Written by Sheena Adams

Gender-based violence online has reached crisis proportions and more sustained work is needed to hold technology companies accountable for their role in technology-assisted GBV. This was one of the key takeouts yesterday from a Summit for Democracy Day Zero side event hosted by the US Department of State. Panelists included Sandra Pepera, Director of Gender, Women and Democracy at the National Democratic Institute; Phumzile van Damme, former MP in South Africa; Kristina Wilfore, Co-Founder of #ShePersisted; and Desiree Cormier Smith, US Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice.

Speakers agreed that solutions demanded an intersectional approach, tackling gender equity while also combatting mis- and disinformation targeting women online, especially political leaders.

Van Damme said it was exciting to see the African Union recently publish a resolution recognizing online GBV as a real and present threat for women. “Lawmakers don’t always understand the online space and why what is said online matters. We need to have policies in place that take into account how these platforms work,” she said.

Wilfore said that according to research from #ShePersisted, no women leaders were immune to mis- and disinformation online, whether they were a minister, head of state or local city office candidate. Trends emerging from mapping exercises of countries including Italy, Hungary, Tunisia, Yemen, Brazil and Ukraine pointed to the fact that we need to expand our idea of resiliency to the way we approach the role of technology. Perpetrators were not just attacking women to achieve illiberal goals and transform gender equality as a goal and distort it. But there was also an urgent need to “center the systemic choices of social media companies and what they’re doing to monetize this”. #ShePersists has just released a report entitled Monetizing Misogyny which unpacks this. Read it here.

With more than 70 elections around the world in 2024, many in fragile contexts like India, Indonesia, the US, South Africa and the European Parliament, there would be “supersized mis- and disinformation opportunities” that women would bear the brunt of, Wilfore added.

“There are upward of 3 billion people eligible to vote for the first time in these elections and I’m not sure that we can have the resiliency and fight against the forces that will be trying to undermine the elections and democracy itself without a change in the system,” she concluded.

Catch up with remarks from Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, at the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R255fH922M.

Sheena Adams