Impact of unmoderated spaces on women

Misogyny is driving young women away from online spaces. New polling commissioned by Amnesty International UK, exposes the staggering levels of online misogyny that plague social media, driving young people, particularly women, away from spaces meant for connection and creativity. I've shared the full report which is worth a read Toxic Tech: How Misogyny is Shaping Gen Z’s Online Experience. It adds to the giant pile of evidence around the harm being caused by tech to our young people, especially women. An overwhelming 73% of Gen Z social media users have witnessed misogynistic content online with half encountering it on a weekly basis. The problem is only getting worse, as 70% believe misogynistic and divisive language has increased on social media. Alarmingly, 55% express concerns about seeing misogynistic content, and less than half (49%) feel that social media is a safe space. The polling also uncovers the shocking forms of online harassment faced by Gen Z women, including: ℹ️ 53% receiving inappropriate emojis (e.g., 🍆💦) on their posts and photos ℹ️ 44% receiving unsolicited explicit images ℹ️ 43% being body-shamed ℹ️ 40% subjected to unwanted sexually suggestive comments ℹ️ 32% experiencing hate speech ℹ️ 27% reporting online stalking. Among social media platforms, TikTok is seen as the worst offender. 70% of respondents reported encountering misogynistic content on TikTok, rising to 80% for women, followed by Instagram (61%), Twitter/X (37%), YouTube (31%), and Facebook (30%). Marginalised groups and ethnic minorities suffer these toxic effects the most: ℹ️ Gen Z women with disabilities are twice as likely as women without disabilities to spend more than 10 hours a day on social media. ℹ️ Three in ten women with disabilities who have experienced online misogyny, reported that they had received threats of violence online against one in five of those without disabilities. ℹ️ Gen Z women with ethnic minority backgrounds who have experienced online misogyny, are more likely to have experienced hate speech than their white counterparts. Online misogyny is having a severe impact on mental health: ℹ️ 55% of those who have experienced online misogyny have blocked users in response to abusive content. ℹ️ 44% of Gen Z women who had experienced online misogyny in the UK report negative mental health impacts from exposure to misogynistic content. ℹ️ 35% have switched their accounts to private. ℹ️ 30% have taken screenshots as evidence of abuse received ℹ️ 22% avoid posting certain types of content. ℹ️ 20% have avoided or left platforms altogether And sadly there are many more depressing stats in there. Until we bring in genuine accountability and consequence to these Tech companies, these issues will just continue- we need a systemic response. For young women to abandon online spaces because of men's behaviour, can't be something we just accept. Love & light, Sal. #WeRiseByLiftingEachOther

'Cyberviolence' against women and girls is often discussed as though it were a glitch in the machine: an unfortunate by-product of too much screen time, too little moderation, and a few badly adjusted men and boys with anonymous accounts. That might be comforting but it's a terrible, reductionist, and damaging lie. The machinery does matter; the motive is older and far more entrenched. It boils down to the simple physical fact that women and girls have vaginas. Sorry if that sounds crass, but all violence against women is deeply rooted in misogyny, sexual entitlement, and the stubborn male belief that women’s bodies, attention, and freedom are there to be accessed, lured, judged, observed, coerced, owned, or punished. Reports, research, and analyses tend to not brute-force this view, but they do all tiptoe around it. The Council of Europe says this plainly - although not as plainly as me: digital violence against women grows out of the same inequality and men’s sense of entitlement that drive abuse offline. The numbers are grim, and the range itself tells its own story. UNRIC reports that studies across the world have found between up to 58% of women and girls have been targeted by violence online. That spread reflects different countries, methods, and definitions, not a small problem. A horrifying study found 91% of women on LinkedIn have been sexually harassed. UNESCO found that 73% journalists surveyed had experienced online violence. This is not ambient unpleasantness and it is rubbish to consider it so. It is a pattern. It is directed. It is 100% gendered. Why do we tiptoe and give violence against women and girls weak-ass labels? The digital sphere has not invented this appetite for domination. It has reduced the cost of acting on it. And cannot be explained by adding the term 'digital'. That reduces it. A man who wants to intimidate, humiliate, sexualise, threaten, or monitor a woman can now do so at scale, at speed, and often with an audience. Platforms have made distribution frictionless. Artificial intelligence is making fabrication frictionless. UN Women warns that technology-facilitated violence is being intensified by new tools and by the social norms and power structures that already license abuse. Is sexualised online violence against women treated as violence against a woman in the street? No, it's not. Is domestic violence trivialised because it is in the home? Yes, it is. Is sexual harassment on LinkedIn treated the same as sexual harassment in the workplace? Or in the street? It's not. Tiptoeing, mealy-mouthed language reduces and trivialises. So let us stop calling “online toxicity” as though it were a weather pattern. Let's decide through out language that domestic violence, online violence, digital violence are no different. It is violence against women and girls because of physical attributes, just translated into the grammar of the internet. The screen changes the method. It does not change the intent.

New report: Online violence is silencing women journalists in the #AI age. “Tipping Point: Online Violence Impacts, Manifestations and Redress in the AI Age” highlights the growing scale and impact of abuse targeting women journalists and media workers. The findings are stark. ⚠️ 🔹45% of women journalists report self-censoring on social media due to online violence 🔹25% report anxiety or depression linked to online violence, while 13% report PTSD. At the same time, AI-enabled forms of abuse - including deepfakes, non-consensual intimate imagery, and cyberflashing - are intensifying these risks and further restricting women’s participation in public discourse. This is not only a safety issue. It is a direct threat to press freedom, women’s participation in public life, and democratic debate. To address these threats, UNESCO works with governments, digital platforms, media organizations, and civil society to strengthen human rights-based governance of digital spaces and AI, reinforce safety of journalists frameworks, support gender-sensitive newsroom practices and capacity-building, promote access to psychosocial support for journalists affected by online violence, and advance media and information literacy while developing tools to identify bias and harms in AI systems. Report: bit.ly/3Rlo6su

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is an expanding and developing form of violence against women. The scale of TFGBV in Tajikistan is expected to grow as more women gain access to digital forms of communication and expression. TFGBV does not exist in a vacuum, and the research explores if and how TFGBV differs from offline violence, the interconnections between the two, and how societal and family norms relate to both types of violence against women. The ability of TFGBV to control the overall narrative on gender norms and women's behavior is explored. This study considers whether digital spaces give moral crusaders the power to both monitor and control women’s online presence and to give large-scale visibility to women’s offline lives through social media posts. It shows how these publications can allow for intimidation, threats, and violence to force women to conform to a stereotypical image of who and what a woman from Tajikistan should be. The research further investigates whether teenagers and children are similarly at risk and the extent to which this affects other aspects of their lives. Other areas of intersectionality, such as disability, ethnicity, and location, are also considered. This research involved semi-structured interviews with 59 women, focus group discussions with 55 women, and an analysis of 182 identified cases of TFGBV. It assessed 22 social media posts and 3,885 comments on those posts. Findings show that women are retreating from online life, self-censoring, and not discussing sensitive topics around women’s rights. As a result of TFGBV, women have been driven to suicide, they have experienced physical violence, severe mental health issues, and fear, have not been able to leave the house, have faced divorce and lost custody of their children, have suffered loss of property and employment, and have had to leave the country. As one woman explained, “These are not just words on a screen. These are real feelings, real pain and suffering.”- Association for Progressive Communications

What happens online doesn’t stay online, and the data now proves it. When nearly half of women link online abuse to real-world harm, we can’t pretend the digital world is separate anymore. I spent time reading this new UN Women evidence brief on online violence against women, and it paints a very clear picture of the reality many women experience in public spaces today, both online and offline. The findings show a reality many women in public life have been naming for years, but now backed by global data. A few insights that stood out to me: 🔹 Online violence has become a routine experience for women activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and content creators. 🔹 The link between online attacks and offline harm is now undeniable. 🔹 AI is not only shaping public discourse but also shaping the scale and speed of violence, especially through deepfakes and algorithmic amplification. 🔹 The impact goes beyond safety; it affects expression, participation, and democracy itself. What I appreciate about this brief is not just the data, but the framing: online violence is a barrier to women’s public participation. It is a rollback of rights, not merely a “tech issue.” This is an essential read! What safeguards do you think are missing in our current digital ecosystems? #GenderEquality #EndVAW #GenderJustice #DigitalSafety #DigitalRights #AIandSafety

Tip! Public parks are not neutral. They are systems with uneven outcomes Parks are often treated as universal public goods. Open to all, free to use, and therefore assumed to work for everyone. Creating Welcoming Parks for Teenage Girls (Make Space for Girls York) by Abigail Gaines challenges that assumption with a simple observation: teenage girls use parks significantly less than boys, despite wanting to be there. The mechanism is not preference, but design and use. Many parks concentrate “teen provision” in competitive, central and highly visible spaces such as Multi Use Games Areas and skateparks. Observational data cited in the guide shows that around 90% of users of these spaces are male. This creates a reinforcing feedback loop. Dominant use leads to perceived ownership, which discourages others from entering, which further reinforces dominance. Safety plays a similar role. Not only in terms of incidents, but in perception. Lighting, sightlines, maintenance, routes, toilets and who else is present all shape whether a space feels usable. A perception gap cited in the guide is telling: 89% of park professionals believed parks were safe for women and girls, while only 22% of teenage girls agreed. The result is a system outcome. Public space that is formally inclusive, but functionally selective. The guide points to a different approach. Start with observation. Who uses the space, who does not, and why. Then design for a broader spectrum of use. Not only sport, but also social and informal activity. Seating that supports conversation, shared swings, climbing elements without competition, shelter, soft landscaping and spatial zoning that reduces territorial pressure. Crucially, involve teenage girls as co-designers, not as consultees. Their lived experience reveals where the system fails. Small changes in layout, positioning or programming can shift how a space is perceived and used. The implication for urban practice is wider. This is not only about parks. It is about how standard provision, planning norms and design templates can unintentionally produce exclusion. When inclusion is not explicitly designed, systems tend to optimise for dominant users. A practical rule follows. Do not assess public space on provision alone. Assess it on actual use, duration of stay and diversity of users. The reference list in the guide is a strong entry point for further exploration, bringing together research, case studies and practice-based evidence on gender, public space and park design. When parks work for teenage girls, they tend to work better for many others. That is a system correction, not a niche intervention. #UrbanPlanning #PublicSpace #InclusiveDesign #GenderInclusiveCities #ParksAndRecreation #SocialInfrastructure #HealthyCities #UrbanSystems

What if digital-facilitated violence doesn't actually begin online? We often talk about social media platforms, anonymous accounts, AI-generated images, cyberbullying, and online harassment. But what if we're starting the conversation too late? Because long before someone clicks "Send", something else has already happened. A girl is told her education matters less than her brother's. A woman is beaten, and the community stays silent. Child marriage is accepted as tradition. Sexual harassment is dismissed as "normal". Institutions fail to hold perpetrators accountable. By the time someone uses technology to shame, threaten, manipulate, or intimidate a woman, those beliefs have often been reinforced for years. Technology didn't create those inequalities. In many cases, it simply gave them greater reach, speed, anonymity, and permanence. As we invest in AI, digital transformation, and online safety, perhaps we also need to ask ourselves a more fundamental question: Are we building safer technologies, or are we allowing technology to amplify injustices we have never fully confronted? In my latest Building Inclusive Systems article, I argue that digital-facilitated violence is not only a technology challenge; it is also an institutional one. If we want safer digital spaces, we must build societies where equality is taught, accountability is expected, and violence against women and girls is never tolerated, whether offline or online. I'd love to hear your perspective. If technology often reflects the values of the societies that create and use it, what is the one institutional change you believe would make the greatest difference in reducing digital-facilitated violence against women and girls? 👇 Read the full article below and join the conversation. #BuildingInclusiveSystems #DigitalFacilitatedViolence #GenderEquality #Technology #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalRights #InclusiveSystems #Policy #Justice #SystemsChange #Leadership Ingo Female Transporters Ltd FEMNET - African Women's Development and Communication Network UN Women Alex Kent Restless Development Gabriel Iguma juliet Nakazibwe Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Alliance Uganda Josh Mirondo TUMUSIIME DENIS CEHURD Uganda Reach A Hand Africa Reproductive Health Network Kenya Reproductive Health Uganda Shareena Howley Johnstone Kuya Kirabo Suubi Dinah Akwii Joan Mugaba Erik J. Reker Nyamaizi Immaculate Otumbo Vincent Semanda Daniel Yolanda Pemberton Cama Women Plumbers Network Limited ICRW Africa African Union