In the social media age online abuse is the new source of women’s oppression, with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women being disproportionately targeted. Amnesty International found that one in five women in the UK have suffered online abuse or harassment, and Black women are 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets.
Online abuse prevents women and girls from accessing relevant information, expressing their opinions and participating in public debates, acting as a further barrier to women’s political participation. At the 2019 General Election, a number of prominent women MPs stood down, citing the continued abuse they received online as one of their key reasons.
Our Action
We wrote to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, calling for the government to commit 10% of the Digital Services Tax to tackling online abuse of women and girls and are pushing for an intersectional approach to online harms.
We have called out the violence and abuse which is pushing women out of politics and are supporting the campaign to make misogyny a hate crime.
Working closely with Glitch, we have brought a range of organisations together to ensure the Online Harms Bill includes gender-based abuse as a priority harm and recognises the compounding harm experienced by those with multiple protected characteristics.
