While the internet provides vital spaces for women seeking expression and opportunity, nearly all of the forms of online violence — harassment, doxing, toxicity, bullying, revenge porn, misinformation and defamation — disproportionately affect women. As part of Jigsaw’s work exploring threats to open societies, we partnered with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to study the prevalence and impact of online violence against women on a global scale.
We surveyed women from the 51 most online-populated countries to better understand their experiences online, and to measure the tactics and trends of online violence as well as its impact on women. Nearly 40% of women surveyed had been harassed online. The vast majority (85%) had witnessed harassment or some other form of online violence.
⟶ Explore the full study here.
A number of recent surveys and reports show how the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends both online and offline, with many respondents saying that violence against women — whether domestic violence or online violence — was noticeably worse, and particularly so in the case of women of color and other minority groups.
Online violence against women has consequences not only on a personal and professional level for the targets, but it also has a chilling effect on the witnesses of harassment. The EIU survey shows that after witnessing or experiencing harassment, 32% of women reconsidered posting a comment online, while 30% reduced their online presence, and 20% stopped using that online platform entirely. A study from the research institute Data & Society suggests that 41% of women between the ages of 15–29 self-censor to avoid online harassment.
(*% of respondents of the 1,662 women that experienced online violence in the past year)
Public female figures are disproportionately targeted: A recent Wilson Center report analyzes gendered abuse and sexualized disinformation targeting women in public life and the corresponding impacts on national security and democratic participation. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) further documented this phenomenon in a report on the prevalence of online violence against young, politically active women in Kenya, Colombia, and Indonesia. The International Women’s Media Foundation’s report on Attacks and Harassment: The Impact on Female Journalists and Their Work found that 70% of women journalists have experienced some form of harassment, threat or attack, and 1 out of 3 women journalists have considered leaving the profession due to online attacks.
The EIU report suggests that countries where online violence against women is higher also have higher rates of gender inequality. Many of the platforms for self-expression and economic opportunity are increasingly dependent on the internet, making it even more important for these platforms to manage rising levels of toxicity. While individual efforts can help with immediate damage control, coordinated, multi-stakeholder action is necessary for systemic change across the entire ecosystem.
How Technology Can Help Prevent Violence Against Women Online
The scale of conversations online means it’s impossible for humans alone to review and moderate all the comments in spaces where people come together and exchange ideas online. In practice, that means that many websites struggle to control toxicity and abuse on their platforms. But innovations in artificial intelligence have created new tools that can spot toxic language online at greater scale than human moderators alone.
Jigsaw’s tool Perspective, for example, is a free API that uses machine learning to spot toxic language. A broad range of websites use this technology to measurably reduce toxicity on their platforms, sometimes by helping human moderators do their work more efficiently, sometimes by providing commenters with real-time feedback on the potential toxicity of what they’re writing.
Perspective is used by major publishers such as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal as well as smaller local newspapers like the S.E. Missourian, which used Perspective to help reduce toxic comments on its site by nearly 45 percent. We conducted studies with a number of partners that showed how Perspective has measurably reduced toxicity across a range of platforms — from newspapers to online gaming sites to discussion platforms.
As we continue to expand Perspective to work in new languages (it’s currently available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German and Russian), we’re also engaging with the research community to explore ways to broaden the capabilities of machine learning models to detect more nuanced forms of toxicity such as misogyny and doxing.
⟶ If you want to help us in this effort and have examples of gender-based harassment, hateful comments against women or minorities, or other forms of toxicity in any language, you can share them here.
We’re also looking at new ways for technology to empower people who are facing harassment online. People who are facing organized harassment — an increasingly common issue for public figures, journalists, and activists, especially women — often struggle to manage the volume of incoming harassment they receive. We’ve started to experiment with how new tools might help people document and take action on the harassment they’re receiving across multiple platforms.
At Jigsaw, our research and technology development always begins by working with people on the frontlines of the issue. In February 2020, Jigsaw brought together prominent female journalists, activists, technologists, and academics for a day-long summit dedicated to the issue of online violence against women. Much of the discussions and research findings from that group have informed our approaches to this global issue. Since then, we’ve been harnessing those insights to sponsor a series of hackathons around the world in partnership with Google’s Women Techmakers — bringing together women from dozens of countries to deliver online training and develop new tools to improve online safety for women.
Resources for Targets of Online Harassment
In addition to conducting research and developing new technology to address violence against women online, Jigsaw works to support the broader community of organizations that provide resources to the targets of online harassment. Many of these organizations, including those that provide specialized services to groups that face disproportionate harassment and abuse — such as women journalists, politicians, and activists — have developed toolkits and other resources to help women stay safe online.
PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to defending free expression worldwide, is building out, translating, and adapting its online harassment field manual (co-sponsored by Jigsaw) which offers strategies for navigating online abuse and tightening digital safety — particularly for those communities disproportionately targeted by online abuse including writers and journalists who identify as women, BIPOC, and/or LGBTQIA+.
Online SOS is a nonprofit organization connecting people with information and tools to take action in the face of harassment. While primarily focused on the needs of US-based journalists, their resources are available to anyone experiencing online threats to their professional and personal life. Their Online Stalking Legal Project (co-sponsored by Jigsaw) provides a legal resource for the targets online stalking and threats, particularly journalists, activists, politicians and other public figures.
Hollaback! is a global movement with a mission to end harassment in all its forms. Their goal is to equip people with the tools to overcome harassment in their everyday lives and to create impact in the organizations, institutions, and businesses around them. They provide free training and resources for targets of harassment, some sponsored by Jigsaw, including a community to report abuse and find support.
These groups are among a number of organizations devoted to supporting people facing online harassment. Their experiences not only provide critical resources for people facing terrible circumstances, they help to provide the insights that inform new technology and new approaches to making people safer online.
By Patricia Georgiou, Head of Partnerships & Business Development at Jigsaw
