Help-seeking behaviours of those experiencing technology-facilitated GBV in Asia: implications for policy and programming

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (GBV) has become an increasing issue in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic which prompted a significant rise in online activity. In addition to amplifying traditional forms of abusive behaviours such as stalking, bullying and sexual harassment, information and communication technologies have facilitated new manifestations of violence such as image-based abuse, doxing, gendertrolling, impersonation and hacking, among others. Women, children, sexual, religious and ethnic minorities, and other vulnerable groups are particularly vulnerable to elevated risks of experiencing violence. Based on findings from a scoping review, this article discusses how certain key stakeholders - identified as technology companies, government and legal systems, and social support systems - are used in the help-seeking process by those who have experienced technology-facilitated GBV. We seek to highlight particular nuances which key actors must consider when addressing technology-facilitated GBV and summarise gaps and propose recommendations to inform policy and programming efforts in low-and middle-income countries across Asia.

"You're not my nanny!” Responses to racialized women leaders during COVID-19

In the early days of the pandemic, public health officials and politicians across the globe relied on Twitter to rapidly communicate COVID-19 information. Although the majority of these authority figures continue to be privileged white men, the number of women and racialized leaders is increasing. We analyze how users responded to public health tweets by Canada's top public health official Dr. Theresa Tam and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. Examining responses to these two racialized women through a critical discourse analysis, we uncover a pattern of users mobilizing gendered and racialized discourses to undermine the message, sow public distrust, and challenge the authority of Tam and Lujan Grisham. This paper documents hostility in the digital public square that, we argue, constitutes intersectional harassing backlash which could have implications for the efficacy of public health messaging on and offline.

A Scoping Review of Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Across Asia.

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (GBV) is a pervasive issue. Yet, most research focuses on high-income countries and few studies comprehensively summarize its prevalence, manifestations, and implications in the Global South. This scoping review sought to examine technology-facilitated GBV in low- and middle-income countries across Asia, specifically focusing on trends, common behaviors, and characteristics of perpetrators and survivors. A comprehensive search of peer-reviewed and gray literature published between 2006 and 2021 yielded 2,042 documents, of which 97 articles were included in the review. Across South and Southeast Asia, findings indicate that technology-facilitated GBV is a widespread phenomenon, with increased incidence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology-facilitated GBV comprises various forms of behaviors and prevalence varies by type of violence. Women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities, especially those with other intersecting marginalized identities, are often more vulnerable to experiencing online violence. Alongside these findings, the review revealed gaps in the literature including a lack of evidence from Central Asia and the Pacific Islands. There is also limited data on prevalence which we attribute to underreporting, in part due to disjointed, outdated, or nonexistent legal definitions. Findings from the study can be leveraged by key stakeholders such as researchers, practitioners, governments, and technology companies to develop prevention, response, and mitigation efforts.

"The chilling effect": Medical scientists' responses to audience feedback on their media appearances during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many medical scientists became public personas as a result of their media appearances. However, this prominence also made them likely targets of harassment from an increasingly science-skeptic public. Such experiences may lead to scientists cutting back on their public engagement activities, threatening the quality of science communication. This study examines how medical scientists evaluate feedback they received as a result of their media appearances, and how they relate their experiences to general views of the public, as well as their motivations to serve as media experts. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 Austrian medical scientists who served as media experts during the first year of the pandemic, we find substantial amounts of online abuse. Yet, this did not cause our respondents to avoid future media appearances, because their motivations to meet the needs of an unsettled public outweighed the experience of being harassed online.

Protecting expert advice for the public: promoting safety and improved communications

The drivers of the harassment and intimidation of researchers are complex, widespread, and global in their reach and were being studied across many disciplines even before COVID-19. This policy briefing reviews some of the scholarship on this wide-ranging problem but focuses on what can be done to help ensure that Canadians fully benefit from the work of Canada's researchers while also preserving the security and safety of those researchers. It identifies policies and actions that can be implemented in the near term to gather information on the problem, better frame public research communications, and ensure that mechanisms are readily available to support researchers who are threatened. The policy briefing is concerned with researchers, but these behaviours are also harming journalists, politicians, public health communicators, and many others more fully in the public eye than researchers. Some recommendations here may help to address this wider problem.

Technology facilitated sexual violence: a comparative study between working and non-working females in Egypt before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantine measures policies increased Internet usage, leading to technological hazards as technology facilitated sexual violence (TFSV). Aim: The current work aimed to assess TFSV among working and non-working Egyptian females before and during COVID-19. Methods: The current work is a cross-sectional observational comparative study using an anonymous online questionnaire distributed through social platforms among working and non-working Egyptian females. Results: TFSV was reported by 50.3% of the participants; however, regarding some forms of digital sexual violence, there was a significant decrease during COVID-19 lockdown than before it, considering; threatened creation form (7.8%, 12.0%; p = 0.017); non-consensual pornography (31.4%, 51.9%; p < 0.001) and online sexual harassment and cyber-stalking types (80.9%, 89.4%; p < 0.001). Only 17.3% of the study participants knew the identity of the perpetrator. TFSV led 6.4% to abstain from social media, and 3.9% reported the incident to a law agency. Conclusions: The current study revealed that almost half of women experienced TFSV. Although time spent on the Internet by the whole participants during the pandemic was significantly higher than before, there was a significant decrease in some types of TFSV. The current study revealed that divorced females working in non-governmental sectors experienced harassment more significantly than others. There is crucial importance to set laws and penalties against perpetrators of TFSV to provide a safe technological environment for women.