Whenever Rachel Watkyn\u2019s job as a business leader thrusts her into the spotlight, she braces herself for a section of the response online: relentless comments about her appearance, misogynistic slurs, threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout doubt it\u2019s getting worse and worse and worse,\u201d says the founder and managing director of Tiny Box Company, the UK\u2019s largest online gift packaging company. \u201cIf you are in the public eye, you are public bait, you are owned by them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a high-profile businesswoman, Watkyn is navigating social media at a time when gender-based harassment online, particularly that targeting female leaders, is on the rise because of a confluence of cultural and technological shifts.<\/p>\n
Data shows that online harassment is increasing across the board for internet users: research from the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based research and advocacy group, found<\/a> that 22 per cent of Americans experienced severe harassment on social media in 2024, up from 18 per cent in 2023.<\/p>\n Women, however, are disproportionately affected. According to a 2024 UN report<\/a>, misinformation and defamation are the most prevalent forms of online violence against women, with 67 per cent of women and girls experiencing it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt goes right back to the very early days of the internet,\u201d says Lisa Sugiura, associate professor in cyber crime and gender at Portsmouth university in the UK. But she notes the more recent spread of \u201cmanosphere ideologies\u201d promoted by cliques of \u201canti-woke\u201d podcasters and influencers who are often critical of feminism.<\/p>\n The prevalence of this material means some individuals may feel validated or even encouraged to conduct harassment against women online.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnology is reinforcing misogynist norms\u201d, while \u201canti-rights actors are increasingly using online spaces to push back against women\u2019s rights\u201d, says the UN report.\u00a0<\/p>\n On top of this, platforms such as Elon Musk\u2019s X and Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have relaxed their moderation policies around areas including hate speech and misinformation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re allowed to do more harassment now than this time last year \u2014 it started with Twitter [now X] and now other companies have followed suit,\u201d says Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland, who focuses on social media.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, advances in new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence have made it easier for perpetrators to carry out image-based abuse. This might include creating deepfake<\/a> intimate images of a woman to discredit her reputation. A recent Oxford university study found<\/a> that 96 per cent of deepfake models targeted \u201cidentifiable women\u201d, including celebrities and social media users with niche followings.<\/p>\n Women in power, Golbeck says, face a \u201cspecial threat\u201d from male trolls online. At its most insidious, harassment can include bombarding women with horrific posts, including rape or death threats, or hacking leaders\u2019 accounts to find and share intimate images of them. \u201cIt\u2019s all about shaming, humiliating, driving women off those platforms,\u201d says Sugiura.<\/p>\n This can sometimes be accompanied by so-called doxxing \u2014 sharing personal information such as a person\u2019s address \u2014 which raises the threat that the victims could come to physical harm.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all about shaming, humiliating, driving women off those platforms<\/p>\nMore on Women in Business<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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