Online gender-based violence isn’t just a human rights violation, it also generates profit for digital platforms due to the high engagement of such content. These harmful practices are addressed by both soft and hard law measures and social media self-regulating initiatives. GenTIC researcher Luana Mathias Souto and Mariana Magalhães Avelar from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais analyse whether those measures lead to effective protection, remediation, and infrastructural changes, in a new study that explores gender-related binding decisions by Meta’s Oversight Board, an independent board that reviews Meta’s decisions about Facebook, Instagram, and Threads content.

The authors argue that Meta’s interventions frequently remain at the surface level, failing to address the infrastructural issues that enable online harm. By framing these actions in the language of human rights, these measures often serve as symbolic gestures of genderwashing rather than substantive reforms, ultimately exacerbating rather than mitigating harms experienced by women, girls, and LGBTQIA+ users online.

Read the full article open access at Global Media Journal.

Reference:

Avelar, M. M [Mariana Magalhaes] & Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2025). Genderwashing by digital platforms self-regulations_a case study of the decisions of Meta’s Oversight Board. Global Media Journal – German Edition, 15(2), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.60678/gmj-de.v15i2.335 – OPEN ACCESS

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