Technology Companies Must Make Platforms Safer for Women in Politics

Theodora Skeadas is the Deputy Director of Strategy for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security. She also consults with NDI on a project addressing online gender-based violence and women’s political participation. Kaleigh Schwalbe is a Program Manager for Information Integrity at the National Democratic Institute (NDI). October, 2020: a woman participating in a demonstration outside City Hall to uplift the voices of women and their rights to vote..Shutterstock The National Democratic Institute (NDI) recently completed an extensive study mapping interventions that technology platforms should take to better protect women online based on recommendations from civil society organizations from around the globe. NDI then convened a series of focus groups with representatives from various technology platforms to discuss the business cases for investing in these interventions to address online violence against women in politics. This is what we learned. Online violence against women undermines democracy Honorable Neema Lugangira, a parliamentarian from Tanzania who is at the forefront of addressing online violence against women in politics, is concerned with how women in politics are expected to tolerate online abuse and are constantly told to have thicker skin – that this is just part of their job. But she doesn’t see her male colleagues getting harassed for how they look, who they took a photo with, or threatened because of their gender. She estimates less than 25% of women in the Tanzanian parliament are active on social media for work, and it is precisely to avoid online harassment and abuse.  Besides the democratic implications of women self-censoring, if technology companies…Technology Companies Must Make Platforms Safer for Women in Politics