Online gender-based violence is targeted harassment and prejudice through technology against people based on their gender. The term is also similar to technology facilitated gender-based violence, digital violence, online harassment, cyberbullying and cybersexism, but the latter terms are not gender-specific. Gender-based harassment differs from these because of the attention it draws to discrimination and online violence targeted specifically because of their gender. Online harassment is not new but a continuation of longstanding gendered hierarchies and prejudice against marginalised groups. For women, queer individuals, and other marginalized gender identities online engagement carries both heightened risks and opportunities for resistance. Many face hyper-visibility, systemic erasure, and coordinated harassment, as seen in India with feminist journalists targeted for their gender and religious identities, or in Africa where LGBTQ+ activists navigate state censorship and platform invisibility. Digital spaces also enable collective action and solidarity: movements like #PinjraTod and #MeTooIndia, Latin American cyberfeminist initiatives, and African LGBTQ+ networks use social media, encryption, and participatory storytelling to challenge oppression, build community, and document injustice.
Forms Online gender-based violence can include unwanted sexual remarks, non-consensual circulation or distribution of sexually explicit media or content, threats, doxing, cyberstalking and harassment, online gendered disinformation, deepfakes, and gender-based discriminatory memes and posts among other things. Online gender-based violence derives from gender-based violence but it is perpetuated through electronic means. Online gender-based violence may occur through various ways. These include impersonation, hacking, spamming, tracking and surveillance, malicious sharing of intimate messages and photos. Since the introduction of the internet, the presence of online gender-based violence has grown exponentially. One common space where online gender-based violence occurs is in the blogosphere. This is a male-dominated space where female bloggers are criticized at a higher rate than male bloggers. There are frequently comments under female-written blogs which are sexually violent in nature or disrespectful. A common place where online gender-based violence takes place is in the form of trolling. This includes derogatory comments and sexist, inflammatory comments. This is online gender-based violence masked as a harmless, aimless activity. It also includes cyber-sexism played off as humorous and harmless when in reality it reinforces harmful stereotypes, violence, and gender-based power structures that dominant both the offline and online world. Memes are another form through which online gender-based violence is spread. These are images created to present sexist and transphobic jokes, sexual violence, and gender stereotypes while playing it off as simply something humorous. Examples of these can be harmful online terms or derogatory memes like stereotyping wojaks and comic art.
Types Within the broader definition, there are various types of online gender-based violence. One type is online domestic violence, where perpetrators use the internet to exploit the intimate and private knowledge that they have of their partner in order to hurt them. They also use intimate photos and videos to assert power and violence over their partner. In this, perpetuators may also anonymously send unwanted and inappropriate images to victims with the aim of enticing them to share their own images as well, which they may in turn use to blackmail them; this is referred to as cyberflashing. Research by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin have studied this phenomenon, which they term "digital dating abuse," finding that 28% of students in a romantic relationship the previous year had been victimized in this manner. Males (32%) were victimized more often, compared to females (24%), and experiencing offline dating violence was the strongest identified correlate of online dating violence. Other key findings included links to depression, sexting, and cyberbullying victimization. Cyberstalking is another type of online gender-based violence. It has been reported that 26% of women aged 18–24 have reported being stalked through the use of telecommunication tools afforded by the internet and social media. A recent systematic literature review by Puneet Kaur et al., identified that the prevalence of cyberstalking is unclear, with empirical studies identifying rates as low as 6.5% and as high as 46%; this wide variation is likely due to divergent sampling methodologies, conceptualization and operationalization of the term, reticence in reporting, and even differences across demographic groups.
Causes Online gender-based violence emerges from misogyny and transphobia in physical spaces and the cultural norms that guide our lives. Accepted forms of gender-based violence includes in-person contact such as: intimate partner violence, street harassment, rape, and others described in violence against women. All of these have resulted in the creation of online forms of gender-based violence. Other causes of violence include the practices of online communities and lack of regulations that address gender-specific harassment and violence in these communities.
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