With International Women’s Day approaching on March 8, we have an opportunity to examine the unique threats that women navigate just to participate online. Despite other societal advancements in achieving gender parity, recent studies indicate that online abuse remains pervasive towards women, and is becoming more sophisticated as technology advances.
International Women’s Day is a call to action for all of us to reflect on how we can accelerate positive change when it comes to issues that disproportionately affect women. If millions of women are harmed in ways facilitated by technology, then understanding these threats - and their root causes - is a necessary first step to protecting women's ability to have an active presence and voice on the internet, without fear of harm.
In an effort to shine a light on this topic, a recent Incogni and National Organization for Women (NOW) survey found that one in four American women have experienced technologically enabled harassment. Researchers polled a representative sample of adult female US residents to identify common online abuse patterns across age, ethnicity, and location. The study explored how women perceive the link between readily available personal data and the increased likelihood of online harassment.
While the results of this study did not directly compare the rates of online abuse experienced by men, the types of harassment surveyed suggest that many of the relevant mechanisms can be reasonably assumed to disproportionately affect women.
Cyberbullying (10% of respondents) and sexual harassment (9%) were the most common forms of online harassment reported by women. The key findings in this study also signaled significant numbers of trolling (8% of respondents reported being trolled based on their gender), hate speech (7%), cyberstalking (6%), and online impersonation (6%).
Sexually-motivated abuse (i.e. exposing personal details or intimate photos or videos without consent) and gender-based abuse were reported as well: harassment in gaming (4%) revenge porn (3%), doxxing (2%), and AI deepfakes (2% of respondents said they had been victimized by this relatively new technology).
A subset of respondents reported real-world, physical threats (4%) and, in rare cases, swatting (1%)—the practice of making phony calls to authorities in an attempt to dispatch police officers to a particular address.
While one in four women reported experiencing digital abuse, some groups are at greater risk. The study found that ethnicity, age, and geographic location play a significant role in the prevalence and severity of abuse:
- Women aged 18–34 reported the highest rates of online abuse.
- Women from ethnic minorities, particularly mixed, Latina or Hispanic, and African American women, experienced the highest rates of online abuse overall, as well as within the greatest number categories of online harassment.
- Women in the West South Central states—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas—collectively reported online harassment at the highest rates compared to other regions.
“Aside from the many benefits that come from technological advancements, women face new challenges online, including cyberbullying, doxxing, and the latest form of online abuse: AI deepfakes. According to our survey results, one in four American women report having experienced online abuse and half of them claim this abuse stemmed from their personal data being available online. This represents yet more evidence that sensitive information might be used as a tool to locate and target potential victims”–underlines Emilia Jasinska-Dias, Communication Manager at Incogni.
A lack of enforceable data privacy laws leads to fears of online abuse
The study highlighted the lack of federal-level protections, which leaves women to fend for themselves when facing technologically enabled abuse.
There is a lack of enforceable federal data privacy laws, leaving people’s personal information—such as their home address, phone number, and workplace—exposed, without any legal consequences for its misuse. While some states have enacted their own laws, inconsistent enforcement allows data brokers and people search sites to freely distribute sensitive data online.
There’s an absence of a federal anti-doxxing law, and vague and often limited state laws place most of the responsibility on victims to protect themselves. Even where doxxing is illegal, proving malicious intent in court is often required, leaving many victims without recourse, as they have little information on their abusers.
AI deepfakes are rarely addressed by the legal system. The legal status of AI deepfakes remains unclear, as current laws fail to even identify this new threat—much less address it at a criminal level. Despite some state-level progress on anti-deepfake pornography laws, US federal legislations have no clear protections against digital impersonation.
“This survey confirms how online abuse tangibly harms women—emotionally, mentally, and financially. The disproportionate threat posed by women of color and younger generations is a particular cause for concern. These results further demonstrate the need for immediate legislative action on all levels to protect women and hold perpetrators of all forms of online abuse accountable,” said Christian F. Nunes, President of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
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