The UK's soon-to-be social media harms watchdog, Ofcom, has warned tech platforms that they are failing to take women's safety seriously.
According to new research published by Ofcom, female internet users in the UK are less confident about their online safety than men, as well as being more affected by discrimination and hate speech.
The study found that women feel less able to have a voice and share their opinions on the web than men, and that's despite another finding from the study.
Women spend more than a quarter of their waking hours online, while men spend less.
The Online Nation report was published by Ofcom.
Tech companies are urged to listen to the findings and take action to make their platforms more welcoming and safe for women and girls.
Under the Online Safety Bill that is currently before parliament, platforms will be required to protect users from a range of risks. It can be seen as a warning shot across the bows of social media giants like Facebook and Meta, which will face close operational scrutiny from the regulator once the law is passed and comes into effect next year.
Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's CEO, said in a statement:
“The message from women who go online is loud and clear. They are less confident about their personal online safety, and feel the negative effects of harmful content like trolling more deeply.
“We urge tech companies to take women’s online safety concerns seriously and place people’s safety at the heart of their services. That includes listening to feedback from users when they design their services and the algorithms that serve up content.”
According to the research, women feel less positive about being online than men.
Negative online experiences can have a greater impact on women's mental health, especially for younger women and black women, with Ofcom finding that women aged 18-34 were more likely than any other group to disagree with the statement. More than a quarter of Black women disagreed with the statement, which was higher than white women and Asian women.
They need to talk to women on their services, and we think the social media companies need to take more action.
When asked about the new role Ofcom will be taking on regulating social media giants under the Online Safety Bill, she welcomed the legislation and said it will be paying close attention to social media giants.
There is a lot that the social media companies can do. Too often companies place their growth and revenues above public safety, and we think they need to look at what goes viral. She said that some of the worst harms are caused by things that go viral and are shared with hundreds of thousands of people.
The women in the tech and engineering teams are the people who are actually developing new services.
Ofcom will be directing the lion's share of effort and resource towards the big social media apps, which she noted is where the research shows online Brits are spending most of their time.
The legislation that is going through parliament shows that the obligations are highest on the biggest and most high reach services.
She argued that the regulation will help smaller businesses and new entrants by making it harder for them to compete against better resourced tech giants who can throw more money at compliance.
As soon as the bill is live next year, Ofcom will be going in and asking for information from the social media companies.
She was asked how the regulator will negotiate the issue of content that is legal but offensive to some web users. The UK's approach with the Online Safety Bill proposes to regulate how platforms respond to illegal speech but ministers want it to go much further and tackle a far wider array of potentially problematic but not technically illegal speech.
The Ofcom CEO said she expects there will be a lot of debate over the detail as the legislation goes through parliament.
She pointed out that women have a more negative online experience than men and are more likely to suffer online abuse.
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