31 July 2024
In the wake of Labour’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, a critical but often neglected aspect of this crisis demands immediate attention: the prevalence of online violence against women and girls (VAWG).
While digital environments can create magical experiences and drive meaningful connection, the line between online and offline harm continues to blur, creating new challenges in the fight for safer communities. From online harassment and stalking to the proliferation of deepfakes and non-consensual image abuse, bad actors continue to use digital spaces as an environment for harm. At PUBLIC, our extensive research into online VAWG has revealed a complex and rapidly-evolving threat landscape.
Online VAWG isn’t an isolated phenomenon, but an extension of the violence women and girls face in their daily lives. With the psychological impacts typically mirroring those of offline abuse and often opening increasing risks for victim-survivors, it creates additional pathways for harm and re-traumatisation. To put it simply, we cannot address one without considering the other.
A staggering 85% of women and girls have witnessed online VAWG. Even more alarming is the Internet Watch Foundation’s report that 97% of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online in 2021 depicted girls, including infants and toddlers. These trends signal a systemic failure to protect our most vulnerable online. As part of its systematic policy audit across Whitehall, the new Government should review this emerging evidence as a priority, and build upon it to drive a comprehensive approach to safety for women and girls online.
The complexities of online VAWG are further compounded by intersecting identities. LGBTQ + women face more than double the risk of online abuse. Meanwhile, women from ethnic minority groups report disproportionate levels of online harassment, with 88% modifying their online behaviour as a result of abuse and 94% sharing that their complaint had not been properly addressed. Our research indicates low confidence in current reporting mechanisms for online VAWG leading to underreporting of the scale of the problem. This underscores the urgent need for cross-platform collaboration around this issue and clear guidance from online safety regulators to industry around effective design and tech-driven actions to tackle the problem.
Despite these challenges, promising tech and design-driven solutions are emerging that can help protect against the risk of online VAWG. Dan Fitter, Director of Strategy and Transformation at PUBLIC, advocates for further efforts towards raising the profile and implementation of safety by design principles. “We need to shift from reactive to proactive safety measures,” he argues. “This means assessing risk of online VAWG at each stage of the user journey and considering practical changes to platform design, Trust & Safety workflows and user interfaces for a safer, more engaging user experience for women and girls.”
The root causes of this online abuse issue are complex, but when it comes to platform design, there are concrete actions that platforms can take immediately to help protect women and girls online. Zixuan Fu, online safety specialist at PUBLIC, highlights how “many online platforms lack explicit policies or community guidelines directly targeting VAWG, creating ambiguity in how victim-survivors are supported and making it hard to sanction perpetrators.” On top of this, she suggests that “not focusing enough on women and girls may also be contributing to underreported data on VAWG instances on platforms. Improving this data can help platforms better design, implement and measure the effectiveness of platform safety features, leading to safer user experiences.”
Cross-sector collaboration is another crucial element for the new government to consider in combating online VAWG. Initiatives like the Tech Coalition to end online child sexual abuse and the Christchurch Call to eliminate online terrorist content demonstrate the value of pooling shared knowledge, best practices and resources to help incentivise the industry to act. “We need more collaborative efforts that bring together platforms, civil society, and public sector organisations,” Dan emphasises. “Collective action is really crucial to help set industry standards for platforms to enable user safety, privacy, and empowerment.”
Timely user support across platforms must act as key components of any strategies being implemented. Zixuan highlights the potential of in-platform interventions: “Imagine a system that provides users with targeted resources at critical moments - prompting them to report harmful messages or guiding them to appropriate support services. These small steps can make some progress in user safety and well-being online.”
The digital world isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the threat of online VAWG. But after years of research and 30+ online safety projects, Dan calls out “one thing is for certain: innovative technology alone won’t solve this. A fundamental shift in behaviours, culture and our approach to online spaces is needed which demands thoughtful and joined-up interventions across platform design, regulation and education.”
The UK under a Labour government has a unique opportunity to lead the world on this issue. By leveraging and building on existing research, championing cross-sector collaboration, and implementing evidence-based policy, there is scope to make real inroads towards safer, more inclusive online spaces, while delivering on Labour’s ambitious VAWG pledge. The economic and social benefits of getting this right could be substantial - from increased online empowerment to reduced healthcare and criminal justice costs. Now it’s time for decisive action to implement solutions at scale. The safety of women and girls online is not just a moral imperative, it’s a cornerstone of a thriving digital economy and society.
Get in touch with Zixuan Fu at zixuan@public.io or visit our Security & Online Safety hub.
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