The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> We all live in a digital world. We all need it to be open and Safe. We All Want to Trust.
>> And to Be Trusted.
>> We all despise control.
>> And desire freedom.
>> We are all united.
>> MODERATOR: Good afternoon, all. I'm Deborah Vassallo. And together with David Wright from the UC Safer Internet Center, and Evangelia Daskalaki from the Greek Safer Internet Center, all part of the Unsafe Network. We would like to welcome you to our workshop called Mind the Gender Gap or Mend the Gender Gap.
Throughout the years, plenty of research and evidence has suggested that women and girls are disproportionately abused online. Also those who witness it online may feel powerless and find difficulty in expressing themselves because of the fear of being attacked. Violence against women and girls online is a human rights violation and a universal issue which requires collaboration between all states in order to ensure a safety digital space for women and girls.
This will be discussed today in our workshop with our panelists, who are both here and also in Katowice and also online. And I would like to start by introducing our first panelist, who is Maria Spyraki, who is the Greek member of the European Parliament since 2014 and the ambassador for safety internet and supports the Greek Safer Internet Center.
Maria, the floor is yours.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Thank you. Thank you very much. And good afternoon to all of you from Brussels. First and foremost, would I like to thank you very much for the invitation to participate in the Internet Governance Forum 2021 as a keynote speaker. Upon the invitation by the Greek Safer Internet Center and the Greek Department of the Foundation for Research and Technology. Once again, I would like to thank the colleagues for this invite.
It's a great honor for me. Unfortunately, due to parliamentary obligation here in Brussels, I am able to physically attend your meeting in Katowice. But I welcome the contact of proceedings of the action mind, the gender gap or mend the gender gap. It is a remarkable initiative that addresses the issues of gender imbalance online and cyber violence.
To start with, I would like to point out that the obstacles for women in the digit world and of course in general necessities creating a level playing field with men. There is still a lot to be done in terms of education, first of all of young girls and ensuring girls are not discouraged from business and tech and other discriminatory practices.
In learning environment should be enforced through a strategic framework of national and European policies. The commissioner, the European Commission student women in the digital age confirms the existing threat that only 24 out of every 1,000 female graduates having an ICT related subject of which only six go on to work in the digital sector.
Girls, women are a minority in the digital sector. The finding show also a decrease in this number when compared to 2011, the study also found that if more women were to enter the digital jobs market, it could create an annual 16 billion Euros boost for the European economy. In view of the findings from the study, I would like the strategy to increase women's participation in the digital sector in order to close the loop, focusing on free aspects, challenging digital gender stereotypes, promoting skills and education, advocating for more women in the internet.
The last of the aspect which I think is important, the problem of cyber violence against women is also an alarming issue but we must be effectively dealt with. The increasing search of the internet, the rapid spread of mobile information, the widespread use of social media has led to the merge of cyber violence against women and girls as a growing global problem with potentially significant economic and societal concerns, researched by the World Health Organization shows that one in three, one in three women will have experienced a form of violence in her lifetime. And despite the relatively new and growing phenomenon of internet connectivity, it is estimated that one in 10 women have already experienced a form of cyber violence since the age of 15.
Furthermore, in 2021 study from the European Parliament, indicated that four to 7% of women in the EU in 27 Member States have experienced cyber harassment during the past 12 months. During the period of lockdown and pandemic, while between 1 to 3% have experienced cyber stalking. The rate in the estimates reflect the underlying uncertainty (?) in recent cross country data available on the phenomenon. We need data to have a chapter of the phenomenon and we need also credible data. It appears nevertheless that the younger age groups face the greatest risk, and that the prevalence of the phenomenal (?)
The prevalence of gender-based cyber violence is likely to continue to rise in the coming years, especially among the younger people. Cyber violence has a direct impact. First and foremost in terms of mental health reflected in an increase incidence of depression and (?) started: A number of social and economic impacts can be identified like withdrawal from the public debate, cost incurred from -- for seeking legal and healthcare assistance, labor market impacts in terms of lower presence at work. Risk of job loss or low productivity and (?) due to poor mental health itself.
These generate costs affecting victims as well as society. Some impacts are trackable and they can (?) into economic cost while others are not -- monetized despite being of major relevance. Some of the cost of gender-based cyber violence identified by means in economic assessment. These costs included healthcare costs, legal costs, labor market cost and soffits associated with quality of life. The economic assessment estimates the overall cost of cyber harassment and cyber (?) between 49 to 89 billion Euros. The largest cost (?) was the monetized value of the loss in terms of quality of life, which accounted for more than half of the overall cost. It is about 60% for cyber harassment and about 50% for cyber stalking.
Labor market impacts were also found to be substantial together accounting for approximately 30% of cyber harassment and 35% for cyber stalking. The higher cost for the latter (?) participation as we have already mentioned.
Healthcare costs and legal costs less overall costs were nonetheless substantial. Cyber violence against women's accused in violence online communication, we all know social media, web content, discussion sites, dating websites, common sections gaining (?) et cetera, it can make different forms. It can make hate speech, harassment, online tackling, (?) and hacking, identity theft, (?) which is (?) public and private information on the internet and, of course, cyber bullying during the period (?).
Such behaviors can commit by different types of perpetrators. They may be relatives or friends. Friends of the victim actual or current, intimate partners using digital devices to track and control their victims, the life of their victims, classmates, coworkers or anonymous users or online criminals or hackers.
Perpetrators may have a political or religious agenda, as in the case of group opposing women's rights or political groups targeting women's participation in the public debate, in the public life, maybe in politics or at the university.
They may act alone or as a group, even without consulting each other. To add the final layer of complexity of the environment that we are working upon, the online environment is constantly on the move and new forms of the phenomenon are imagined. The full extent of viral violence against women who only be revealed once the EU and the Member States unite their efforts in producing more comprehensive, holistic and detailed data. According to my opinion, this is the key.
Both the EU and the member states should in particular strive to produce more statistics on the prevalence and forms of cyber violence as well as on the effectiveness of our intervention, I mean an intervention coming from the legal perspective, from the legal framework. European recommendation should address the topic to force the uniformity and comparability of data governed by member states. Identified wide range of gaps in the existing key actions and legislation. And the negative impact on women and girls individually, socially and economically on account of gender based cyber violence. I strongly believe that we need to act and intervene at the EU level. The lack of harmonizing legal definitions, the lack of awareness raising which is very important and I think that we have to start from scope.
The underreporting, the need for more access and data and the parliament needs to address in order to achieve a greater momentum by the EU are very important. Bearing in mind that this is also a cross border issue. It's not an issue which is affecting regions of member states. It is a cross border issue. By the end of the day it is an EU issue we have to tackle.
International levels, several member states have passed legislation specifically target cyber violence against women in particular of con (?) and sexual harassment online. For instance I would like to give you some examples. France, Germany, Malta Island, Italy and Slovenia have made the act of sharing image without concept illegal and (?). France broadened the scope the definition of online harassment to (?) coordinating online harassment (?)
Nevertheless there are still a lot to be done in order to the member states to ensure that their laws are appropriate for the digital (?) and to reflect the use of technology nor abuse crimes and exploitation of women. Of course, apart from national good practices, it is of utmost importance to proceed regulated this issue at European level. The European --ing containing definition of the different types of violence including the definition of cyber violence which is very important to have. Revision of the victims rights directive should be considered to account for the specific nature of gender-based violence and to include specific provisions on the protection and support to victims of gender-based violence online.
Furthermore online trafficking in women in girls should be mainstreamed in the under trafficking directive. What is more recommended by the European advisory committee on equal opportunities for women and men in the opinion on competing online violence against women that brought legal parliament April of 2020, is that the European Commission is to promote cooperation between member states in the (?) areas and NGOs working on the issue such as peer learning events and public conference which is the raising awareness aspect which is according to my opinion of Paramount process. It is also more important to invite the member states to develop, harmonize and regularly update directory of support services help lines and report mechanism of valuable and individual cases of cyber violence against women's.
These should be available on a singular platform which should also contain information on the support available for other forms of violence against womens. We user friendly and accessible as possible could be this kind of platform will facilitate the victims.
In this regard I would like to inform you and I would like to underline that we will vote next year -- next week in (?), we will have a plan (?) on report on compatible gender based violence in cyber space. So your meeting is very timely in this regard. And with this report, we call on the group and commission to segment its upcoming legislative proposal on gender-based violence by expanding it to cover gender-based crimes committed online, all with the help of digital tools, and by support to victims and promoting more access on the topic.
Reaching to conclusion I would like to remind us this times are changing. Access to the internet is fast becoming necessity for economic well-being. It is increasingly viewed as a fundamental human right. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure this digital public space is safe and the empowerment place for anyone, including women and girls.
As the world experienced a shift towards digital we must not allow perpetrators of violence against women and girls to get away by moving the action line. There is no real dilemma here. The choice is obvious. We must proceed with regulating the issue at the EU level. We must also meet the gender gap. Thank you very much for your attention. And once again, thank you very much for the invite.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you for your intervention. I would like to see if there are any questions from the guests that we have here. Because she won't be with us for all the session. So due to parliamentary commitments. Yes.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Sorry, the quality of sound is --
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: We will get the mic. I'm sorry.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much, indeed, for doing intervention. I would like to ask you. You mentioned something about the platform which is going to be created in order to help tackle violence, gender-based violence. This is something that is going to be discussed next week or in the near future? Thank you very much.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Thank you. This kind of platform will be established after the procedures of the directive in regulation we are working upon. But that's not the case for next week. Next week we vote as I have already mentioned, on the -- allow me to say report concerning the cyber violence as a kind of crime. And this is the very first step.
Just let me explain that maybe sometimes the legislative tools are in a kind of delay, comparing with the illegal action that is taking place in the internet. And we have to take into account and I would like kindly to ask you to support us in order to speed up with our legislative proposals and also to put some pressure to the commission and to the member states to proceed with the legal -- the proper legal instruments and to proceed also with implementation of the ideas, what we need to tackle this phenomenon.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you. Another question?
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. Thank you. Was good to hear your address, honorable member of parliament. We have learned -- my name is (?). I'm from (?). We have learned from the EU and your work already with ensuring the GRPD gets in place and now you are already on these and getting all your member nations to be -- you know, to make sure that the protection of women online becomes part of the commission's work.
I mean, just how do you do it? What strategies do you have that, you know, for instance, for the African commission could follow and make sure that they fasten the process just like you did. (?) government or government officials to immediately take the message home, but just really want to know your strategies and how you make sure that all your countries, member connects, enact everything so quickly. Thank you.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Allow me to say it is very important to lead by example and the European Union is leading by example in this regard. Trying to create a proactive legislative framework. It's not easy, as we all agree upon this. And it is not so easy to export that kind of legal tools in order to facilitate other countries that are not members of the group.
But give you some examples. We are trying to proceed with gender evaluated in the digital era by supporting and empowering young girls and women to take part in the digital era and to take their seat in the new situation in the new century. In this regard I think one of the main issues that we have to work upon is how could you increase the participation of young girls in digital standards and how can you also increase the participation of young girls as (?) in the digital era.
The second issue we are trying to go ahead is the issue of the additional proposal on the cyber violence. I have already mentioned it. And the third, I think, that is also important, the joint platform that we are trying to -- we are going to establish by the end of the first semester of 2022. It is a platform that it will gather the data coming from different member states. And it is also a platform that will facilitate member states to provide assistance.
Let me explain to you what the keys, and I think it is important for Africa as well. It is the way that we covered the relevant data. We need reliable data. We need data that coming from these member states. And we need a hub, a point, a platform that we can cover the data and work upon this.
So, I think maybe allow me to give a, kind of, very small piece of advice. The first step is starting governing data and starting creating small platforms in terms of regions or in countries in Africa and then try to create something that it will be something in Pan Africa way of proceeding to this effort.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: We have another question.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Yes. Sorry. Deborah, can you hear me?
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Yes. We have a question from the online guests.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Then I will wait because we also have comments and questions online, yes. Is there on site somebody who has a question?
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Yes, yes, yes.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Okay. I will wait.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much for your intervention. My name is Anna Maria Rodriguez, and I work for the Worldwide Web Foundation. We work on online gender-based violence. And my question is, what do you think is the role of the big platform such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram? And how do we make them accountable and join us in the fight against online gender-based violence? Thank you.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Thank you for the question: It is very important to say that in this aspect we are lacking behind, because we are based our recognition in voluntary way of tackling the issue of gender violence when it comes to the platforms. So, we need more support and more engagement. And in a way we need global agreement when it comes to the platform that will provide to us the safety that we need.
So, we are lacking behind in this regard. We are working upon, on this with voluntary -- on a voluntary basis with the platform but it's not the case. I think now we need more.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: So, thank you so much. I would like to place a question or maybe later, because we also have the industry and the panelists. So, it's a great question. But we can wait for the question and it goes like that. What are the tool sets in place to combat gender-based violence online at the global space? I think we have to wait for the other panelists also to give their speak because we have also the industry here with us. And we have so many panelists would like to say some things about that. So I think we can wait for that question and we also have a comment. This session is very timely. I am currently training female journalists and human rights defenders on digital safety and their experiences online are heartbreaking. Most of them do not know what to do. They need for awareness creation especially here in Kenya. And now more than ever were that we are having elections next year.
So, thank you very much for your comment. I think we can hear now the other panelists, too. Thank you, Ms. Spyraki, for being here with us and for all the efforts you put about (?). Thank you.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Thank you very much for the invite once again.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: I think we have one last question from --
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. So my question is, again, related to the role that EU plays, especially in addressing the gender-based violence on the internet. And this is really related on how resources have been allocated. Because even though, for example, EU has been supporting most of women's right organizations, but we have not seen resources being channeled to women's rights organizations when it comes to their access to internet, but also how they build digital literacy and how do they protect themselves.
So we have a train where the resources have been channeled to the perpetuators, to the owner of the system, to the big tech, to the men and not those who, for example, are the most impacted. And because of that, none of us, for example, who are working in women's rights organizations or feminist group doesn't have, not even in the space to discuss, to share and shape how internet should be governed.
So, don't you think that EU particularly should mainstream their resources, especially the age to ensure that the recipients of those resources are also women who can use those resources to fight and to be educated about internet imbalance? Thank you.
>> MARIA SPYRAKI: Allow me to explain that we are working with taxpayers' money and we are having a large responsibility when it comes to the way that we are allocating the resources. In this regard, the NGOs are significant stakeholders in order to tackle gender violence in the environment, in the internet, but (?). The case is that we need transparency. We need coordination and, of course, we need to increase the participation of the NGO in order to increase the digital literacy and in order to proceed with solutions that are tailor-made in any case, different solutions, we think different solutions in African, different solutions in (?). That's all I would like to say because you can understand that the European budget is not something that it is in the hands of the commission or it is something that it is sharing (?) with the parliament. It is the taxpayers' money and we have to be very, very careful about it.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Maria Spyraki for your intervention and for the questions that we have.
And I will go on by introducing our next panelist, who is David Wright. David is the director of the UK Safer Internet Center at Southwest Grid for Learning, which is the national awareness center and also part of the European safe -- in Safe Network. David has worked extensively on online safety for 20 years with children, school and wider agencies. He advises a number of governments, organizations and industry partners on online safety strategy and policy and has recently been appointed as an expert child online protection advisor to the UN ITU. He has presented at conferences nationally and internationally, a member of ACIS, and a safety counselor and has recently invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Coalition of digital safety. He has led pioneering work such as multiaward-winning resources as well as the establishment of the helpline for victims of revenge porn. With the (?) to university published a number of ground-breaking research reports. David, the floor is yours.
>> DAVID WRIGHT: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone here. And also if we can have the slides on, that would be great. Also I think we are joined by a number of people from across the world as well, so good morning, good afternoon or, indeed, good evening from where everyone joins us from.
So, it's amazing to be here as part of what is the in safe network, but my contribution here is particularly to do with the, as you can see here, the Revenge Porn Helpline. So, one of our roles is, as the charity SWGFL -- we are also partner in, as Deborah said in the UK internet center and have been for 10 years and a proud member of Insafe and we are here. You can see behind Evangelia, a small advert around Safe Internet Day which is on February 8th next year. I'm sure we will come back to that.
My contribution quickly here is, as I say, is around our experience over the last six years as operating the Revenge Porn Helpline. Now, the first thing we are going to say here is that the title is a terrible one. It's one that we actually do actively dislike. It is all around we support victims essentially of nonconsensual intimate image abuse. That is a mouthful and we do retain this title because that's how people typically find us and the support that the team offers to victims.
Certainly at those moments of need, there is usually a lot of distress and a lot of emotion. So, having it as frictionless in terms of the ability for victims to find us is a really important one.
Also here, too, we can see StopNCII.org. I'm not going to talk to you much about that. I will mention it towards the end, but it's something that Karuna is going to talk about for matter, I anticipate a little bit later on.
But certainly StopNCII may well answer one of the questions as well that was posed a little earlier on in terms of tools that we, in this particular case, in partnership with Meta, have created to help prevent both uploading of intimate images, as well as the threat to upload intimate images as well. I'm sure Karuna, who is one of the panelists, is going to share, talk a lot about that a little bit later on.
What does the helpline do? And who do we help? Like I say, on the left-hand side there of the screen, you can see who we support. So, we specifically in this case support adults. And it was great to hear from Maria in terms of which countries, for example, have legislation that covers or makes an offense to post someone's intimate images without consent. In the UK that was introduced in 2015 and that's why we saw the genesis of this particular helpline. At the same time the law coming into force, that we were able to support people and to support victims as well.
More recently, in May last year, we also saw the additions in the UK of making an offense to threaten to pose someone's intimate images without consent and that can, in our experience and from those that we support, can be as distressing, indeed, as actually having your images shared online.
More recently as well, sextortion, those who are victims of more organized crime. So very much seen a rise of that and I will come back to that in a moment.
You can see on the right-hand side there, the sorts of instances that we deal with. And we do see the -- that perhaps sharing of images is clearly associated, was often associated with partners or, indeed, former partners. More recently, like I said, extortion has very much come into full aware where people are being victims of perhaps a phishing or being attacks, being victimized online. We have seen as well a degree of domestic -- been involved in domestic abuse situations too. And at the bottom there, the inclusion and the support that we provide to people who are victims of pseudo images of deepfakes as you can see. That is what the helpline has been dealing with over the course of the last six years.
Just wanted to highlight a particular case. This is one that we have very much been working on in partnership with the national crime agency in the UK and it is actually to do with one particular perpetrator who, as you can see on some of these media articles, in actual fact his sentencing is happening right now, this afternoon. He was found guilty earlier, two months ago, and his sentencing is this afternoon. It is as an offender, so the national crime agency in the UK, the UKwide law enforcement agency, it is as an individual, it is the most amount offenses that the national crime agency has ever brought to bear on an individual. And it is to do, in this case, with both nonconsent, intimate image abuse and also child sexual abuse as well.
You can see down at the bottom, so we have been supporting 136 victims that we have found. We suspect there are a lot more. But those specific victims in this particular case that we have been supporting and from this case alone, we have had 123,000 individual images that the individual has shared online that we have had removed. There are clearly, as you can see, there's 9000 that we have not been able to remove for a host of different reasons, typically beyond jurisdiction. That's an enormous amount of images. And there's a lot of pride that we are able to bring closure in at least those 123,000 images. So, a significant case and one that really showcases the power, I think, of what is this particular helpline and support particularly for victims.
I did just want to quickly focus on the impact that COVID had on us. So what these graphs illustrate on the left-hand side there is the number of cases that the helpline has supported. And you can see, so in 2020 we saw about a doubling of caseload that the helpline received. And because we saw a lot of extortion because people were clearly migrating online, we think the situations have very much been aggravated by lockdown or pandemic -- the imposition of lockdown, pandemic lockdown restrictions.
The graph on the right-hand side is just the number of images that we have been able to remove. So, in 2019 we removed about 25,000 images. And then in 2020 we removed 132,000 images. I should add as well, that's not including the 123,000 that we removed in 2021. We saw a fivefold increase last year in the removal rate of specifically nonconsensual intimate image abuse.
And it is a fair thing to say that's in removal of images, have -- by law the content is not illegal. So certainly from a UK law the content is not illegal, it's more the consent or the lack of consent in posting, the offense. So removal of content is very much done in partnership with platforms. And, again, I'm sure Karuna is going to explain that a little bit later on, can contribute a little bit later on. I'm setting Karuna up for lots of things to contribute to, aren't I?
Obviously, the graphs in the middle, these are graphs in terms of data that really articulate why I am sitting here. And it all to do with the massive gender imbalance that the helpline supports. So, 84%, as you can see, 84% of the cases that we deal with have both a male perpetrator and a female victim. And that is evidence alone, I think, to make this particular point and some of the points that Maria made earlier on as well. You can see the graph at the top there in terms of just the gender of those victims that we receive at the helpline as well.
Again, just to make this particular point, this is our tracker in terms of monthly caseload that the helpline deals with. And the yellow box there, you can essentially see is when we saw COVID restrictions. Now, the red line in March 2020 was our predicted caseload looking forward. You can, kind of, see there's a linear growth. You can understand that continual growth. But the blue line is the actual caseload that we received. So, I should report, too, 2021, we surpassed a whole number of 2020 cases in September. So we continue to see very much this rise in caseload and the support of victims as well.
So, it is a huge issue that we are dealing with and the helpline and the team indeed are dealing with as well. And so, that's what I suppose I wanted to really just add into this conversation in terms of whether that's numbers, that's evidence but fundamentally the sorts of issues and also to articulate some of the distress that comes along with this. 4% of all those who we receive calls from within the helpline have had former suicidal ideation. 38% have got some former mental well-being and mental health issues situated with the case and the situation they find themselves in as well.
That's what I wanted to articulate. There are things that victims can do in this particular case as well, not necessarily to make the situation go away, but certainly to ease. And we certainly have a part to play in that role as well. Deborah, thank you very much.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you. Thank you, David, for your intervention.
And we will leave time for the questions after also having the others speakers on our panel. And now I would like to introduce Ms. Karuna Nain. She is the director of the Global Safety Policy (?) based in Menlo Park, California, where she's responsible for working on issues of child online safety and well-being, women's safety and suicide prevention.
In her past eight year at Meta, Karuna developed Meta safety center, landed the global expansion of the company's suicide prevention resources, and the pilot program for victims to proactively report nonconsensually shared intimate images. Karuna serves on the board of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and is on the Family Online Safety Institute's Member Group.
Karuna, the floor is yours.
>> KARUNA NAIN: Thank you so much. And thank you, David, for having me here. First off, I'm really sorry I can't be there in person and I am doing this virtually. I think I would have loved to be there on the ground doing this to get a chance to meet most of you all in person. But, you know, what can we do? Hopefully next year things look different and David will invite me for another panel and we will be there in person meeting and talking, you know, it takes away some of the joy. But, again, thank you for having me.
What I wanted to do is really talk about our approach to keeping women safe on our platforms. I know there have been some questions already coming in via the chat feature, and I know that the MEP also referenced some of the work that tech companies should be doing. So I wanted to just give a quick overview of how we approach this issue as a technology company.
But before I do that, I wanted to highlight, you know, the past couple of years have been unprecedented for us around the world. When COVID was first detected, many countries went into lockdown, and we saw how important technology, mobile phones, internet became in each and every one of our lives to stay connected with things that we care about, to have (?) to be able to work remotely. So the importance of technology and internet has always been there. But it has been even more highlighted in the past couple of years.
You know, be for actually earning your income or be it for having social interaction, the role of technology has been fundamental. The 2021 report released by GSME on the mobile gender gap has really important data we all should need to keep in mind. Women's access to mobile internet continues to increase, which is great. I think around 112 million additional female users getting online in 2020.
However, there's 234 million fewer women than men accessing the internet. The gender gap remains substantial. Women are 7% less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 15% less likely to use mobile internet. This is statistics as of 2020. I would be interested to see when the next report comes out, how the pandemic has really shaped these numbers and whether women tended to get more online during this time or, you know, how did this change go in this past year.
But we all know that, you know, technology has come to a whole new, I think, elevation, a whole new level of importance for all of us in the past couple of years. And there's never been a more urgent time to address the issue. So, I'm really grateful that you are convening this panel to talk about mending the gender gap, not just minding the gender gap.
At Meta we have always had recognition that we are -- we play a fundamental role in making sure that our platforms are safe for women, women feel that they can come here, they can engage, connect with their friends, family, things that they care deeply about.
When we think about keeping women safe on our platform, we tend to take a four-point approach. It starts with building partnerships. Organizations such as the one that David runs on the ground in the UK, people who are on the front lines hearing directly from women on how we could be doing more, how we could strengthen our policies, how can we build products that cater to the needs of women.
Then, you know, based on a lot of that feedback, we develop policies that very clearly state what people can and cannot share on our platforms. So David talked about the work that we have been doing jointly on combating the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images on our platform. When it comes to this issue, for example, our policies state that not only can you not share such content on Meta's platforms, but also threats to share this kind of content would violate our policies.
The third pillar on this work is making sure that we have tools and technology that really, one, empower people, give people the control to really define their experiences on our platform, but also technology that we can run at the back end to proactively get ahead of harmful content so that people aren't impacted negatively by that content beyond, you know, what is absolutely bare minimum. So I will give you an example. Again in the area of nonconsensually shared intimate images we are able to run proactive capabilities to see if someone has shared this content to us on our platforms and proactively send it to our review teams to check what's going on.
And then the third pillar of this is resources. Making sure that we are able to connect people with resources, not just, you know, having our safety centers and our guides that we develop with experts but also within the product itself. So, very recently, for example, we started surfacing an alert to people on messenger when we had data or when we had an indication that some interaction may actually be making them uncomfortable. And we started giving them a reminder at that point that would you like to report this conversation or would you like to block the person who initiated this conversation to give them that kind of resource in line in that moment, rather than expecting them to remember something, which ordinarily people when you are not -- when you are not normally using our platforms, you would not need those tools, not be thinking about these -- this form of safety.
And then last but not least is making sure that we are constantly absorbing feedback from the way that our community uses our services and making sure that we are updating or platforms appropriately.
I want to double down on an initiative that David briefly mentioned, StopNCII.org. This system is something which is really innovative. It's something that we -- hasn't been ever tested out before this. What it really seeks to do is give people control. Even before your intimate images have been shared online, can you proactively reach out to companies and give them a heads up that, look, I have an intimate image on video. I'm worried this may be shared on your platforms. Can you keep a look out for it and if it violates your policies, can you kick into high gear and make sure it doesn't get shared on your platforms.
We built this service all thanks to David and his incredible team. It's been a labor of love. Lots of work that has gone for over two years, I think. If David can keep me honest here. The way it works is it's very victim centric. You come to a website and you get some basic information about what is a nonconsensually shared intimate image. What organizations work in this space. You get resources to help you out. We try and make sure that we reduce some. Burden that you're feeling at that time. Because there's so much shame, guilt, associated with this harm. We try to give you resources to help you manage that.
And then we give you an option to start a case. When you click on the start a case option, we ask you some questions to just make sure that this service actually works for you and will be able to help you out. So, this service is meant for adults, for example. Minors, unfortunately, because the kind of content is illegal imagery need to be redirected to other organizations. So, why people answer those basic qualifier questions, they can actually select the photos and videos directly from their device, the photos and videos never leave their device so it's very privacy by design. It's very safe by design. Only the hashes are shared by with StopNCII.org which is run by David's incredible organization. And then those are shared back with participating companies.
When participating companies receive those hashes and they find matching content on their platforms, they are able to review the matching content to determine if it violates their policies or not and quickly take action on it if it violates their policies.
So, again, really keeping in mind what is the need of victims at that point, making sure that they have privacy by design, security and safety, because none of their information is shared back with StopNCII.org at any point. The only thing that is shared by is hashes. And the goal is to really give them some control and an incredibly hard situation.
They can come back, check the status of their case, has any participating company found matching content which they have been able to successfully block because they had the hash. Again, giving victims control.
We have launched it with Facebook and Instagram but our hope is other participating agencies will join in the days, weeks and months to come. This is one of a great example of a global platform that, you know, people can go to, you don't have to go to each and every tech company one by one when you are in that horrible situation to report content to get help. You can come to this one centralized place to get that kind of support.
I could go on and on. But I think this is just one step and there's so much more work that we have to do here. We are definitely committed to making sure that we can respond to the needs of people around the world. But there is -- there's definite interest and there's definite steps that are being taken in the right direction.
I'm going to stop because I know other panelists have to speak as well and I'm happy to take any questions people may have.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you. Thank you very much, Karuna, for your intervention.
Now will pass on to another panelist who is Juliana Cunha from Brazil. She is a psychologist with a master's degree in culture and society. Juliana has more than a decade experience on tech and human beings, Safernet Brazil. She is Special Projects Director focusing on youth empowerment and online safety, especially women and vulnerable people. She is also responsible for the Brazilian national helpline for online safety, offering one-to-one conversations about privacy, sextortion, cyber bullying, freedom of speech and other human rights-related issues. In this regard she also develops educational material, speeches on campaigns to raise awareness about digital citizenship in Brazil.
Welcome, Juliana, the floor is yours.
>> JULIANA CINHA: Thank you, Deborah. Hi, everyone. I would like to thank you the opportunity to share my work at Safernet Brazil. And I am just share my screen, because I am going to show my presentation. Just to represent Safernet and what you do. Safernet is an NGO that defends human rights on internet for 15 years. And their work as a Safer Internet Center in Brazil and have -- actually create different fronts of online protection. First of all, we are responsible for the Brazilian national cybercrime reporting center, receiving reports of context of human rights on internet. And we do that in partnership, in cooperation with authorities in justice department. And we also run national helpline, web-based helpline that offers one-to-one conversation about human rights violations of extortion, cyber stalking, and other related issues. Especially focused on young people and vulnerable group like women.
And besides that, we also run the countries awareness notes and we are responsible for education activities, such as workshops with educators and young people developing materials and carrying out complaints.
And we are part of three different global networks. The first is Inhope. It's global network of hotlines, more than 40 hotlines around the world. Insafe, that is mentioned. We coordinate different internet in Brazil since 2009. And the Child Helpline International, that is our network of helplines that have more than 100 members in the world.
And we -- I can show you just a piece of educators related to report received by our hotline. So, we received more than 4,002,091,000 reports. And you can see of these related indicators such as which page, what kind of page and what was removed, what were removed.
So, it's important to understand that, of course, we have different types of (?) that can be reported, such as (?) or content involving sexual violence against children or even misogyny and pedophilia. There are other indicators.
I want to show the increase of the reports during the first year of the pandemic in 2020. And you can notice that, for example, that hate speech against women increased 78% in less year. So it's important issue. Of course in the pandemic we note an increase all the kinds of reports, content types reported to Safernet. But it's important to highlight this specifically type of content.
So, as I mentioned, you can find more in this page. And I'd like to present specifically what we do to address violations against women on internet, especially the victims that we supported and we help our helpline.
So, we offer one-to-one conversation through chat or by mail. And the topic is around sextortion, suspicion of online grooming, (?) and other human right related issues, as I mentioned.
And during these 14 years we helped more than 32,000 victims from different parts of the country. And in last year we noticed that the well-being and mental health is the first, in the top five that victims get for help. And we understand that the pandemic, it worked lake a trigger for many people that just suffering with anxiety, depression, in other issues related to well-being.
But if you -- the most reported violations from victims nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, of course it is, you can see that it's increasing. But in 2018, I can highlight that we have a huge campaign, a national awareness campaign. So, of course, you have more people asking us, seeking us for help. But it's a big issue in our helpline. And you can notice that nonconsensual sharing is a violation that affect specifically in mostly proportionality women than men and boys. So, you can see in the graphic. And we know why, because we have a culture that's blaming, especially girls and women, and that have some of prejudice and discrimination against our women or girls that have nudity sharing without content so the impact is worse for girls and women.
And you can see -- oh, sorry. Karuna told, but I think it's important to highlight that during these last years, we noticed a huge advance in technologies, especially technologies that use it to address the situation of violence against childs, child exploitation, but it's used now to detect nonconsensual sharing, even this extortion when you (?) to share similar image. It's important to highlight that technology, it's an important ally to fight against the kind of violence.
And legislation in Brazil, we have some changes and it's important to understand how you can recognize, describe better what kind of -- what type of online environments. So, we have different changes. For example, change just to recognize nonconsensual sharing or other, too, cyber stalking and even misogyny in the last years in Brazil and it's a huge advance. But, of course, you have challenges to address more -- to address the inequality in the impact of technology. And one thing that I wanted to -- of course, there are many recommendations. I list some.
But one thing that I want to address, to highlight is that we have to change the way of change basic violence is perceived by people involved, especially victims, survivors, bystanders. So, we have to establish a known basic approach to respond more appropriately to this problem. And I think that some of the strategies at least that's important to reach this goal, to how to have nonpanic approach, especially because if you think about sexuality, even between teenagers, it's huge and an issue that even schools or family don't have any idea how to talk about, and there is a, kind of, polarization about this kind of debate, especially in education in particular in Brazilian schools.
So we have to develop a new strategy to address the gender-based violence, beyond the criminalization approach. We have to enable (?) technology based on women's rights approach. And strengthening, especially this is very important, strengthening peer support networks. Because some -- in the so majority of cases one victim, one girl ask for help from friend. So how to strengthen the support network for those who are victims of online gender-based violence.
And, of course, the training actors from protection systems to ensure the provision of services that are outlined to gender evaluated principles.
And I think it's my part of discussion is that. So, thank you very much for -- and I'm looking forward to the discussion and all the debate with the audience. Thank you.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you for your intervention.
Now we go to our last panelist, who is the youngest panelist. She is Marina from the youth panel. And she is 17 years and have been a member of the Greek Youth Panel for a number of years, actively supporting the acts of the Greek Internet Center. The creation of videos addressing a variety of issues like cyber bullying and the right to report. And she has participated in the activities of European backed Youth Panel. Marina.
>> MARINA: Thank you so much. As we mentioned, I am Marina. I'm 17 years old and have been an active member of the safer internet Greek Youth Panel for about four years now. First of all, I want to thank everyone for their contribution today, everything was very interesting and important. I want to say that I'm very glad to be given this chance and opportunity to share my thoughts on the matter that we are attaching on today, which is, of course, online violence and more specifically the apparent gender gap that exists.
Today I want to try and share my perspective and experience on that matter as a teenager -- or as a teenager. And more specifically a teenaged girl living in a country that I think is pretty heavily influenced by that gender gap. I live in Greece.
This observation is, of course, derived from also from a research that was performed last year by the Safer Internet Center in my country, that showed that out of the 10 to 18-year-olds, as most of them had already experienced online harassment, and the grand majority of them were, actually, female. There were young girls.
But in order not to stall, I think what, actually, has to be done to cope with this issue is to target straight to the society's core values. What I'm trying to say, that's from my experience. When I am -- when we are trying to talk to people my age, like, 16 to 18-year-olds that have already, kind of, formed and shaped their online identities, it's not impossible, but harder to change their mentality. That's why, I think, that digital literacy and education has to be offered from a very young age, before children are exposed to the online world on their own, and even before they have completely formed their -- both of their online and offline mentality. Because in order to really incorporate these actions to their lifestyle, they should really adopt and assimilate them.
In my opinion, that can only be done if this education is also provided by the school curriculum, as, I think, Mrs. Maria previously mentioned. This is because, I think, from my experience, school is what actually has shaped me and still does. That's why I think that the Safer Internet Centers, they should work together with the Minister of Education in every case and offer this digital literacy both straight to students, but to teachers, to my teachers as well, because I think what's very important, and I want to highlight here, is that this education should not only be offered once or once a year, but it should be something consistent, repetitive and continues. And if teachers are in a place to provide this information to their students by utilizing some material that we can give them, that's the only way this consistency can be achieved.
Of course, this education that we can offer and the digital literacy will be focused on shaping their mentalities and online actions in the future. But it should only be what online harassment needs and how children can recognize it when they experience it or they see someone else experience it, and actually report that. And not underestimate it and give the -- enough attention and the proper appropriate attention that it actually deserves.
Also, another thing that maybe we should touch on is that we should cope with the remnants of the patriarchal perceptions that my society still holds in my country at least because it's something that actually prevents us from mending these gender gap. So thank you so much for your attention. And at this point I want to especially thank David, Karuna, Maria, Juliana, who are fighting for mine and my friends and every girls' in the world online women's better layoff. And thank you so much for that. Thank you.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you, Marina. Now we will go on to see if there are any questions from the online and offline. Yes, there are some.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you for your presentations. On the one hand it's uneasy to hear how much progress we have to make, but, surely, we should mend the gender gap. I agree with that.
I have two questions, maybe first of them is quick. When we are mentioned the gender gap, mending the gender gap between two genders what is the places of nonbinary trends in the field. Transwomen would be attacked because in the eyes of some people they are not womenly enough and even transman can be attacked to preserving some womenly characteristics but those groups residents easily incorporated into women specific. Like modes of protection.
And my second question is perhaps to Meta representative. We were talking about protection against revenge porn. But sometimes the expression of womenhood, let's say on social media, like, Instagram includes an element of nudity. Sometimes art that includes that element and it, actually, I think normalizes women's body and women's sexuality is censored by Instagram, for instance, the whole free the nipple campaign was very noticeable and the result of it is really kind of censoring the artist who want to normalize women's body and make it less of a taboo in society so I'm wondering how we can preserve that balance between self-expression perhaps in explicit ways if that's necessary in art. And to, you know, protection of women.
>> DAVID WRIGHT: I don't know if Karuna wants to take this second question. In response to the first one, I notice certainly I'm approached, I'm sure I'm talking on behalf of all helplines who support the sorts of victims that we support. We do support men as well as women. I think we stand for victims, anyone who has had their images shared or threatened to have their images shared without consent who is a victim in that case, that's who we stand for and we stand by.
It's just the reason we are talking about this here is because of the extreme nature of the data and the -- and in that case the gender that we support. We are driven by the victimization of it rather than necessarily by the gender. But just sharing kind of where we are with the data.
Karuna, I don't know whether you had the second part of the question.
>> KARUNA NAIN: Yeah, absolutely. And to add on to your first response, I think we all know that image abuse is also felt based strongly by the communities which you talked about, by the LGBTQ communities, so there is definitely the tools and the policies that we are creating also apply to them and we are very cognizant of the fact that there are groups may be targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender and we want to make sure we have protections in place to enable them to be able to use platforms such as ours for expression, for connection and our platforms are increasingly important for their safety as well.
On the second question, I think you have raised a really, really important point and this is something that, you know, my team and I think of a lot and it keeps us awake at night. When you are, have a platform like ours which is so global in terms of its reach, terms of its usage, where should a policies lie and how should we be thinking about making sure that we are really responding to the global needs of our community. And the way that we try and really design our policies is make sure that we are in constant consultation with experts. So nudity is an interesting question and if you talk to people from the country where I am from, which is India, a lot of policymakers, regulators, people will turn around and tell me there's so much nudity on your platforms, you need to be cracking down more. You need to take down more content which is sexually explicit or nude or distinct bought it's in line what our expectations from your service.
And then you go to my colleagues in other parts of the world they will be the first ones to say, you guys are prudes. This is self-expression. You are adding to stigmatizing some of these issues by having such stringent policies and taking it down.
So, we have -- our policies are never going to be in a place where I can tell you this is where the policy is, it's never going to change. Our policies continuously evolve in response to the global community and shifting norms and changing conversations. When I joined Meta our nudity policies were stringent. We wouldn't allow pictures of breasts at all. But then over the years in consultation with women's rights groups, experts, advocates, we have, actually, made some (?) we have made some shifts. We don't allow complete nudity because we have minors on our platform and we want to respond to the global needs of our community but we do allow full rights of women's breasts if they are shared in context of a protest, for example, or if they are shared in -- if post surgery you want to share your scars and talk about your recovery or your experiences. Or if you want to share pictures of breastfeeding. We do allow that kind of content now, which we didn't six years back on our platform.
So, what I'm trying to say is, like, I hear you, this is a discussion which we are having continuously, where should the line on some of these really complicated issues be drawn? And this is something we want to have in consultation with experts, people who are around the world, you know, thinking about these issues and we are responding to the needs of our global community.
But thank you for the question. It's something which we are constantly evaluating and making sure we are in the right place on.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions from --
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Valerie from Germany. First of all, thank you for all the panelists important work and research.
To my question which would be directed to Karuna from Meta. Thinking about the age limit for registering to, for example, Instagram, which I think is at 13 years old at the moment, and also about my prespeaker who mentioned, okay, how can we allow more artistic nudity, I was more thinking about how can we protect those minors that are on the platform and that might even be younger because it is difficult to really control at what age they register. How can we protect those minors to get into the mindset of seeing a lot of nudity and maybe uploading difficult images themself and getting into that expectation of, okay, I need to be sexual, which I think especially in Instagram where you see a lot of perfect, beautiful women, men as well, of course. Yes. So, bottom line, what is Meta's approach to also protecting, kind of, the mindset of minors through the pictures that they see on a constant basis. Thank you.
>> KARUNA NAIN: Thank you so much for my question. Something my teams are constantly thinking about. How do we make sure our platforms are fostering well-being and don't add to the trauma and language women have growing up. It's hard to grow up in an off-line world and you compound it with having the online worlds where you are at risk of feeling a lot more of those pressures, being aggravated.
So, we do partner with again experts in this space to constantly think about where our policy should be, what kind of content should we allow, what kind of content should we not allow and make sure we are working with them to provide resources. So, for example, one of the things we have been doing is working with the National Eating Disorder Association to just think about, is there other resources that we could provide you if you are searching for some of this content on our platforms to make you -- give you some tips, some resources to help you manage any of these discussions which you are having with yourself or any of this crisis that you may be facing. That's the kind of work which we want to do over here.
Again our same four-point approach that I talked about. We make sure we are partnering with experts on the ground. We are building policies that really are keeping in mind some of these situations that people may be in. We don't want to stigmatize some of these issues. And we don't want to add to the burden and the shame. But we do want to provide resources and make sure that you are empowered to make the right choices on our platforms. But also making sure that, you know, we have tools that help you define your experience. So, for example, we have a tool that tells you how much time you're spending on our platforms and what is it that you're doing to help you get more control on the time that you are really spending on our platforms.
So, in a nutshell, again, the same four-point approach applies but this is an area where we are doing a lot of work and we are investing more in the days and weeks to come.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you, thank you, Karuna. Evangelia, I don't know if there are any questions from the online.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Yes, we have two questions. And there was a hand raised. But I can't see right now. Well, I will go with the questions. The first question is -- comes from Mark and he asks, what are the tools that are in place to combat gender based violence online at the global space? So, we have heard Karuna talk about this platform, about which offers proactive actions and victim centric approach.
What are the other tools that exist right now to combat gender violence online?
>> DAVID WRIGHT: I will take that in terms of a response. One of the things as part of the work that StopNCII is involved has been the discovery, I think, of this network of helplines or helplines or, indeed, support services. And so, not only is there this particular platform in this particular case for this particular issue, but it is the contextual that the support is also available in various different countries, which I think has also been a really helpful thing.
So, I'm not sure, Evangelia, that that specifically answers the question about what tools are available although that clearly is a tool but it's the network of support, I think.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Yes. I think that is a great answer, because, you know, we Insafe have 32 awareness centers in Europe and around 30 hotlines in -- worldwide. So this actually is an answer to what tools exist. They are not tools, of course. But, of course, to they help people combat this issue.
And another question -- yes, please.
>> DAVID WRIGHT: We should also mention Safe Internet Day, which is always an opportunity to mark anything to do with being safer online, which I think I mentioned earlier on but I'll mention it again. Which on February the eighth next year, it's marked so 190 countries across the world and that is predominantly the reason that we are here as well. You can see the small advert behind Evangelia's head. It's on the 8th of February next year. Put a date in your calendars.
>> EVANGELIA DASKALAKI: Uh-huh. Thank you, David.
And another question we have from Lourdes, who is a journalist and a digital security trainer from Kenya. So the question is, do you plan to expand your support beyond (?), David? This question is for you?
>> DAVID WRIGHT: Yeah. So, StopNCII is available globally. So that very much answers that question. It's available for anyone to be able to hash their own images and to upload it onto, in this particular case Karuna said, onto Facebook and to Instagram to prevent those images from being uploaded and identify those images. It's available globally. What we have tried to do as well is provide and sign posts to some 50 other national support centers that will provide you more national support, because we are just a relatively small team and it's a bit daunting taking on all of that for the world.
So, hence, there's -- as (?) pointed out, for example in Brazil there's a network of amazing support systems and that's what hopefully is sign posted inside StopNCII as well.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you, David. Yes. We have another question from the onsite guests.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, just a quick follow-up on the NCII. Yes, we know that it's operated globally. But is there investment in popularizing it and creating awareness? It's one thing to have the support system. But if the user don't know about the support system, and I, for example, am active digital citizen but not necessarily that I know all the support that is available and especially for those who are not active users. And most of them, they are the ones who are victims. So, how do we make sure this support, the information and the tool is mainstreamed that everyone know that there is support that I can get? Thank you.
>> DAVID WRIGHT: I'm not sure, Karuna. They have not only able to support people, but it provides them with the ability to support the victims, they do as well. So their role in promoting it and sign posting it as a solution. So sorry, Karuna.
>> KARUNA NAIN: No, absolutely, David. That's the first line of entry that we have. There are incredible organizations around the world who are already working with people who are in these horrific situations and they are the first line of response. They are the first people you reach out to if you were in this situation and making sure they know about the tool and that they have actually given feedback, people like Juliana who really are working with people in these horrible situations, that is the first way you get to know about this resource.
We just launched it, I think, a week back so we just getting started in terms of creating the awareness about it but right at the time of launch also we did some announcements, we built out some (?) force, we anticipate some people may be searching online for this resource and stumble upon it, but you wouldn't use it if you didn't look at an organization from your own country and the list of partners that support it. You would be is this a real service? Am I going to send my photos on. They are not going to take this but is this really real. Having that network of partners around the world is going to be critical for its adoption.
And then I think the second thing is even each and every participating company has a role they can play in upselling this, making people know that this exists when they are in that time of need. I think having general awareness about safety features, safety tools is good. But when I am really in the moment need that kind of help and support, can, you know, platforms find a way of surfacing it to me so I end up using it? That's going to be critical for its adoption.
For example, when someone reports content to us as Meta saying that this is a nonconsensually shared intimate image of mine, at that point can we tell this service exists, StopNCII.org exists. Or in our safety centers or when people are just reading up information on our help centers, can they come across this platform at that point? That's going to be the second line of entry for people who are looking for this form of help and support.
And then last but not least is friends and not. When you are in trouble you reach out to someone who you really trust to get guidance, to get advice. So, the more that we can get the word out there, like people know this service exists, they are more likely to refer a friend who is in that horrible situation to this platform.
So, that's the way that we at Meta think about it. The three entry points will be a general Google search I'm looking for help and support. You stumble on this website or you stumble on incredible partners who tell you that this system exists. You then also reach out to one of the incredible partners who is counseling you and the cost of the counseling you tell them you have intimate images you are worried they will be used without your content online and they have been shared and they tell you about the service. And last (?) help centers can be upservice to you at this point as well.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Thank you very much for the clear explanation.
Okay. So I think we were supposed to have some breakout rooms. But I think we had some very important questions to deal with and I think that makes our -- that made our discussion very interesting. So I would like to thank you all. Unless there are any questions that someone would like to pose or have a question. Yes. Boris.
>> BORIS: Hello, everybody and thank you. This should have been a question I would like to ask the panel. There are regional national differences, so what are they in the challenges that affect and impact gender and genders online? We have to understand there's some local differences as Karuna said, especially for the question of nudity. So on the question that impacts gender online, what are those differences in different parts of the world? Thank you.
>> DAVID WRIGHT: I can take that. We have got -- because that's gone red. Three minutes left. Again, as part of this project, that's a really important question. It was a lot of time and a lot of energy which we applied into the title. So, what is the correct title for this? Which we arrived at nonconsensual intimate image abuse. In some countries it's referred to as nonconsensual sexual image. We will arrived at intimate images for exactly that particular reason. That intimacy, better describes, I think, we concluded better describes the respect to various different cultures and countries and situations. And an image doesn't necessarily have to be sexual for it to still have significant impact and harm.
So, that's why we very much arrived at the word related to intimacy rather than necessarily what would apply probably more appropriately to platforms, terms and conditions which will be around sexual nudity and sexual images. That, hence, we arrived at intimacy. One minute left.
>> DEBORAH VASSALLO: Okay. So, we thank you all for your participation and for your interesting questions and thank you for being present here. And we will wish you all a good evening.
(Applause)
>> We all live in a digital world. We all need it to be open and safe. We all want to trust.
>> And to be trusted.
>> We all despise control.
>> And desire freedom.
>> We are all united.
(Session was concluded at 17:20 UTC)