A nascent threat in the digital space: Violence against women seems to know no bounds

The digital space, the virtual world of socialisation and communication, is increasingly playing a central mediating role in all aspects of our life—social, political, and even economic. 

Digital space allows anyone with internet access to talk and share audiovisual content about anything and everything without fact-checking, validation, or word limits. "Sensational" content, irrespective of credibility, can spread like wildfire in this space.

However, because of its ubiquity, it has also become an essential medium for spreading awareness. The Covid-19 pandemic has also proved the effectiveness of the digital space as education, work, communication, and entertainment all went online. 

By September 2021, 128 million Bangladeshis were using the internet, up from 101.2 million in April 2020, an addition of 26.8 million since the first Covid-19 lockdown, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). 

Social activists, media personalities, and content creators have also increased their use of social media platforms to talk about human rights, gender justice, and other critical social issues. Platforms like Facebook became an integral part of mass mobilisation and protests as most activism shifted online.

While online activism for gender justice is growing, violence against women in the digital space is also increasing with its expanding use.

Hate speech, obscenities, and derogatory words against people for seeking their rights or merely expressing their gender identities, publicly attacking someone using explicit words, and even sending life threats publicly or in private messaging — all have become commonplace in digital spaces.

Online violence has become a part of the larger backlash against women's rights by creating fear among advocates for gender justice and women in general, causing them to lose confidence, courage, and interest to speak out or advocate.

Women who are vocal and visible in the digital space, for example, celebrities, content makers, journalists, and activists, have become major targets of online violence. 

These women are regularly harassed for expressing their views online on matters like politics, religion, gender, social norms and values, and discriminatory practices. 

Particularly, when they post content on violence against women, sexual harassment, consent for sexual relationships, women's choice of clothing, and their participation in public life, they face significant backlash online. 

Women and their views are becoming more visible because of the expansion of digital space; their visibility is provoking the manifestation of intensifying backlash by opposing groups and people in the same space. The backlash has therefore become more "visible" in this newly formed "space".

Online violence is manifested in multiple forms. The most common type involves sexually explicit hate comments, often objectifying women's bodies. 

This leads to name-calling and labelling women as "prostitutes" or "cheap women" coming in front of the camera for views and money. 

Manipulating women's photos to make them sexually explicit and sharing them online, often in the form of memes, is also quite common. 

In a society where women's modesty is still considered almost "sacred", attacking their "character" and presenting them in sexually explicit ways is a highly effective strategy to psychologically crush women. In extreme cases, women are even threatened to be raped and killed.

And more often than not, the negative comments attacking women appear out of the blue, with no relevance to the issue being posted about. 

Illustration: TBS

The attacks come in the form of moral policing. And in extreme cases, threats with literal depictions of sexual acts with the women, often mentioning her specific female body parts. 

When the posts are related to women's rights and equality — in divorce, inheritance, mobility, and choices, for example — or seeking justice for rape, such irrelevant, attacking comments become particularly severe.

Another less explicit but perhaps equally harmful tendency is to question women's credibility. This is specifically evident when they are discussing sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape, etc. 

They are frequently mocked and trivialised with "haha" reactions on Facebook. Post authors are often attacked with comments about their personal life choices. 

For example, if a divorced woman talks about motherhood or childcare, her qualification to talk about these issues is questioned since she may be a single mother who separated the child from the father. 

Another example is when a female social media influencer posted about cyber sexual harassment, comments were made labelling her as "an attention seeker", who is just making content to attract more views and trying to stay "relevant". 

When a series of comments like these are posted, and the opposing force supports each other by liking those comments, the key messages in the original posts eventually lose their relevance and seriousness. 

In this way, messages for a better understanding of women's struggles and the patriarchy are often undermined.

Often, filtering the abusive comments on posts of or about female public figures does not work; the resentful attackers 'report' those posts, after which the posts are taken down. 

The time, effort, and underlying messages of these posts go to waste. Again, the attack is severe for posts demanding women's rights and justice.

Worse yet, online violence is not limited to women who participate online. Frequently, women are denigrated online for what they do or say in real life.

These phenomena indicate that the digital space is shrinking for advocating women's rights.

What is more concerning, the backlash is coming from the broad public, and thus it is hard to pinpoint specific organised groups. 

Many of the perpetrators hide behind fake accounts to maintain anonymity. However, it is not only men who engage in such forms of verbal and written violence; women, too, are actors and accomplices. 

There is a trend of openly posting and commenting on religion-based critiques and moralising, both by women and men, while fake accounts are primarily used to post sexually explicit comments and rape threats.

The digital space has become a new avenue to intensify backlash and violence against women. Though online violence most often does not lead to physical harm, it is gradually becoming far more widespread and intense. 

The perpetrators are everywhere; they can organise themselves without effort and commit the violence with impunity, making it a lethal weapon for silencing women's voices. 

And the consequences of digital violence are manifold. It inflicts immense psychological trauma, often demotivating women to continue their presence in cyberspace. 

It also violates the freedom of speech of women who are vocal in the digital space. It also intimidates women who want to enter the digital space and advocate for women's rights issues.

In short, this emerging form of online backlash is not only closing the digital space for women but also shrinking the civic space for promoting gender justice. This calls for acknowledging the severity of this violence and its impact on women's and girls' lives. 

Therefore, online violence against women needs to be understood and addressed under a relevant legal framework. The state needs to prevent and mitigate online risks and promote a safe digital space for women which will ensure freedom of speech while respecting the rights of various actors and users of the digital spaces.

Pragyna Mahpara, Senior Research Associate; Iffat Jahan Antara and Nuha Annoor Pabony, Research Associates at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD).

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.