By Janine Erasmus
August in South Africa is commemorated as Women’s Month, with 9 August designated as Women’s Day. I say ‘commemorated’ and ‘designated’ because the ongoing plight of millions of women here and across the globe is hardly one to be celebrated.
Women, girls, and persons of various gender identities in every country are no strangers to sexism, misogyny, humiliation, and abuse – we use the noun “women” much of the time in this article, but we implicitly encompass other sexual and gender identity types because this discussion applies equally to them.
In South Africa the levels of abuse are notoriously high, and they do not stop during Women’s Month. “No month dedicated to celebrating them can be taken seriously while this is the reality for women in South Africa,” said Human Rights Watch.
The celebration of the day and the month “does not add tangible value to the women of today,” agreed Dr Zamokuhle Mbandlwa, a senior lecturer at the Durban University of Technology, in a 2022 research paper titled Women’s day, women’s month for who?.
This situation is already grim – but technology has made it so much easier for perpetrators targeting females and gender-variable individuals to carry on with their wrongdoing and get away with it, because the phenomenon has not been intensively unpacked so that effective measures can be developed to fight it.
“The intersection of gender, democracy, disinformation, and information technology remains understudied,” wrote Lucina Di Meco, a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center, a research institute in Washington D.C. Her specialty area is women’s leadership and gender equality.
In an article written for the Council for Foreign Relations, she discussed the prevalence of abuse against women through social media channels. Di Meco quotes Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former deputy president of South Africa and former ED of UN Women, who said: “When women suffer this violence online, the aim is no different than offline – to control, assert power over, silence, and keep women out of the conversation or from participating and benefiting equally from that space. The rapid spread of the Internet means that effective legal and social controls of online anti-social and criminal behaviours continue to be an immense challenge.”
In the age of social media and ‘anywhere, anytime’ mobile access, Mlambo-Ngcuka added, cyber violence can strike at any time, and follow its targets everywhere.
Disinformation targeting women and gender-variable people
One of these forms of abuse is "gendered disinformation". Though the term is defined in various ways and there is no universally accepted definition, it usually refers to manipulated information that weaponises gendered stereotypes for political, economic, or social ends.
Like all forms of disinformation, gendered disinformation seeks to spread false or misleading information with the intent to cause harm to individuals and to society at large, said the Best Practice Forum on Gender and Digital Rights (BPF) in a report on the phenomenon. Such attacks combine three defining characteristics of online disinformation – falsity, malign intent, and coordination – with the added factor of gender issues.
“Gendered disinformation comes in different forms, such as harmful social media posts and graphics, sexual fabrications, and other forms of conspiracy theories, and is used in different situations and at different places.”
We only have to think of the ridiculous claims that former US first lady Michelle Obama was born a man, or the similar nonsense currently spouted about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after her triumphs and eventual gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. They have both had to battle entire disinformation campaigns spread around the world, impugning their gender, race, character, and lifestyle.
Closer to home, journalists such as Ferial Haffajee and Rebecca Davis of Daily Maverick have been targeted to the extent that the International Center for Journalists wrote a report specifically about their distressing experiences, which include threats of sexual violence and attempts to discredit them professionally.
During South Africa’s recent elections, the TikTok, Facebook, and X platforms were used to target GOOD party leader Patricia de Lille, former Women, Youth and People with Disabilities minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and deputy electricity minister Samantha Graham, among many other female politicians. A recently published analysis of the comment sections in posts on these platforms during the election period uncovered a horror show of abusive, violent, and hateful language thrown at the targets. The report also makes numerous recommendations to the government and online platforms and services, as to how these online attacks may be combated.
While women and gender-variable persons in positions of power are frequently targeted, nobody is exempt.
According to a global survey conducted by the Economists Intelligence Unit, the prevalence of online gender-based violence towards internet users, measured on the basis of eight indicators including gendered disinformation, varies from region to region. In Europe it is 74%, it is 76% in North America, 88% in the Asian and Pacific region, 90% in Africa, 91% in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 98% in the Middle East.
Special Rapporteur enters the fray
So grave and prevalent is the problem of gendered disinformation that Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, investigated it and published a report a year ago. The timing, to coincide with South Africa’s Women’s Month in 2023, was opportune.
Khan’s position falls under the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Gendered disinformation is not a new phenomenon, but, fuelled by new technologies and social media, it has gained traction, threatening, intimidating, harming and silencing women and gender nonconforming persons,” Khan wrote. “The digital context not only mirrors the offline misogyny faced by women but also provides the space and tools for controversial, emotive, and sensationalist content to be significantly augmented.”
As mentioned earlier, there is no standard definition for the phenomenon, and this creates an obstacle to addressing it, said Khan. “The absence of an agreed definition and gaps in knowledge underscore the complex, contested, and intrinsically political nature of the problem.”
As with any problem, it is only by defining and understanding gendered disinformation that an effective strategy can be developed.
However, Khan added, in creating these spaces that are safe for everyone, it is important to also uphold the right to freedom of expression and not impose limitations beyond those which are legally permissible. The conundrum here is that freedom of expression is essential for promoting the very transformative changes that are needed for online and offline gender justice to be realised.
The way forward
“The negative consequences [of gendered disinformation] go far beyond the targeted individuals and undermine human rights, gender equality, inclusive democracy, and sustainable development,” said Khan.
When confronted with the psychological, physical, social, and economic harm that gendered disinformation causes, it is clear that a multi-faceted approach is needed to combat it. Khan suggested that states, companies, and civil society have roles and responsibilities here.
First and foremost, states must strengthen gender equality and eliminate gender stereotypes. When setting up measures to restrict gendered disinformation, states must also ensure that these comply with international human rights standards, and ensure that strong data protection laws are in place.
Social media companies must ensure that their business models comply with international human rights standards. They should be guided by those same standards when setting up content moderation measures, and should publish regular reports on action taken against those who spread gendered disinformation.
Employers, academics, and civil society can contribute by introducing appropriate policies, conducting research, and providing policy recommendations in relation to gendered disinformation, online gender-based violence, and misogynistic hate speech.
These comments reflect only a few of the suggestions Khan makes. For more information, refer to her report.
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