THEY TARGET WOMEN WITH TECHNOLOGY AS A VEHICLE - 19% SAY THEY HAVE EXPERIENCED ON-LINE VIOLENCE WITH THE HELP OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - Filenews 15/3 by Marios Demetriou
"For many women and girls, the digital space is not a space of freedom but a place of surveillance, humiliation, sexualization and silencing where women politicians, journalists, activists, academics and human rights activists are targeted," said the Commissioner for Gender Equality, Josie Christodoulou, in a greeting conveyed by the office officer of Tonia Siamptani at the important conference entitled "(Re)claiming our space: Civil society strategies to counter gender-based misinformation and technology-facilitated violence".
The conference was organized in Nicosia on March 4, 2026 by the Mediterranean Institute for Social Gender Studies (MIGS) in the framework of the G-LENS project, whose partners are also organizations in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. It was conducted in English, coordinated by MIGS researcher and program coordinator Daphne Demetriou and was attended by researchers, policy makers, representatives of civil society organizations, activists and professionals from Cyprus and other European countries.
"Digital technologies and online spaces that promised greater participation and visibility are being used to silence, intimidate and defame women, while gender-based misinformation and technology-facilitated violence do not only target individuals but undermine democratic participation and weaken public trust," said MIGS Director Susana Pavlou in her own address. "Democracy and peace are not about others speaking on our behalf, but about everyone having the same space and equal right to speak and be heard," said MIGS senior researcher and program coordinator Maria Angeli.
Critical aspects of gender-based violence in the digital space were highlighted by Alyssa Ahrabare, Advocacy Officer of the French feminist organization Osez le Féminisme, and Miriam Fernandez, Professor of Artificial Intelligence Ethics at the Open University in Kent, UK. and Turkish Cypriot activist and lawyer Mine Atli.
The panel discussion was attended by Turkish Cypriot lawyer Meral Birinci Sonan (Cyprus Women Bicommunal Coalition and Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network), Nadia Karagianni (CARDET), Eleni Karaoli (Civil Society Advocates), Eleni Siamptani (Cyprus Youth Council) and Maria Epaminonda (Cyprus Family Planning Association). Anna Zobnina, Strategy Manager of the European Network of Migrant Women, intervened. The conference was also welcomed by British Council Cyprus Education Officer Marilena Kyriacou who said that among other Council actions, "over the past year and a half we have worked with G-LENS project partners in the four countries to strengthen resilience against disinformation and throughout this journey we have created opportunities to bring together experts, civil society and community voices by building shared understanding and a stronger collective response."
Strategies for Displacement from Public Life
"Gender-based misinformation and technology-facilitated violence are deliberate strategies to distort public discourse, undermine women's credibility and displace them from public life, and we see this in coordinated online harassment campaigns, deepfake pornography, non-consensual sharing of personal images, algorithm-enhanced hate speech, and false narratives that question women's ability, morality or legitimacy," said Gender Equality Commissioner Josie Christodoulou in her address to the conference.
She added: "The findings of a 2025 global survey on UN Women in collaboration with UNESCO reveal that online violence is increasingly spreading in the real world, with 42% of female journalists surveyed linking online attacks to abuse, harassment or physical assault offline, more than doubling the rate compared to 20% in 2020. As of 2025, 75% of female journalists surveyed experienced online violence at work, while 24% of all survey respondents, including human rights defenders, journalists, and writers, reported experiencing online violence with the help of artificial intelligence.
Among the female journalists and media workers surveyed, 19% experienced online violence with the help of artificial intelligence. These are not random acts, they are attempts to shrink women's participation in the public sphere. And when women withdraw from public life, democracy itself is weakened. Online violence against girls escalates and follows girls into their homes and schools, forming a continuum between online and offline violence."
The Commissioner for Equality also said that "the European Union has taken important legislative measures, but legislation alone will not reclaim the digital space for women and girls. Laws – she added – must translate into accessible reporting mechanisms, effective investigations, victim-centred justice and real accountability for online platforms. This is where civil society becomes essential.
>Firstly in implementation and accountability,>Secondly, targeted and participatory policies,
>Third, accountability of platform and content creators,
>Fifth for closing the digital gender gap. Media literacy and digital "citizenship" are no longer optional but are prerequisites for democracy. All these parameters are relevant in the context of the current Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU, which has prioritized the prevention and fight against cyberviolence against girls in all its forms"...
Disproportionate pressures and "imposter syndrome"
Lawyer, activist and program coordinator of KAYAD in occupied Mine Atlı focused particularly on women's experiences in the Turkish Cypriot community, stressing that "while official barriers to women's participation in politics may have decreased, the reality of public life continues to put disproportionate pressures on women who choose to take on leadership roles."
She noted that women in politics and public leadership are often subject to harsher criticism, personal attacks, and gendered expectations, unlike their male counterparts. These dynamics, she said, often contribute to self-doubt and a feeling of self-inadequacy ("imposter syndrome"), even among women with proven abilities and experience.
Women - she added - are expected to withstand criticism and hostility while at the same time they must constantly prove their ability in male-dominated spaces. This environment discourages many women from entering or remaining in public life, ultimately limiting women's representation in decision-making processes. Improving women's participation requires more than legislative reforms – cultural perceptions, public dialogue and support networks also need to change to ensure that women can participate confidently and safely in the public sphere."
The experience of invisibility and the We-Pods channel
"At a time when we are talking about peace, security, equality, democracy and open dialogue, 86% of the people who speak to the Cypriot media are men and only 14% are women," Maria Angeli stressed in her own intervention. She added: "Since 2009 at MIGS we have been working to tackle women's invisibility – or if you prefer men's excessive visibility.
We asked political parties to give the floor to their MPs, we trained journalists all over Cyprus, we collaborated with the Cyprus Radio and Television Authority to develop a Code of Equality and we systematically monitored the media. Not only did we not see substantial change, but we saw regression.
So we made the decision to create our We-Pods channel from women from every social class, from different professional fields, from the LGBTQI+ community, and even women who are considered privileged. And you know what we discovered? That the experience of invisibility is common to all backgrounds!"
Mrs. Angeli concluded by mentioning a personal experience of hers. When I was twenty-something years old – she said – the director of MIGS sent me to Cairo to train in the Global Media Monitoring Program, a methodology for studying the representation of women in the media worldwide. I remember sitting there, looking at the data, and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by the sheer "persistence" of gender inequality decade after decade, country after country. And then a 65-year-old activist from Jamaica looked at me and said, "Look at me, I'm 65 years old and I'm still fighting. Not because I think I'll see change before I die, but because if I stop fighting, I stop being who I am, being alive in the way that matters."
Pornography and misogynistic culture
A brief description of the positions of Alyssa Ahrabare and Miriam Fernandez was given for "F" by the coordinator of the event, Daphne Dimitriou. She told us that Alyssa Ahrabare analyzed the phenomenon of technologically assisted violence against women and girls as a continuation of offline gender-based violence, emphasizing that "practices such as harassment, surveillance, and non-consensual trafficking of personal material are structural forms of oppression that affect safety, mental health, and women's equal participation in public life."
She placed particular emphasis on the role of pornography and large pornographic platforms which, as she said, "through economic models that favour increasingly violent and degrading content against women, contribute to the normalization of sexual violence and the dehumanization of women. The constant circulation of such content and the refusal of platforms to comply with the legislation at the local and European level, reinforces the misogynistic and sexist culture in all social contexts."
Miriam Fernandez focused on how modern technologies and AI systems "not only amplify but multiply the ways in which gender-based violence is expressed." She specifically referred to harassment through smart devices in the home, the leakage of personal data of women, especially those in the public sphere – journalists and politicians – and the dissemination of deepfake AI-generated pornographic videos (where a person's face is digitally placed on pornographic material without their consent). At the same time, she presented the technical, social and institutional challenges that need to be addressed so that the development of artificial intelligence is accompanied by responsibility and transparency for the effective protection of women and girls worldwide."
