Tech giants commit to tackling the “pandemic of online abuse against women and girls”

Global tech giants Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok committed to address online harassment against women and develop a safer experience for female users at the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris. 

The platforms plan on proactively reducing the amount of abuse online in order to “reduce the burden on women.”

Two key commitments announced include implementing better reporting systems where women have the ability to track and manage their reports, and ensuring better ways to curate one’s safety online by offering more granular settings of who can see, share, comment, or reply to posts. 

The development came after the Web Foundation sent an open letter to CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Shou Zi Chew, and Jack Dorsey to take action on women’s safety. 

Prominent women leaders and figures from around the world, including tennis legend Billie Jean King, former Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and other celebrities like Gemma Chan, Gillian Anderson, Maisie Williams, Nicola Coughlan, and Paloma Faith have signed the letter, claiming to keep an eye on their progress and hold the tech companies accountable on the commitments.

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Emily Sharpe, Director of Policy at Web Foundation, said, “This collaboration has shown the promise of smart, evidence-led change in tech that is open and connected to people’s real online experiences. We’ll be tracking these companies against the commitments they’ve made and will publish annual reports showing their progress. Now, we expect other companies to join these four and step up to the challenge.”

Online violence against women has often come in the way of them using social media and other tech platforms to further their opportunities in different careers. The prevalence of online violence against women globally stands at 85 percent, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. 

After studying the tweets between March and May 2019, global NGO Amnesty International earlier reported that one in every seven tweets that mentioned women politicians were abusive.