Responding to Ofcom’s ‘Violence against Women and Girls’ Guidance for the OSA
This week, Ofcom's long-awaited consultation on their guidance to tech companies on “A safer life online for women and girls” is coming to a close. The guidance is a mandated part of the Online Safety Act. It’s the result of years of campaigning from us, and many others, for stronger regulations and duties on companies that host, facilitate and profit from, online violence against women and girls (VAWG).
We are still waiting for the Government’s VAWG strategy, a core part of fulfilling its commitment to “halving VAWG in the next decade” (1). To “halve” VAWG, the Government will need to demonstrate they have a solid grasp of various kinds of gender-based violence, how it manifests in our society and in what contexts. It will require engaging with womanhood and girlhood in their totalities; meaning those who experience it at the margins ought to be centred, in order to wholly dismantle the various strands of oppression that combine to produce the status quo of violence experienced by women in the UK.
Guiding is not enough
Ofcom’s guidance must work with the Illegal Content Codes of Practice and Children’s Content Codes (“the Codes”), not against them. We are concerned that by including some VAWG measures in the guidance, that we argue should be subset VAWG part of the Illegal Codes, Ofcom weakens the regulatory approach in full. For instance, examples of measures that could be part of the Codes include online misogyny where it is hate speech and/or inciting violence; hash matching for intimate image-based abuse (now that it is a priority offence), and risk assessments which account for gender-based risks. The latter example is based on women being defined as a demographic with “certain characteristics” as referenced in the Part 1, 2 (a) of the Online Safety Act, as well as a protected characteristic, alongside others such as race, sexuality, religion, disability and gender reassignment, under the 2010 Equality Act.
We are also concerned that the VAWG guidance appears to be treated as separate to Ofcom’s Illegal Content Codes of Practice, rather than complimentary. For example, Ofcom commits to publishing “an assessment of what tech companies are doing – or not doing” around 18 months after the Guidance is finalised, rather than integrating this assessment into Ofcom’s existing approach to oversight under the Codes. Professor Lorna Woods of Essex University rightly points out that companies should engage with guidance and must “have cogent reasons” beyond a matter of principle, for not complying, as in reality, many companies perceive guidance as “ignorable” (2). It would be far more effective therefore if Ofcom aligns this guidance with other its mandatory assessments, particularly given the crossover of illegal harms mentioned in both the guidance and the Codes. This could also forge positive ways of working internally, preventing the VAWG team from becoming siloed from other relevant teams.
Our coalition campaign to get women and girls included in the OSA also included a policy ask of mandatory codes of practice for violence against women and girls, not guidance. Our position on this has not changed; the VAWG aspect of the OSA needs mandatory enforcement mechanics for it to have a chance at ensuring categorised services, and platforms are held accountable for their involvement in facilitating violence against women and girls. At this stage, this is only possible if the Government amends the Online Safety Act, i.e., re-categorising the VAWG guidance to be part of the Codes, thus handing Ofcom stronger enforcement capabilities. We consider this to be particularly important in light of, at the time of writing, pressure from the US Government to minimise digital regulations on US-based tech companies with UK users, and the outright dismissal from companies such as Gab and Kiwi Farms towards the UK’s regulatory measures. If the Government is serious about its mission to halve VAWG in a decade, it would recognise that having legislation that allows Ofcom to enforce changes to platforms is a crucial tactic.
Best, better or existing practice?
In the consultation guidance, Ofcom articulates its aims as to “summarise the ways different types of content and activity affect women and girls online” and “demonstrate to [the] industry the pressing need” to take action – providing “practical and achievable recommendations” for providers to do so. We strongly believe the industry has all the evidence needed to take action on violence against women and girls, and have done so for years. Companies are well aware of the pressing issues and their inaction has led the UK government to implement parliamentary mandated sector guidance in the first place.
Ofcom “hope[s] the draft Guidance will help to secure: a) giving providers a detailed and holistic framework for understanding harms to women and girls online; b) setting out practical and ambitious steps providers can take to secure women and girls’ online safety; and c) encouraging service providers to take action to achieve a safer life online for women and girls. As part of these aims, under each action Ofcom includes “foundational steps” and “good practice steps” for providers to take. However the steps included as foundational are more accurately described as “minimum” - this clearly communicates that these steps represent a baseline standard that platforms must meet to be compliant with their duties as set out in the Codes.
In a similar vein, “good practice steps” actually refers to existing industry standards. Understandably, Ofcom’s case studies are ‘illustrative’ examples, however a number of times in the guidance Ofcom mentions providing “good practice steps providers could take to further improve the experiences of women and girls” (3). Given these are examples of existing practice, they do not push the envelope beyond the capacities of the world’s largest social media and search services companies - they should therefore be framed as current industry standards, rather than stretch ‘could do’ targets. This will allow Ofcom to assess where companies fall behind industry standards in the guidance, and also clearly identify where Ofcom is putting forward steps that go further to improve current practices.
Footnotes
(1) Home Office, Jess Phillips MP and The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP. 19 September 2024. New measures set out to combat violence against women and girls.
(2) Woods, L. (2025) Ofcom's draft guidance on protecting women and girls
(3) As mentioned in sections: 2.49, 2.75, 3.26 and case study 24.