that the organization they cite no longer stands behind.

In the end, nothing will change until people start holding corrupt, unethical and mendacious journalists and the outlets that give them a platform accountable.