TikTok has announced its partnership with World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF), an international organization focusing on digital equality, to help support and safeguard women on their social media platform.
In a recent statement, TikTok asserted their focus on developing new initiatives to protect women online:
“We’re proud to announce our commitment to address two priorities women have said are critical for their online safety: improved reporting systems and more control over their online experiences. Over the coming months, we’ll begin to develop and test a number of potential product changes to our platform that address these priorities and help make TikTok an ever safer place for women.”
The announcement comes after TikTok and other social media firms including Twitter, Google, and Facebook, pledged their support at the UN Generation Equality Forum to improve online safety for women. The social media firms were also in consultation with the World Wide Web Foundation to better understand how to tackle online gender-based violence and abuse.
In a public letter to the social media firms, The World Wide Web Foundation highlighted the rise of online abuse against women and how social media firms need to take responsibility in protecting women on their respective platforms:
“The scale of the problem is huge: 38% of women globally have directly experienced online abuse. This figure rises to 45% for Gen Zs and Millennials. The internet is the town square of the 21st century. It is where debate takes place, communities are built, products are sold and reputations are made. But the scale of online abuse means that, for too many women, these digital town squares are unsafe. This is a threat to progress on gender equality. A huge volume of this abuse takes place on social media platforms — and its reach is global.”