Spotlight Initiative brings together experts and influencers to discuss tech-facilitated gender-based violence at SVRI

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - During this year’s Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) Forum in Cape Town, South Africa, Spotlight Initiative hosted ‘Unfollowing Misogyny: A conversation on digital technology and violence against women and girls’. The event brought together experts, parliamentarians and activists to discuss how to make social media and online spaces safer for women and girls at the world's largest abstract-driven conference on violence against women.

"Technology is far from neutral. Not only does it reflect the inequalities and biases already present in society, it can often amplify them." - Futurist Sinead Bovell

The panel featured Sonke Gender Justice Co-Executive Director Rev. Bafana Khumalo; Member of Tanzania’s Parliament Hon. Neema Lugangira; Meta Head of Safety Policy Africa, Middle East and Türkiye, Sylvia Musalagani; UNFPA Gender-based Violence Technical Advisor Alexandra Robinson; Chayn Head of Product Nadine Krishnamurthy-Spencer and Activist, Astronaut and RISE Founder Amanda Nguyen. It was moderated by Futurist and WAYE Founder Sinead Bovell.

In her opening address, Sinead Bovell spoke about the gendered nature of technology stating: “Technology is far from neutral. Not only does it reflect the inequalities and biases already present in society, it can often amplify them. Gender-based violence, one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world, has extended to online spaces where it’s amplified and evolving in overt and covert ways.” 

She noted that the internet often provides abusers with anonymity and an ability to organize coordinated attacks, while non-consensual image sharing and ‘deep fake’ content disproportionately affect women and girls.

UNFPA Gender-based Violence Technical Advisor Alexandra Robinson said that A.I. was a primary concern for reproducing inequalities because of the gendered nature of the data sets it is trained on. She also pointed to technology’s uses outside of online spaces. 

“Often when we talk about TFGBV (technology-facilitated gender-based violence) we are talking about online platforms, TikTok and Facebook, for example,” said Ms. Robinson. “But increasingly we are seeing Bluetooth locking devices, cars that have perimeter settings on them so that women couldn’t escape if they wanted to, location tracking – surveillance that is very cheap and accessible, and a key way we are seeing coercive control manifest.” 

Activist and Astronaut Amanda Nguyen spoke about how an organized online community of survivors was instrumental in passing legislation to protect the rights of rape survivors, but called technology a “double-edged sword”. 

“After a decade of advocating online, I’ve gotten my fair share of trolls but I have never seen the vitriol I have since sharing my story plus announcing that I’m going to space,” said Ms. Nguyen. “This combination of succeeding in a male-dominated area while also talking about vulnerability and gender-based violence has fuelled a very interesting type of trolling.” 

She also highlighted that survivor stories, including her own, are frequently censored online because social media algorithms can’t differentiate between a survivor’s story and online violence.

Sonke Gender Justice Co-Executive Director Rev. Bafana Khumalo spoke about the need for men and women to forge alliances, and the challenges of bringing men into the movement to eliminate gender-based violence. 

“Men are privileged. When we come to spaces, we expect to lead,” said Mr. Khumalo. “We expect to take over because that’s how we are socialized… There’s a lot that we need to do to undo that.” He highlighted that the bulk of social media companies are owned and run by men to prioritize profit over health and wellbeing.

Meta Head of Safety Policy Africa, Middle East and Türkiye, Sylvia Musalagani shared some of the major challenges they face in online platforms via a video message. They include “sextortion, non-consensual image sharing and harassment of women public figures.”  Ms. Musalagani said that Meta were participating in online platforms to support adults and minors to report and remove intimate images that were shared without their consent in a private and secure way.

Chayn Head of Product Nadine Krishnamurthy-Spencer spoke about the resources they create to make space for survivors online, including their flagship product Bloom, a platform aimed at helping survivors to heal. “It’s fully online, you can create a profile and you can access videos on subjects such as reclaiming your body after sexual assault, how to recover from toxic and abusive relationships, dealing with a and processing the impact of image based abuse,” said Ms. Krishnamurthy-Spencer. It also includes a 1:1 message service for personalized support. She said that Chayn had partnered with the dating app Bumble to offer more users a way to heal from any abuse.   

Member of Tanzania’s Parliament Hon. Neema Lugangira said she had spent the past four years raising awareness of the magnitude of tech-facilitated gender-based violence in politics and how it undermines democracy. In a video message, she shared: “More and more women are deciding to self-censor. They are deciding not to be online, and it is shrinking the democratic space in relation to the participation of women in politics.”  

In positive news, Ms. Lugangira shared that the Inter-Parliamentary Union had recently voted to adopt a landmark resolution on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on democracy, human rights and the rule of law, with a particular focus on the need to mitigate the disproportionate impact of AI on women and girls.

After the panel answered audience questions, Ms. Bovell concluded by reiterating the need for a proactive approach to making technology more gender-equal.

“The future isn’t a mystery,” said Ms. Bovell. “We have to lean into where technology is going, spot those trends, so we can feel like things are moving in a preventative direction, not just reactive.

“It is time to have newer, flexible, adaptive models for the time that we’re in. I know it feels like things are moving too quickly to catch up, but that also means the solutions can [move quickly] as well.”