In this Ready Living Podcast episode, Viktorya Vilk, PEN America’s Director for Digital Safety and Free Expression, describes the authoritarian playbook being deployed to hollow out democratic institutions.

She reveals how attacks on the media and journalism are intertwined with assaults on higher education, cultural institutions, libraries, and other entities using tactics designed to silence others, erode trust in truth, and pressure them to obey in advance.

She makes a resounding case for why press freedom matters. Independent journalism, especially local reporting, is essential for keeping government and corporations accountable. Defending journalism is a concrete necessity for informed, resilient communities.

She also delves into one of the most pervasive threats facing writers, journalists, scholars, and activists today: online abuse. She breaks down what digital intimidation, coordinated harassment, doxing, and swatting look like, explaining that online attacks are often fueled by organized networks, bots, and even foreign actors, with platforms’ policy rollbacks making these dangers worse. However, she also offers practical guidance on what individuals can do to protect themselves and how to survive an online attack, including doxxing.

Viktorya’s commitment to this work is deeply personal. Her family fled the Soviet Union when Ukraine was still under its control, escaping an authoritarian regime that brutally suppressed free expression. She witnessed how writers and artists risked their lives to tell the truth. That history informs her work at PEN America.

This episode reminds listeners that press freedom is a shared responsibility, and that the right to speak and express oneself freely are inseparable from protecting democracy itself.

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