From an architecture of harm to an architecture of safety: How can the law tackle digital misogyny?

The harm caused by digital misogyny has a deep impact across society. It shapes how women and girls are treated in relationships, workplaces and communities, fuelling harassment, sexual abuse and violence while silencing women in public life.

But what happens when the digital platforms we use every day are designed in ways that amplify misogyny and allow those creating and housing it to profit?

Equality Now’s latest report, The architecture of harm: Mapping the digital pathways to violence against women and girls, examines how platform design, recommendation algorithms and commercial incentives contribute to gender-based harm. Building on our work on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), including legal analysis of deepfakes and doxxing, the research explores what governments and regulators can do to prevent these harms and strengthen accountability.

How digital platforms amplify and profit from misogyny

Misogyny is not confined to isolated or fringe online communities. Male supremacist narratives reach audiences across mainstream digital platforms, countries, languages and demographics, often through content that initially appears unrelated to gender-based violence.

Our research highlights how boys and young men can be directed towards violent and male supremacist content within just 26 minutes of joining a platform. Searches for seemingly harmless topics, including fitness, dating and financial advice, can become pathways to increasingly extreme narratives.

These systems are also profitable. Just ten previously banned accounts reinstated on X were estimated to have the potential to generate US$19 million annually in advertising revenue for the platform.

This reveals a fundamental problem: the spread of misogyny is not simply a matter of individual users posting harmful content. Recommendation algorithms and commercial incentives can actively amplify these narratives, making the design and governance of digital platforms central to preventing harm.

Male supremacist ideologies have also been linked to other forms of violent extremism, with anti-rights movements using digital content to reach and recruit young men. Yet misogyny must be recognised as a serious harm in its own right, rather than addressed only when it is connected to other forms of extremism.

What does the evidence tell us about the harms?

The consequences extend beyond individual experiences of online harassment.

Artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for abuse. Generative AI enables the creation of non-consensual sexualised deepfakes, while AI-driven recommendation systems can amplify male supremacist narratives and direct audiences towards increasingly extreme content. These developments expose gaps in existing legal and regulatory protections.

Misogyny undermines women’s rights and democratic participation. Gendered harassment and disinformation can silence women in public life, discourage participation and weaken support for gender equality and human rights. The normalisation of misogynistic language in digital spaces also contributes to an environment in which abuse and discrimination become more acceptable.

The harms are not experienced equally. Women and girls facing intersecting forms of discrimination, alongside LGBTQI+ communities and gender-diverse people, may experience disproportionate targeting. Effective responses must recognise these differences rather than treating digital violence as a uniform experience.

Together, these findings point to a significant regulatory challenge. Laws that address individual acts of abuse cannot, on their own, tackle the technologies, platform design and financial incentives that allow misogyny to spread.

From an architecture of harm to an architecture of safety

Governments cannot rely on technology companies to regulate themselves, particularly when commercial incentives can conflict with users’ safety and fundamental rights.

Effective legal responses must move beyond removing harmful content after it appears. They must address the systems that enable misogyny to spread, while protecting freedom of expression, privacy and other human rights.

Our research identifies four interconnected priorities for governments and regulators.

1. Recognise the full continuum of harm

Legal and policy frameworks must recognise the connections between online harassment, sexual violence, domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence.

Treating these harms as isolated incidents risks overlooking how misogynistic narratives and behaviours can escalate across digital and offline spaces. A more comprehensive approach would help governments strengthen prevention and ensure that legal protections reflect the different ways women and girls experience violence.

1. Make safety a requirement of technology design

Online safety cannot depend solely on reactive content moderation or voluntary commitments from technology companies.

Governments should introduce enforceable requirements for algorithmic transparency, measures to prevent the monetisation of misogynistic content and obligations for technology companies to assess and prevent harm throughout the life cycle of their products.

Independent, adequately resourced regulators are essential to enforcing these requirements and ensuring that oversight remains consistent with international human rights law and standards.

3. Strengthen coordination across legal and institutional systems

Misogyny intersects with violence against women, digital governance and violent extremism, yet the institutions responsible for addressing these issues often operate separately.

More effective responses require shared definitions, appropriate referral pathways and stronger coordination between relevant legal and regulatory frameworks. These approaches must also safeguard fundamental rights and ensure that responses to digital harms do not create new risks.

4. Invest in prevention before violence occurs

Legal reform must be accompanied by education and community-based interventions that address the conditions allowing misogynistic narratives to take hold.

Helping young people recognise harmful narratives, challenge grievance-based recruitment and resist the normalisation of violence is an important part of preventing harm before it escalates.

What can governments learn from existing approaches?

The challenges identified in The architecture of harm are also reflected in Equality Now’s recent policy work on online safety regulation and access to justice.

In the UK, our brief Beyond guidance: Making the Online Safety Act work for women and girls examines the limitations of voluntary online safety guidance. Although the Online Safety Act has prompted improvements in children’s online safety, comparable progress for women remains difficult to demonstrate. The analysis highlights the importance of enforceable duties, stronger oversight of platform design and accessible remedies for survivors.

Across Africa, Access to remedy for technology-facilitated gender-based violence in Africa, developed through the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), examines the challenges survivors face when digital violence crosses borders, institutions and languages. It identifies opportunities to strengthen coordinated reporting pathways, culturally and linguistically inclusive platform mechanisms and regional cooperation on digital evidence and survivor protection.

Together, these resources demonstrate why effective responses require both stronger regulation of technology companies and justice systems capable of providing accessible, survivor-centred remedies.

Building safer digital spaces through law and accountability

Preventing misogyny and technology-facilitated gender-based violence requires more than responding to individual incidents or removing harmful content.

Governments must address the underlying systems that amplify misogyny, enable its monetisation and allow gender-based harm to spread. This means combining enforceable safety requirements, independent regulatory oversight, coordinated legal responses and sustained investment in prevention.

The goal is not simply to make digital spaces less harmful after abuse occurs, but to create an architecture of safety in which technology companies are accountable for the risks their products create and the rights of women and girls are protected from the outset.