What the new era of free speech represents for women’s safety online 

Best-selling author, writer and campaigner Laura Bates has launched a new book: the New Age of Sexism. This latest publication offers chilling new perspectives of the online world and how it continues to evolve with the rise of deep fakes, misogynist content and mass radicalisation of teenage and adolescent boys online. 

The discourse that this new book presents also emerges from the margins of the British psychological drama- Adolescence, that has spurred heated debate about women’s safety online for the last several months. We can no longer treat this as an afterthought especially with the current AI explosion and uptake globally. 

The online world is riddled with a digital divide that continues to jeopardise women’s and girl’s online safety further deterring them from economic and social opportunities.

In 2025, as countries commemorate the Beijing+30 milestones and commitments to gender equality, online violence is still a significant barrier to finally achieving gender equality. According to Womankind’s Beijing+30 report; far-right agendas & the growing manosphere online are being emboldened by existing patriarchal systems and structures presenting new barriers to women’s rights online. 

While feminist advocacy and movement building have been key strategies in countering these inequalities, the technological revolution is evolving exponentially with unprecedented challenges for regulation. Caught in this web are marginalised groups of women and girls- racial, ethnic minorities, queer individuals and people with disabilities who now face a double risk of online violence. 

The end of fact checking is now a double sword to women’s safety online 

The situation is now complex with the end of fact checking ushering in what Big Tech platforms are calling – ‘a free speech era’. Championed by the Trump’s administration commitment to bring back free speech- while seemingly curtailing freedom of expression- fact checking has now been left as a responsibility for users. This model adopted by platforms like Meta, introduces ‘Community Notes’- relying on users to label posts as false or misleading. 

This new risk- also described as ‘citizen journalism’ by Elon Musk has been criticised as a new threat to democracy further endangering women’s rights and exposing them to new forms of bullying and hate. From Tik Tok to Facebook, Instagram and X- we’ve seen how radical groups are finding innovative ways to organise online, create harmful content and distribute them across platforms.  

The repercussions extend far and beyond digital harassment, impacting women’s well-being, mental health and safety while creating a dangerous continuum to femicide. In Kenya for example, the femicide crisis has also been directly linked to intimate partner violence and technologically assisted violence through dating apps.  

The accountability gap keeps growing 

As various sector players around the world rush to build accountable AI systems with the need for robust investments in governance and regulation, how do we enforce women’s safety online amidst these glaring realities? 

Big Tech companies have made substantial investments in women’s safety initiatives and policies but is this enough? With the current fact checking realities and the rush to garner profits from the AI explosion- profitability is being prioritised at the expense of women’s safety. We cannot continue to enable platforms that are systemically reducing women’s experience online to pervasive violence. 

The progressive way forward 

As advocates and defenders of human rights- feminist movements and women’s rights organisations have a critical role in holding Big Tech companies accountable. Through feminist-backed research, we must continuously provide data and evidence that policy makers can use to inform laws and policies whilst also innovating with platforms on survivor-based interventions that centre local solutions. 

Inclusive design must be integral to app and platform development. What safety approaches are embedded from the design phase, particularly catering for the needs of marginalised groups? 

Language as a tool of awareness creation is becoming incredibly important. It has been long argued that language used to define violence against women and girls is patriarchal- increasingly minimising acts of violence with weak laws failing to bring perpetrators to account. For example, there’s no current law that criminalises catfishing or address it as a standalone crime. 

Machine learning has an integral role in women’s online safety especially in detecting abusive language, flagging inflammatory content and labelling of non-consensual images. But time and again tech companies continue to underinvest in machine learning particularly in African countries where R&D budgets cover only a fraction of Africa’s 2,000 languages. We need gendered machine models that prioritise women’s safety and foster safe environments free of digital abuse. 

Taking action 

Digital feminism and campaigning for women’s rights and their safety must be a continuous tactic that we leverage on to protect women and girls online. Womankind Worldwide has launched a campaign: #SafeInEverySpace drawing attention to Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) including the global femicide crisis and the urgent need to advance women’s safety online. 

As free speech erodes the values we’ve held dear to pursue just and fair societies, now is the time to reclaim online spaces and ensure the digital divide does not continue to coopt women and girls from enjoying equal rights.