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The world’s social media giants admit they can’t protect women online

Quartz: “Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube made their first joint commitment to curb the harassment women face on their platforms, according to The World Wide Web Foundation. The social media giants pledged on July 1 to give users more granular control over who interacts with their posts and improve their reporting processes—for example, by giving users the ability to track their harassment reports during each stage of review. The promises are the culmination of an advocacy campaign from the World Wide Web Foundation, which wrote an open letter to the CEOs of the four companies signed by 212 activists, academics, politicians, journalists, and civil society leaders…Each of these companies has individually made similar commitments in the past….But while those measures may have helped, it’s not clear they have meaningfully reduced online abuse.

Harassment remains far worse for women, people of color, and other marginalized groups, according to researchers. More than a third of women surveyed by The Economist last year reported personally experiencing abuse online. Black women were 84% more likely than white women to be targeted for harassment, according to an Amnesty International review of tweets received by 778 journalists and politicians…”

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