“This is an important project to arm governments, NGOs and private sectors including social media entities with this data to design effective responses for a safer online world.”
Minister of International Development Karina Gould at the launch of CIGI’s Supporting a Safer Internet project
Making the Internet Safer from Gender-Based Violence
Online gender-based violence — from cyberstalking and impersonation to non-consensual distribution of intimate images — is a major problem on social media and other digital platforms. CIGI’s Supporting a Safer Internet project looks at how such attacks against women and LGBTQ+ individuals are silencing voices and leading to digital exclusion. CIGI experts and researchers from Africa, Latin America and other countries in the Global South seek to design policy and governance recommendations in response.
CIGI Senior Fellow Suzie Dunn explains that gender-based violence online is often ignored or downplayed because some view online abuse as less harmful than abuse in the physical world. Canadian Minister of International Development Karina Gould called the project an important step to “design effective responses for a safer online world.”