Online interactions play a major role in our daily lives. While most people have positive experiences online, for many women and girls life online can be an extension of harmful gender dynamics that exist in wider society.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by certain kinds of online harms, such as intimate image abuse, cyberflashing, and controlling or coercive behaviour.
Importantly, different groups of women and girls are affected differently by online harms. Age, sexuality, gender identity, race and ethnicity, along with many other factors, influence women and girls’ experiences online.
Ofcom takes the protection of women and girls online very seriously. As the online safety regulator, we are working to improve the safety of women and girls online.
What Ofcom is doing to create a safer life online for women and girls
The Online Safety Act 2023 makes tech platforms – including social media, gaming services, dating apps, discussion forums and search services – legally responsible for protecting people in the UK from illegal content and content harmful to children, including harms that disproportionately affect women and girls.
Ofcom has already published Codes and guidance on how we expect tech platforms to tackle illegal content and content harmful to children. Ofcom’s role is to hold platforms to account and ensure they comply with the law, using our enforcement powers where necessary. It is services’ responsibility to comply with the law, but Ofcom has produced resources to help.
Ofcom has also produced guidance setting out how platforms can take action against harmful content and activity that disproportionately affects women and girls, in recognition of the unique risks they face online.
Ofcom has conducted extensive stakeholder engagement throughout the development of this Guidance, including meeting with a group of survivors of domestic abuse, holding roundtables with young people, and hosting multistakeholder workshops across the UK. As we develop our work to drive take up of the guidance, as well as our work under the Act more broadly, Ofcom will continue this valuable engagement.
Find out more about our work
Ofcom’s Guidance: A Safer Life Online for Women and Girls
- Statement and Guidance: A safer life online for women and girls
- Ofcom: Tech firms must up their game to tackle online harms against women and girls
- Statement: Detecting intimate image abuse
Resources for service providers
Ofcom’s research
- Experiences of online hate and abuse among women in politics
- Online hate and abuse in sport: a report by Ofcom in partnership with Kick it Out
- Experiences of using online services
Further information and support
If you, or someone you know, have been affected by these harms you can find further information, support or advice from any of these organisations.
- Revenge Porn Helpline or StopNCII for intimate image abuse support
- Refuge for domestic abuse support
- Suzy Lamplugh Trust for stalking support
- You can also find support services through the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and Victim and Witness Information