High-profile women demand an end to online abuse against women

A group of 200 high-profile women are coming together to put an end to online abuse women often experience on the Internet. These women, including former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, ex-US tennis player Billie Jean King and British actresses Thandiwe Newton and Emma Watson, signed an open letter demanding concrete action to tackle Internet trolling against women. 

Gillard shared, "As prime minister of Australia, like other women in the public domain, I regularly received highly gendered and ugly social media, including the circulation of pornographic cartoons.” She added that it made her “angry and frustrated that women still face this kind of abuse.”

The letter was published at the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris, and was addressed to the chief executives of Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter, asking them to "urgently prioritise the safety of women on your platforms," as reported by BBC. 

In response, Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter have vowed to make improvements to their platforms to better protect women against online abuse. The tech companies have committed to building better ways for women to curate their safety online.

However, some campaigners have expressed concerns that these commitments do not go far enough. Lucina Di Meco, co-founder of #ShePersisted Global, which tackles online attacks against women, said that these abstract statements offer tech companies a good PR opportunity, but these aren't real commitments.

"They aren't specifically offering to look at content moderation or algorithmic preferences that will reward bad behaviour. So far, we are still putting the burden on women," she added.

Azmina Dhrodia, senior policy manager at the World Wide Web Foundation, who organised the letter said that it is really important that we recognise that abuse and harassment against women on social media platforms is widespread, and that it is one of the biggest barriers to gender equality. The World Wide Web Foundation also said that it will track the tech companies against the commitments they have made, and report annually on their progress.