Globally, over 200 million women have experienced online abuse, according to the shocking figures that emerged from the survey conducted by the World Wide Web Foundation.
The research estimates that some 38% of the global female population has been verbally insulted, harassed, trolled and more. The most targeted are women of colour and of the LGBTQ community, but Generation Z and Millennial women suffer these abuses quite a lot too, to the point that the percentage of women, in this age group, who experience abuses actually soars to 45%.
The consequences of these somewhat invisible actions can be extremely severe, ranging from depression to psychological and physical damage. Taking cue from these considerations, 200 celebrities have signed a letter sent to Web giants such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok asking them to do their best to address the problem of online abuse of women on their very platforms, therefore asking them to review their online moderation and reporting systems.
Former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, singer Annie Lennox, actresses Ashley Judd and Emma Watson and former tennis player Billie Jean King are just a few of the signatories of the letter asking the social media and digital platforms to step up their monitoring systems in order to tackle online gender violence.
«These companies have the power to curb these abuses and improve the online experiences of hundreds of millions of women and girls», says Azmina Dhrodia, Senior Policy Manager at World Wide Web Foundation.
Indeed, the letter reads: «The Internet is the square of the twenty-first century. It’s where debates are held, communities are formed, products are sold and reputation is built. But for too many women, these digital squares are not safe. This hinders progress on gender equality».
Facebook and the other web giants must step up their efforts in this regard. The main issues are the lack of systems that clearly and simply report online abuses and the impossibility of directly responding to these abuses. The digital platforms undertake to devise more detailed security settings, giving users the possibility of tracking and managing their reports, indicating content, context and language.
Recent Comments