On Thursday, TikTok and Google made a commitment to combat online abuse and improve safety for women using their platforms at the UN Generation Equality Forum. This pledge was made following consultations with World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF), which were held over the past year and aimed to examine online gender-based violence.According to the WWF, women want more control over their social media posts, including who can reply or comment, as well as more freedom about what they see online and where.The WWWF reports that the companies have committed to creating better ways for women online to manage their safety. This includes offering more specific settings such as who can view, comment or share posts, simpler language, easier navigation, safety tools and reducing women's burden by actively reducing abuse.It is frustrating how the last sentence is written. It addresses the aftermath of the abuse or the place where it occurred, but not the perpetrators. The abuse is not going away just because women don't see it on social media. While the platforms have a responsibility to make their online spaces safer and more proactive, they will not be able to pursue the abusers until they do so. Women and marginalized groups will continue to have to report abuse to social media platforms and convince them that it is worth their while to address.The platforms will improve their reporting systems in order to fulfill the pledge.The pledge includes a better curation checklist and the promise that companies will make improvements to their reporting systems. Users will be able to track and manage their reports and provide additional support for women who report abuse. They will also allow users to better understand context and/or language. This may enable subtle verbal abuses or threats to be included in enforcement measures.Although these are all great goals, the WWF release didn't give any details about how each platform will achieve them. We reached out to each company for comments. Vijaya Gadde (head of legal, trust & safety at Twitter), stated in an email that it is its top priority to keep everyone using Twitter safe and free of abuse.We have made some recent progress in giving people more control over their safety. However, we are aware that there is much to do, Gadde wrote. Gadde noted that abuse is disproportionately affecting women and underrepresented groups, which is well-known at this point. Gadde stated that abusive behavior is not allowed on our service. It is harmful to those targeted and it can also harm the health of the conversation. Twitter's role in the exchange and expression of ideas, where everyone can hear their opinions and perspectives, is also negatively affected.Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head for safety, stated in an email that she was excited to work with other tech companies to make internet safer. Davis stated in the statement that we regularly update our policies and tools in consultation with experts all over the globe to keep women safe from harassment, abuse, exploitation and exploitation online and offline.Tara Wadhwa (director of policy at TikTok USA) wrote a blog post that outlined the company's plans. Wadhwa stated that we will be testing a variety of product changes on TikTok's platform over the next few months to address these priorities and make TikTok safer for women.Google did not immediately respond to a Thursday request for comment.There doesn't seem to be any binding agreement between companies and these promises, other than the possibility of public shame if they don't deliver. Unfortunately, this is the best way for social media platforms to address users' problems.
