Four major social media companies yesterday pledged to make efforts to improve the safety of women on their platforms. Facebook, Google, TikTok, and T

Facebook, Twitter pledge to fight abuse of women but leave lots of room for failure

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2021-07-02 20:30:02

Four major social media companies yesterday pledged to make efforts to improve the safety of women on their platforms. Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Twitter all signed the pledge in response to the recommendations of a working group of 120 experts organized by the Web Foundation.

“For too long, women have been routinely harassed, attacked, and subsequently silenced in online spaces. This is a huge threat to progress on gender equality,” said Web Foundation Senior Policy Manager Azmina Dhrodia in a statement. Abuse against women online has reached epidemic proportions, with 38 percent of women reporting personal experience with online violence, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report.

“Having said that, looking at the commitments, it’s pretty difficult to know what they’re going to mean or what they’re going to look like,” she said. “They’re very open-ended. A lot depends on how much the platforms are willing to do.”

Indeed, those commitments don’t sound very specific, and users may question how thoroughly the pledges will be implemented—social media companies have made it a habit of asking for forgiveness when their half-efforts have fallen short. The way the pledges are written gives the platforms plenty of leeway.