An open letter from advocates and experts around the world urging stakeholders for an urgent global action to combat online and technology-facilitated gender-based violence. 

Dear citizens of the world,

Dear Heads of States and international organisations

Dear all,

In the digital age, online platforms have become an arena for hatred and violence. 58% of young women and girls globally have experienced online violence on social media platforms, and they are 27 times more likely to be harassed online than men. The surge in the use of artificial intelligence exacerbates this issue: 96% of deepfakes available online are pornographic, 99% of these target women and girls.

To this day, no adequate measures are in place to meaningfully protect us. 

In April 2020, South Korea was shaken by the "Ninth Room" case: eight Telegram chat groups sharing non-consensual intimate and explicit content, including deepfakes and videos of sexual abuse and mutilation. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, similar cases emerged in France, India, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, and many more.  

In January 2024, AI-generated videos combining bodies of sex trafficked victims and celebrity faces, including Taylor Swift, gained tens of thousands of views online. The company responsible for this generated $17 million. Despite the owners’ incarceration, victims continue to be terrorised as the abuse is constantly stored, shared, and redistributed.

In August 2024, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif became the target of widespread online harassment and disinformation on a global scale after her gold medal victory at the Paris Olympics - this abuse remains ongoing. 

At the same time, the tragic rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in India shocked the whole world. In less than 24 hours, videos of the rape were allegedly posted online, which led to a spike in searches of the content around the world. 

We, the undersigned authors of this letter, working on online misogyny for years across diverse regions of the world, are raising the alarm on the threats to our rights and call for immediate international action - before it is too late.

The global scale of online and technology-facilitated gender-based violence

The transnational, pervasive, accessible, unrestrictive and viral nature of online and technology-facilitated gender-based violence can cause life-shattering harm for women and girls. The dissemination of non-consensual intimate content affects 1 woman out of 10, with content often disseminated across international borders. The failure of platforms to moderate and remove online gender-based violence enables this abuse, creates impunity for perpetrators, and causes life-shattering harm and damages women's and girls' rights - both online and offline. 

The business model of platforms harms us. Profiting from high engagement generated from online misogyny, which emboldens in turn extremist masculinist movements. Moreover, platforms such as Instagram employ sexist, racist and discriminatory algorithms that boost and showcase unrealistic body standards from which profit is made and discriminations generated. 

The online misogyny spills over into offline spaces, and vice versa, compounding the prevalence of the overall state of misogyny in our societies. Online violence and misogyny is a human rights violation that leads to profound impacts on our rights, societies, and democracies on a global scale — representing a threat to women’s rights to expression and freedom both online and offline. 

A call for action from States 

Because the digital realm has no borders, neither do multinational corporations — Meta, Google (YouTube), ByteDance, Snap Inc., Amazon (Twitch), Twitter — which dominate this space. Existing attempts to regulate platforms are either insufficient, unadapted to the transnational and business-driven nature of these companies, non-binding, or simply powerless — and women, girls and minorities bear the heaviest burden of this failure. 

How much longer will it take for States to gather, act and regulate platforms ? 

While the Spanish language has (only) 126 Meta content moderators in the EU, platforms such as Instagram invest minimally or not at all in content moderation in local languages for countries including Ethiopia or Myanmar. The right to a safe internet should be a fundamental and universal human right. But today, it remains largely unequal, particularly for women and girls from global majority countries as well as in warzones and crisis regions deliberately left behind. Equitable resource allocation for content moderation is therefore a necessity for our safety. Why would certain countries benefit from moderation ? While, at the same time, most of the moderation is performed by underpaid workers in lower-income countries? These platforms have been allowed, for too long, to operate with impunity. It is now time for States to step in.

Beyond moderation, platforms have a responsibility to provide tools for victims to report abuse and seek redress. As of today, these tools do not work. Similarly, States have a responsibility to ensure platforms are tackling this abuse, and guarantee victims and survivors meaningful access to justice and legal remedies.

A call for international action, coordination and cooperation 

Unity can amplify strength. And when nations come together, they can start holding these corporations accountable, as demonstrated by the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

However, fragmented, unequal responses are insufficient and unadapted, and platforms have profited from the lack of coordination. 

It is time to organise a proper global response. It is now time for change. 

When multinationals violate our fundamental human rights globally, the international community must step up.

We, activists, human rights defenders, every-day citizens, are ready and raise the alarm. It is now time for states and international organisations to take action and start building a concrete international response. 

Add your voice to ours and sign this letter to call on stakeholders for global urgent action to combat online misogyny. 

__________

Shanley Clemot McLaren, Global feminist activist, founder of #StopFisha, gender and digital political advisor, Young Activist of the year by UN Geneva (2024). 

Andrea Powell, Global policy advocate, founder @KaranaRising, co-founder Alecto AI and STISA

Barsha Chakraborty, Feminist practitioner, Head of media, Breakthrough Trust

Clare McGlynn, Professor of law, Durham university. Uk

Ghada Oueiss, Lebanese journalist, Media trainer, Principal Presenter Al Jazeera, Advisory Board Member, ICFJ Online Violence Alert and Response System and survivor

Ines Marinho, Portuguese feminist and activist, founder of #NãoPartilhes association, IBSA survivor 

Marwa Azelmat, Global advisor on OGBV, UN Network Experts on AI, META MENA Privacy Expert 

Noelle Martin, Global expert on image-based sexual abuse, lawyer, researcher, and survivor

Silvia Semenzin, Italian researcher & expert on online misogyny and TFGBV, international feminist advocate & author, IBSA survivor

Tsitsi Matekaire, Feminist and human rights lawyer, Global Lead for Ending Sexual Exploitation at Equality Now