Twitter, TikTok, Google, and Facebook promise to boost protections for women online

At the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris on Thursday Twitter, TikTok, Google, and Facebook committed to tackling online abuse and improving safety for women on their platforms. The pledge came following consultations with the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF) over the past year, aimed at examining online gender-based violence and abuse. The WWWF said the consultations showed women want more control over who could reply or comment on their social media posts and more choice around what they see online, where, and when. According to the WWWF, the companies have pledged to “build better ways for women to curate their safety online” by offering more granular settings, such as who can see, share, or comment on posts; more simple and accessible language; easier navigation and access to safety tools, and by “reducing the burden on women by proactively reducing the amount of abuse they see.” The way that last part is worded is a bit frustrating; it addresses the aftermath or the location of abuse, but not the person / people committing the abuse. And just because the women aren’t seeing the abuse on social media, doesn’t mean the abuse has gone away. The platforms certainly bear some responsibility…
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