Technology Policy Brief #162 | Mindy Spatt | January 8, 2026
Summary:
Two new reports document the alarming rise of online violence against women and girls. Sex trafficking, sexualized images, and stalking and exploitation online are nothing new. But Artificial Intelligence has exacerbated the problem. Deepfakes almost exclusively target women; in fact, some of the technology used to create them, developed by mostly male teams, only works on female forms.
Analysis:
AI-facilitated violence against women refers to acts of digital abuse generated and spread by online technologies that result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm, or otherwise infringe on women’s rights.
According to a recent Organization of American States report on gender-based violence online, women are disproportionately victimized by cyber violence as compared to men. The report cites a long list of forms this violence can take, including:
- Non-consensual creation and distribution of photos and videos of a sexual or intimate nature
- Unauthorized publication of private information
- Impersonation and identity theft
- Surveillance and monitoring
- Cyberstalking
- Direct threats of harm or violence
- Technology-facilitated physical violence
- Abuse, exploitation, and trafficking of women and girls.
- Attacks on women’s groups, organizations, or communities
The report acknowledges that, of course, gender-based discrimination and violence against women are nothing new and are connected to, rather than separate from, violence offline. But gender based abuse is flourishing on the Internet, especially through AI-generated deepfakes.
Journalists, human rights workers, and activists are especially at risk, according to a report developed by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), a part of the Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) to End Violence Against Women Programme funded by the European Union.
It found that a whopping 70% of women working in the fields of human rights, activism, and journalism surveyed had experienced online violence related to their work. The survey defined technology-facilitated violence against women as any act committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified through the use of information technologies or digital tools resulting in or likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm. “These are forms of violence that are directed against women because they are women and/or that affect women disproportionately,” note the authors.
The mainstreaming of generative AI tools threatens to “supercharge” the risks of online violence to women in public life by making it easier and cheaper to produce and distribute abusive content.
Like the OAS report, the UN report ties online violence to physical violence. Forty-one percent of respondents in the UN survey reported experiencing physical harm along with online harassment, including assault, stalking, swatting, and verbal harassment.
Laura Bates, an author and activist in Great Britain, has been a victim. Bates runs a website called Everyday Sexism, “an ever-increasing collection of over 200,000 testimonies of gender inequality.” She is the author of many books on sexism and misogyny, including Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists, The Truth About Extreme Misogyny, and How It Affects Us All. After its publication, she told an interviewer on National Public Radio that she received death threats daily, some days as many as 200, and was subjected to pornographic and abusive deepfake videos using her likeness.
Some governments are taking action. In Denmark, authorities are attempting to clamp down on deepfakes with changes to copyright laws that ensure that every person has the right to their own body, facial features, and voice. Strengthened protections give Danes the right to demand that online platforms remove content posted without their consent.
Peru has already changed its Criminal Code to include harassment, sexual harassment, sexual blackmail, and dissemination of images, audiovisual materials, or audios with sexual content, and countries including Bolivia, Brazil, and Nicaragua have established national police cybercrime divisions.
Women’s organizations are also fighting back; some are listed below.
Engagement Resources:
The Coalition Against Online Violence is a collection of global organizations working to find better solutions for women journalists facing online abuse, harassment, and other forms of digital attack.
https://onlineviolenceresponsehub.org
The Everyday Sexism Project, https://everydaysexism.com
Julie Posetti, Lea Hellmueller, Kaylee Williams, Pauline Renaud, Nermine Aboulez, and Nabeelah Shabbir, Tipping Point:The Chilling Escalation Of Online Violence Against Women In The Public Sphere, New York, December 2025. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2025-12/tipping-point-the-chilling-escalation-of-violence-against-women-in-the-public-sphere-in-the-age-of-ai-en.pdf
FAQs: AI-Powered Online Abuse: How AI Is Amplifying Violence Against Women And What Can Stop It, November 2025
Online Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls: Guide of Basic Concepts, https://www.oas.org/en/sms/cicte/docs/Guide-basic-concepts-Online-gender-based-violence-against-women-and-girls.pdf