The Counterintuitive Ally Pack is designed to help organisations, advocates, and digital creators turn complex issues like online safety, ethical technology, and CTFVAW into clear, practical action. It provides ready-to-use resources that can be adapted across different audiences and platforms, making it easier to raise awareness, support safer digital spaces, and encourage meaningful engagement.
You can use the Ally Pack to:
These are the 7 core messages you should remember.
Technology is Political
Digital platforms and technology shape power, voice, and participation. They must be governed with rights and accountability at the centre.
Online Harm = Real Harm
CTFVAW is not “just digital” – it has tangible impacts on safety, participation, mental health, and democracy.
Safety is a Collective Responsibility
From tech companies to institutions to users, everyone has a role in building safer digital ecosystems.
Feminist Perspectives Strengthen Tech
Feminist approaches offer critical insights into power, inequality, and inclusion. They are essential for better technology design and governance.
Democracy Depends on Digital Spaces
Attacks on digital rights are attacks on civic participation, free expression, and democratic resilience.
Citizens Are Changemakers
People active online are key actors in shaping future digital norms, policies, and cultures.
Small Actions Scale Impact
From reporting abuse to reshaping narratives, everyday actions contribute to systemic change.
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Technology-Facilitated Violence Against Women is not a small or isolated issue. It is part of a much bigger pattern.
The latest EU gender-based violence survey confirms that 1 in 3 women in the EU have experienced violence in their lifetime.
At the same time, recent research shows that digital technologies are increasingly being used to harass, monitor, and silence women, especially those already experiencing other forms of violence against women, as well as those active online or in public life.
Understanding the term is the first step toward recognising the problem and changing it.
Share this post to help more people understand what CTFVAW means.
Read more: here
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Online abuse is often dismissed as something that doesn’t result in real harm.
But the evidence shows something very different.
The EU Gender-based Violence Survey by FRA & EIGE confirms that repeated harassment now happens predominantly online, including unwanted messages, stalking, and the sharing of personal information.
Online abuse leads to fear, self-censorship, and people leaving digital spaces altogether. When people are pushed out of online spaces, their voices disappear from public debate.
Online harm is real harm.
Read more:
fra.europa.eu
technologyreview.com
Share this post to raise awareness!
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The problem isn’t only what happens online. It’s how platforms and technologies are designed and developed.
The new EU Gender-based Violence Survey shows that technology is increasingly being used to harass, stalk, and monitor women, including by intimate partners.
That means the solution cannot rely only on individual behaviour. It requires:
Commitment to centring humans.
Technology is not neutral. It reflects the choices behind it.
Join the conversation. Demand more of the digital ecosystem!
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Many people see online abuse but feel powerless to stop it.
That means support from others, especially online, matters more than you think.
Being an ally doesn’t require expertise. It starts with small actions:
Save this post so you know what to do next time.
Abuse (online abuse / cyber abuse)
Using the internet or digital technologies to harm someone emotionally, psychologically, sexually, socially, or economically.
Algorithm
A system used by platforms (like social media) to decide what content people see. Algorithms can amplify harmful or abusive content without meaning to.
Anonymity
When someone hides their identity online. This can protect privacy, but it can also make it easier for people to harass or abuse women without consequences.
Cyber violence against women
Violence against women that is carried out, supported, or made worse by digital technologies (such as social media, messaging apps, or online platforms).
Cyber harassment
Repeated online behaviour that is meant to scare, intimidate, shame, or control someone (for example, constant abusive messages or threats).
Cyberstalking
Using digital tools (social media, email, tracking apps, etc.) to monitor, follow, or threaten someone so that they feel afraid or unsafe.
Cyberbullying
Using technology to repeatedly bully or hurt someone online. This term is often used when the victim is under 18.
Consent (online consent)
Clear agreement to share or use someone’s information, images, or content. Without consent, sharing someone’s content is abuse.
Doxing (or doxxing)
Publishing someone’s private information online (such as their home address or phone number) without permission, often to encourage harassment.
Digital footprint
The information about someone that exists online (posts, photos, comments, accounts). Abusers can use this to monitor or control women.
Digital coercive control
Using technology (phones, apps, tracking tools, social media) to control a partner or ex-partner.
Gender-based violence (GBV)
Violence directed at someone because of their gender. Cyber violence against women is a form of gender-based violence.
Gendered online hate
Online abuse that specifically targets women because they are women (for example, sexist insults or sexualised threats).
Hate speech (online hate)
Content that attacks or threatens someone because of who they are (for example, gender, race, or sexuality).
Harassment (online harassment)
Offensive, threatening, or intimidating behaviour that happens online and causes distress or fear.
Image-based abuse
Sharing or threatening to share intimate photos or videos without permission.
Impersonation
Pretending to be someone else online (for example, using a fake account) to embarrass, harm, or control them.
Intimate image abuse
When someone shares, threatens to share, or creates sexual images of a person without their consent.
Misogyny (online misogyny)
Hatred or hostility toward women that is expressed online (for example, sexist abuse or threats).
Non-consensual sharing
Posting or distributing someone’s private information, photos, or videos without their permission.
Online violence
Violence that happens through the internet or digital technology and causes real emotional, psychological, sexual, or social harm.
Online-offline continuum
The idea that online abuse often leads to real-world harm and is connected to other forms of violence against women.
Perpetrator (online perpetrator)
The person who carries out online abuse or cyber violence.
Privacy violation
When someone accesses or shares private information without permission (for example, hacking accounts or sharing private messages).
Sexual harassment (online sexual harassment)
Sexual comments, threats, or messages sent through digital platforms that make someone feel unsafe or humiliated.
Surveillance (digital surveillance)
Monitoring someone’s behaviour using technology (for example, tracking apps, spyware, or shared accounts).
Technology-facilitated violence
Violence that is carried out using digital tools such as smartphones, social media, messaging apps, or smart devices.
Threats (online threats)
Messages or posts that threaten violence, harm, or sexual assault.
Trolling
Posting harmful or abusive content online to upset, humiliate, or provoke someone.
Victim blaming (online victim blaming)
When someone suggests that the person who experienced online abuse is responsible for it.
Virtual abuse
Abuse that happens through online spaces such as social media, online games, or messaging platforms.
AI-enabled violence
Violence that is carried out, supported, or made worse using artificial intelligence (for example, deepfakes or automated harassment).
Deepfake
A fake image, video, or audio recording created using AI that makes it look like a real person said or did something they did not.
Deepfake sexual abuse
Using AI to create sexual or intimate images or videos of someone without their consent.
AI-generated intimate images
Sexual images created using AI (for example, placing a woman’s face onto another body) without permission.
Voice cloning abuse
Using AI to copy someone’s voice to create fake recordings that can be used to threaten, shame, or control them.
AI-assisted harassment
Using AI tools to generate or send abusive messages at scale (for example, automated sexist messages).
AI-generated misinformation targeting women
False content about women (for example, fake videos or fake statements) created using AI to damage reputation or silence women online.
Synthetic identity abuse
Creating a completely fake online identity using AI (including fake photos and personal information) to deceive, harass, or target someone.
More resources:
A recent privacy scandal in Bulgaria highlights how systemic gender gaps in cybersecurity limit our ability to prevent cyber violence, underscoring the urgent need for more women in the field to strengthen digital safety, innovation, and human rights protections…
Online ecosystems like the manosphere and emerging femosphere amplify gender-based hostility and polarization, making cyber violence against women harder to study and combat, while underscoring that the root problem is societal rather than technological…
The article argues that strengthening democracy in the digital age requires moving beyond reactive regulation toward inclusive, human-centered design and “whole-of-society” governance of technology to counter disinformation, systemic risks, and declining public trust—especially in vulnerable contexts like Bulgaria…
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or The Netherlands Helsinki Committee. Neither the European Union nor the NHC can be held responsible for them.
