Meghna Amin
High profile women from around the world have joined forces to campaign against online abuse.
Actresses Emma Watson and Thandiwe Newton, alongside ex-tennis player Billie Jean King as well as former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard have all signed an open letter asking for greater action against internet abuse and online trolling of women.
The letter, which has been signed by more than 200 women, asks the executives of Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter to ‘urgently prioritise the safety of women’ on their respective platforms, according to the BBC.
The letter, also published in the BBC article, states: “The internet is the town square of the 21st Century. It is where debate takes place, communities are built, products are sold and reputations are made.
“But the scale of online abuse means that, for too many women, these digital town squares are unsafe. This is a threat to progress on gender equality.”
The letter also referenced a study from 2020 which found that 38% of more than 4,000 women across 51 different countries have experienced some form of online abuse, whether through intimidation or trolling. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women from marginalized groups, including the BAME community, suffer greater forms of abuse online.
Speaking to the BBC, Gillard expressed feeling “angry and frustrated that women still face this kind of abuse”, despite companies like TikTok and Instagram claiming that they are committed to tackling online abuse on their platforms, and filtering what can be seen and accessed by other users. Facebook have also recently announced a Women’s Safety Hub, to monitor and target online abuse.
The letter has been organized and published by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Its publication comes at a poignant time, as Love Island social media accounts recently released a statement condemning hatred and death threats made against one of the female contestants, and journalists have spoken out against the online hatred and abuse they face by trolls across social media.
Featured image courtesy of Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash. Image license is available here. No changes have been made to this image.
Meghna Amin
An English and Philosophy Durham graduate, currently studying an NCTJ with News Associates - on placement at The Daily Mail