Normalizing the Unacceptable

Study Exposes Alarming Levels of Tech-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Ethiopia

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) defines Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) as “an act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated, and amplified in part or fully by the use of information and communication technologies or digital media, against a person on the basis of their gender.” While online abuse affects both men and women, the magnitude and extent are different. Women face gendered stereotypes, mockery, and irony more than their male counterparts. Experts explain that TFGBV and day-to-day gender-based violence (GBV) share the commonality of being rooted in power imbalances and societal norms that perpetuate inequality. However, there are distinct differences in their manifestations and impacts. GBV includes physical, economic, and psychological violence happening in personal relationships or public spaces. In contrast, TFGBV involves the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to harass, threaten, or violate the privacy of individuals, typically women and girls. EBR’s Dr. Brook Genene takes a look at how TFGBV is affecting women in their daily lives and hindering their online engagement.

When the famous singer Tigist Hailu, popularly known as Igitu, decided to take a metered taxi for a late dinner appointment, she didn’t suspect that her night would turn out as badly as it did. After arriving at her destination, she thanked the driver and went to meet her friend. When she later had to return home, she decided to call back the driver. “Since he was nice during the first trip, I decided to call him and start the journey without using the app,” she said in a statement posted on X.

Her second trip, though, wasn’t as pleasant as the first one. The driver started making her uncomfortable as he kept asking her to talk more. “I wasn’t happy with the way things were going, so I called my friend and asked her to stay with me on the phone,” she states emotionally in a video she uploaded on YouTube. After a while, the driver stopped the car and tried to rape her. Igitu took the takeaway food that was in her hand and threw it in his face. She then tried to run out of the car. During that struggle, her clothes were torn, and she left all the money she had in the car.

When Igitu bravely decided to share her story on social media, she was met with some shocking replies. There were many comments calling her a liar and mocking her tragic experience, showcasing the ugly side of social media.

According to a recent study on Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) in Ethiopia, conducted by the Center for Information Resilience (CIR), the organization developed a comprehensive lexicon of 2,058 inflammatory keywords to guide the collection of hate speech data across four languages: Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and English.

As of the study, more insults were found on X than other platforms, while Telegram had more threats. Facebook had more instances of hate speech that associated gender with certain personality traits (e.g., greed) or suggested the inferiority of women and girls’ social position or cognitive or physical ability due to their gender. The amount of these types of hate speech was found to be 31.7% on Facebook, which is more than both Telegram (28.3%) and X (25.3%).

Telegram had more threats (15.6%) compared to Facebook (13.5%) and X (10.0%). This could be due to the closed nature of Telegram, compared to Facebook and X, making it harder for content moderation.

“With internet access rising across Ethiopia, now is the time to make online spaces safe for women and girls,” states Adyam Solomon, researcher and project coordinator at CIR. She adds, “Technology-facilitated gender-based violence is so widespread in Ethiopia that it has become normalized. Online abuse can leave Ethiopian women feeling silenced, and even lead to their withdrawal from online and offline public spaces altogether.”

Combatting technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is an essential part of better protecting women and girls online and empowering their safe and meaningful participation in all forms of public life. The types of gender-based violence faced online include hate speech, revenge pornography, doxing, and harassment.

Doxing is when a person’s personal details and travel habits are released online. This results in significant risk to the individual and their families. These threats usually target those who are active on social media, which includes journalists, activists, and feminists.

In an interview with CFR, a TikTok influencer said, “They just tell you that if they see you on the streets, they would beat you. Or I have had someone telling me that they will throw acid on my face. I have had someone telling me that they would rape me, specifically they said, ‘We’ll gang rape you. Me and my friends hate you, but you’re still pretty, so we would rape you.’”

One journalist reported regularly receiving threats of arrest, and comments that supported her detention. She was told, “Good luck finding a place to hide, you’ll be thrown into prison, and you’ll talk about this once you receive a beating.”

Women also report receiving threats from their ex-partners or someone who claims to be a love interest. The threats come via direct messages on social media, saying they will release private pictures or publicize the texts they have exchanged.

In order to escape abuse and threats, women are starting to use new social media platforms like Mastodon. People in the study have indicated that Mastodon seems like a safer platform for communication and better than platforms like X, which “have become unbearable.”

“Social media platforms need to take technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) seriously – Amnesty International’s Toxic Twitter research is a good example. Many of the women interviewed described changing their behavior on the platform due to Twitter’s failure to provide adequate remedy when they experienced TFGBV, and even after the research, they remain not giving due attention,” explains Selamawit Tezera Chaka, feminist researcher and digital security trainer.

“As personal and public lives are increasingly lived on the internet and social media, a new frontier in the fight against gender-based violence has emerged. While the internet can provide spaces for awareness raising, community building, and political mobilisation, it can also facilitate gender-based violence and discrimination” says Nuhu Ibrahim, CIR, Natural Language Processing Researcher.

“Many people think that online harm remains online, and thus, it is less significant than offline harm. But this is not the case. Online harms affect people in their day-to-day lives, as do other forms of gender-based violence,” says Felicity CM Mulford, lead editor and research manager at CIR. She further adds, “When women sought help or tried to speak up, they were told it was just isolated incidents, or that they were being sensitive. It became clear to us that there was a misunderstanding about technology-facilitated gender-based violence in the general public.”

The online abuse has made some women unable to move around the city they reside in or go out of town. In the research, a journalist stated that she wears a face mask and eyeglasses while walking through the streets so as not to be recognized.

The abuses are not only limited to people active on social media platforms. They also affect their family members. Family pictures that are posted on personal accounts can be used to attack the person. This has led many women to delete their social media accounts, like Facebook, and to take down family pictures.

Felicity states that the research showed hate speech that targeted women and girls, alongside another protected characteristic (e.g., ethnicity, religion, race). “We found that political events impacted the topics of discussion online and the rhetoric used. Oromo and Amhara women received abuse within our dataset that was often related to the ongoing conflicts or political events. This suggests that during periods of political upheaval or conflict, resources should be directed towards protecting women in the affected locations,” she states.

In order to combat technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), many solutions have been proposed. One is to communicate with social media platforms so that people engaged in abuse can be stopped. Another is to improve social media reporting tools, platform policies, and raise public awareness. The use of AI to identify hate language has also been proposed, as this will facilitate identification of hate speech in minority languages. The third is increasing pressure on social media platforms to remove accounts that continuously violate the rules.

Social media platforms have also been urged to hire more content moderators who speak local languages. In addition to that, the importance of ending the anonymization of social media accounts has been mentioned. This is hoped to prevent barriers to identification and accountability of online abusers.

Selam says a holistic approach involving legal, technological, educational, and community-based interventions is essential to protect women online and create safer digital spaces. “Promoting educational campaigns to raise awareness and counter technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and enhance media literacy, which include educating women about digital safety, is important,” she tells EBR.

Despite the numerous negative comments Igitu received on social media, there were many people who praised her for sharing her story. On her appearance on Seifu Show, she stated that she was told she has immense courage for addressing this issue publicly. Her statement has led many people to come out and share their experiences and problems they have faced. In order to ensure the rights of girls and women are protected and also empower their safe and meaningful participation in all forms of public life, combatting Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence is important.EBR

12th Year • July 2024 • No. 131