{"id":60153,"date":"2026-10-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=60153"},"modified":"2026-10-26T15:27:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T18:27:31","slug":"digital-violence-against-women-the-invisible-cost-of-participating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/digital-violence-against-women-the-invisible-cost-of-participating\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital violence against women: The invisible cost of participating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is pushing for a reform to criminalize fake videos of public officials intended to deceive and facilitate illegal acts. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has requested before the European Union to trademark her voice as a sound mark. These are attempts to protect against deepfakes: images, videos, and audio manipulated with generative artificial intelligence to spread falsehoods or sexual violence, which also serve as a warning about an increasingly sophisticated expression of digital political gender-based violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are talking about a global phenomenon that builds upon harassment, threats, smear campaigns, identity theft, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and gender-based disinformation. Women who lead, run for office, or express opinions face a specific and persistent form of violence on social networks and digital platforms that is not equivalent in magnitude or content to what men in leadership positions experience. It does not happen “despite” their public role, but because they exercise it. Technology accelerates, with near-total impunity, a historical patriarchal violence aimed at delegitimizing the collective presence of women in the public sphere, punishing their visibility, eroding their authority, intimidating them, and expelling their voices from public debate.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Recognizing this reality is the starting point of “The Candidate: The Invisible Cost of Participating”<\/a>, a regional campaign by International IDEA and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), launched on October 6. Using data, evidence, and the experiences of women leaders and communicators, the initiative delivers a clear message: gender-based violence and digital aggression cannot be the price of participating in public life. Nor should each victim have to bear these costs alone: security, psychological support, legal counsel, time, reputation, and family and social impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On social media, according to a UNDP report, one in five messages directed at women with a public voice contains digital violence. Seven out of ten human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and media workers surveyed have experienced online violence during their work, according to UN Women data. And four out of ten women in public roles reported self-censoring to avoid further aggression, according to UN Women\u2019s Tipping Point<\/em> report. Among female journalists, self-censorship rose from 30% in 2020 to 45% in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is at stake is who can participate in democracy without assuming a disproportionate risk to their integrity and well-being. Every woman who leaves a social network, tones down an opinion out of fear, or withdraws a candidacy due to threats represents a collective loss. Normalizing this inequality impoverishes deliberation and restricts representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comparative evidence and studies by International IDEA show that a criminal justice response alone is insufficient. The most promising strategies combine regulation, digital monitoring, media literacy, cooperation between electoral authorities and platforms, data collection, protection, and psychosocial support. But none will suffice unless the cultural core of the problem is addressed: resistance to the presence of women in spaces of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing this phenomenon, International IDEA proposes a comprehensive response. The first step is for countries to precisely define digital political gender-based violence and update their legal frameworks in accordance with the Inter-American Model Law on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women in Political Life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-responsibility must also stop being mere rhetoric. Platforms, political parties, public institutions, media outlets, and civil society need to cooperate through binding protocols, effective response channels, and mechanisms to preserve evidence. The media must also prevent the pursuit of viewership from turning a fake video or viral attack into news without context, which only multiplies the harm and victimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, countries require electoral digital governance rules that recognize gender violence and disinformation as core risks. This calls for specialized monitoring with a gender perspective to detect harassment patterns, coordinated campaigns, and attacks, enabling early responses and producing actionable data. Electoral bodies play a fundamental role here. Many have already understood this, but it is essential for others to proactively embrace information and prevention initiatives alongside monitoring and sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Strengthening reporting, support, and reparation pathways with swift, accessible, and intersectional responses is equally indispensable. A victim cannot be expected to document a massive online attack entirely on her own while managing a campaign or carrying out her public duties. Requiring this is an attack on the fairness of electoral competition\u2014a foundational pillar of any representative democratic system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, electoral authorities, candidates, and political leaders need digital literacy to recognize risks and respond appropriately. Detecting manipulation, reacting in time, and communicating without amplifying the threat are now essential democratic skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decisions by Sheinbaum and Meloni are a timely warning. Not because deepfakes represent the entirety of digital violence, but because they show how far it can go. The response must not be limited to safeguarding those who already hold the highest positions. The democratic test will be whether a woman starting her public trajectory can speak, dissent, and compete without technology becoming a weapon to shield aggressors seeking to silence her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital gender-based violence seeks to silence women in public life and threatens the quality of democracies; therefore, combating it requires a joint response from institutions and digital platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":60118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17029,16998],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-60153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-redes-sociales-es-en","category-genero-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60158,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60153\/revisions\/60158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60153"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=60153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}