Ofcom consults on draft guidance about protecting women and girls online

As part of its implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, Ofcom has published draft guidance for consultation about how tech platforms can protect women and girls online.

Ofcom points out that around 75% of women journalists have suffered online threats and abuse, and that women are five times more likely to be the victim of intimate image abuse.  In addition, nearly 70% of boys aged 11-14 have been exposed to content which promotes misogyny.  

Therefore, there is a need for specific guidance in addition to the Codes and guidance that Ofcom has already published about illegal content and protecting children.  The draft guidance aims to reduce the following harms:

• Online misogyny – content that actively encourages or cements misogynistic ideas or behaviours, including by normalising sexual violence.
• Pile-ons and online harassment – when a woman or groups of women are targeted with abuse and threats of violence. Women in public life, including journalists and politicians, are often affected.
• Online domestic abuse – the use of technology for coercive and controlling behaviour in an intimate relationship.
• Intimate image abuse – the non-consensual sharing of intimate images – including those created with AI; as well as cyberflashing – sending explicit images to someone without their consent.  

The guidance focuses on three areas where tech companies can protect women and girls: taking responsibility, designing their services to prevent harm and supporting their users. 

Under those three headings, Ofcom has proposed nine areas of improved industry practice:

• 'Abusability' testing to identify how a service or feature could be exploited by a malicious user; 
• Technology to prevent intimate image abuse, such as identifying and removing non-consensual images based on databases; 
• User prompts asking people to reconsider before posting harmful material – including detected misogyny, nudity or content depicting illegal gendered abuse and violence; 
• Easier account controls, such as bundling default settings to make it easier for women experiencing pile-ons to protect their accounts;
• Visibility settings, allowing users to delete or change the visibility of their content, including material they uploaded in the past; 
• Strengthening account security, for example, using more authentication steps, making it harder for perpetrators to monitor accounts without the owner's consent; 
• Removing geolocation by default, as this information leaking can lead to serious harms, stalking or threats to life;
• Training moderation teams to deal with online domestic abuse;  
• Reporting tools that are accessible and support users who experience harm; 
• User surveys to better understand people's preferences and experiences of risk, and how best to support them; and 
• More transparency, including publishing information about the prevalence of different forms of harms, user reporting and outcomes.

The consultation ends on 23 May 2025.