Forty-five percent of women journalists are now choosing the safety of silence over the risk of a byline. According to a new report, self-censorship among women in media has doubled in just five years as online violence becomes more coordinated and invasive. The retreat is happening on two fronts: while 45% of women respondents said they self-censor on social media, a chilling 19% have now begun self-censoring in their professional work as a direct result of online violence.

Released by UN Women and TheNerve, The Tipping Point report serves as an alarm for an industry that may be on the brink of a massive talent exodus. Women are already underrepresented in the media , accounting for just 26% of of news subjects and reporters, and that figure may be at risk of shrinking further according to Kalliopi Mingeirou, chief of ending violence against women and girls at UN Women.

“Online violence against women in the public sphere has reached a tipping point,” Mingeirou told Forbes over email. “It is now directly shaping women’s safety both online and offline and constitutes a major barrier to women’s participation in journalism, public debate, and democratic life."

Today’s digital harassment is powered by an engine of automation, where perpetrators can utilize deepfakes, AI-driven misinformation, or stalking methods to commit virtual violence or dismantle a reporter’s authority with just a few clicks. According to the report, 24% of women in the media have been the recipients of unwanted sexual advances via direct messages, 9% have experienced the non-consensual sharing of personal images (including those of a sexual or intimate nature), and 5% have been targeted through deepfakes or manipulated images and video.

"The most alarming and fast-growing tactic is AI-enabled violence," Mingeirou says. “These forms of abuse were considered relatively rare just a few years ago, but with the rapid proliferation of generative AI applications, they now represent a significant and growing proportion of the broader continuum of online violence against women.”

It’s a dark reality that the legal landscape isn’t keeping up with. According to the World Bank , laws that protect women against cyber harassment exist in just one-third of economies.

The rise of these attacks is taking a toll. The report finds that 25% of women working in the media have a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, and 13% have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"What we are seeing is that, for many women in journalism, having a public voice increasingly comes with a very real cost," Mingeirou notes, adding that “no one should have to ‘pay’ for their participation in public debate."

When the potential cost of a byline is a clinical diagnosis, a cost that’s causing nearly half of women journalists to self-censor, the result isn’t just the loss of a reporter’s voice—it’s the loss of a critical perspective. Stories by female journalists are more likely to include women subjects and more likely to cover gender-based violence .

For the media landscape to avoid a total talent exodus, Mingeirou argues the industry must stop treating this as an “individual problem for women to solve” and instead shift the burden to the institution. She explains: "Women should not be responsible for their own safety. We must stop placing the onus on women to invest in their own safety planning. Ending violence against women requires a whole-of-society approach."

The report calls for action on three specific fronts: closing the legal gaps for the 1.8 billion women currently lacking protection, training law enforcement to take technology-facilitated violence seriously, and demanding stronger accountability for tech companies through both regulation and enforcement. In Mingeirou’s words: “Violence against women is preventable,” and despite the rapidly shifting landscape of AI-enabled threats, she believes we can secure the future of the press by investing in prevention now.

The ultimate test for the industry may be how it protects and empowers the next generation of talent. While the increasingly common harassment tax remains a formidable barrier, Mingeirou maintains that the industry cannot afford to lose the ground it has gained: “To younger journalists, we say: your voice matters, and the world needs it.”