Tech firms must do more to protect women and girls

Technology secretary Liz Kendall has warned that major tech companies must take action to protect women and girls from abuse and misogyny online.

At a roundtable attended by the likes of Snapchat, Meta, YouTube and TikTok, Kendall urged platforms to go further and faster in implementing safety measures.

Three months ago, Ofcom set out a list of actions that measures that companies can take to reduce online misogynistic abuse, harassment, stalking and image‑based sexual abuse. These include prompts to reconsider harmful posts, limits on pile‑ons, stronger privacy defaults and hash‑matching for intimate images.

Ofcom is expected to report on which platforms are failing to comply and the government has urged them to do so as soon as possible.

Under the Online Safety Act, intimate image abuse, cyberflashing and choking are priority offences - the seriousness as child abuse or terrorism. Platforms have a legal duty to stop this content before it reaches users.

Following the spread of sexualised images of women and girls on Grok, the government fast-tracked legislation to ban the creation of non‑consensual intimate deepfakes. Earlier this month, an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill created a new offence criminalising so‑called “nudification apps”.

Tech firms must remove intimate images shared without consent within 48 hours of them being flagged.

Tech Secretary Liz Kendall said: "Every woman and girl deserves to be safe online and we will stop at nothing to ensure the digital world is working for them, not against them.

"This government has taken tough action to tackle intimate image abuse, deepfakes and the online harms women and girls face every day.

"Now, tech companies must go above and beyond to use the tools readily available to them to make their platforms safer. If they don’t, these companies are not innocent bystanders – they are enabling abuse to thrive.

"That is why we are asking Ofcom to report swiftly on how companies are complying, because better safety and better accountability go hand in hand."