Stronger protections needed for women and girls online, says Ofcom

UK online safety regulator, Ofcom, seeks to reduce the volume of misogynistic material online to make it a safer space for women and girls.

To tackle the disproportionate online harms faced by women and girls in the UK, Ofcom has issued new guidance for websites and apps and asks that tech companies respond urgently.

From misogynistic abuse, stalking and image-based sexual abuse proliferating online, Ofcom is seeking to make websites and apps more accountable for not just the material they allow on their platforms, but also to require them to design in additional protective measures to prevent the issue from escalating further.

Key recommendations for platforms

Here are just some of the key recommendations Ofcom wants platforms to put in place:

Prompt users to reconsider before posting misogynistic or harmful content depicting or referring to sexual violence.
Impose “timeouts” on persistent offenders.
De-monetise content that promotes sexual violence or abuse.
Limit how frequently a user can post (“rate limiting”) to prevent ‘pile-ons’ and wider harassment.
Offer fast, mass blocking or muting of multiple accounts.
Bundle safety settings so users can more easily limit their visibility and be safer when at risk of stalking and coercive control.
Remove geolocation by default.
Make it easier to set past content to private.

Setting a new safety standard

The regulator also wants platforms to design in “abusability testing” that assesses new features for how they might be misused. Alongside this, it wants them to conduct specialist training for their moderation teams around gender-based harms and have ongoing consultation with survivors to inform safer features and policies for the future.

If it is followed, this guidance could set a new standard for online protection for women and girls, helping to make the internet a more respectful, inclusive space for everyone.

Learn more from Ofcom here