Jamille Bigio and Rachel Vogelstein
138 foreign affairs
2019 by the International Labor Organization and obligates govern-
ments to monitor, prevent, and resolve workplace harassment.
The prominence of online abuse demands action from technology
firms. Social media companies have done far too little to address abuse
and harassment of female public figures. Platforms such as Facebook
should automatically identify and remove intimidating content—in-
cluding threats of rape—and enable users to alert police to illegal
online activity. And if corporations continue to delay making such
reforms, governments should enact legislation to hold them liable. The
French government is taking steps to require technology companies to
remove hateful content within 24 hours or suffer financial penalties,
such as multimillion-dollar fines. (France encouraged other govern-
ments to follow suit during its presidency of the G-7 in 2019, and the
United States should broaden the call when it assumes that leadership
in 2020.) Governments could also classify gender-based attacks on
public figures online as hate speech and regulate it accordingly. To ad-
dress concerns over the effect such a move would have on freedom of
expression, legal scholars have outlined changes to communications
laws and judicial procedures that would help shut down online abuse
without infringing unduly on free speech. For example, Danielle Citron
has proposed that social media platforms ban only those threats that
name specific individuals, not those targeting unspecified groups.
Washington, for its part, should use foreign aid as a lever to drive
reform. Particularly in conflict areas, the United States should ear-
mark assistance for the physical protection of female candidates. U.S.
programs that train criminal justice officials and media professionals
in other countries also ought to emphasize the issue.
Violence should not be the cost of women entering politics. Gover-
nance suffers when women are harassed into leaving politics or are too
intimidated to get involved in the first place. As women around the
world raise their voices and step into the political arena, countries
committed to representative democracy must do more to ensure that
the playing field is level—and safe.∂