Be Safe Online
Our Be Safe Online campaign’s aim was to support the safety, protection and participation of Black women politicians by raising awareness about digital misogynoir and sharing safeguarding tools to reduce online abuse during the 2024 General Election. During the election period, we:
Facilitated workshops for Black women politicians, using our safeguarding toolkit and discussed robust safety measures during election season
Advocated for political parties to honour the protection of women and girls in the Online Safety Act by committing revenue collected from Digital Services Tax for preventative interventions recommended in our Manifesto on Tech Accountability for Gender-Based Violence.
The UK’s 2024 General Election was a historic year, electing the most Black women ever to represent UK citizens. Overall, Black women stood for election across nine national parties and as two independent candidates. Sixteen Black women were elected across Labour and Conservative parties, with 15 of them sitting on Government frontbench. Although this achievement is a testament to the progress that can be made when we advocate for equal and safe opportunities for democratic participation, it does not guarantee Black women’s liberation; nor does it signal increased online safety for Black women in public life.
We heard first-hand how digital misogynoir and online abuse were negatively impacting their desire to run for office and their ability to show up as themselves in service of their constituents. We remained concerned at the lack of support, prevention and action to stop the abuse Black women candidates and MPs faced during their campaigns. We called on all national political parties to put protections in place for Black women campaigning and/or standing for them by:
Developing and implementing internal party policies on misogynoir, both online and offline
Providing training, in partnership with specialist organisations, on online safety and digital citizenship to party staff, activists and candidates
You can download Fix the Glitch Toolkit 3.0, one of the resources we used in our digital safety workshops here.