Fb launches partnership with Egypt to guard ladies from cyber harassment

Jan 2, 2021

CAIRO — Fb introduced on Dec. 17 a partnership and cooperation initiative with Egypt’s Nationwide Council for Ladies (NCW) to unfold consciousness concerning the safety of girls on the large social media platform.

The initiative, titled “Ladies’s Security Assets,” contains using on-line materials resembling GIFs, cartoons and movies in a bid to boost consciousness amongst feminine customers on easy methods to handle and alter their Fb privateness settings and block anybody who engages in violence towards ladies.

Maya Morsy, NCW head, stated in a Dec. 17 assertion on her Fb web page that the council focuses on preventing violence towards ladies in all varieties, including that social media has change into a method to apply “violence in its numerous varieties resembling harassment, bullying and blackmail, amongst others. The partnership [with Facebook] goals to unfold consciousness amongst ladies on easy methods to defend themselves from all of the types of violence practiced towards them via Fb.”

Morsy harassed the significance of such partnerships to make sure ladies’s safety whereas utilizing Fb and to boost consciousness about the significance of privateness settings.

“Additionally it is crucial for ladies to train their rights to manage the state of affairs when they’re confronted with any type of on-line violence. We’re engaged on spreading consciousness on easy methods to activate these [settings],” she added.

“The security of all customers is necessary to us at Fb, and we’re dedicated to offering instruments and assets designed to maintain all customers secure and to working repeatedly to develop them to help pleasing experiences in a continually altering digital atmosphere. The partnership with the NCW in Egypt would enable us to achieve and work together with a variety of girls,” Joelle Awad, coverage applications supervisor at Fb within the Center East and North Africa, stated in a press assertion.

“The Fb administration is dedicated to supporting and enabling people all over the world to speak through our platform in a secure means, the place the management energy is within the customers’ arms. They get to determine what to share and with whom to share. That is the imaginative and prescient via which we are going to proceed our work,” Awad added. 

The NCW had beforehand launched a number of consciousness campaigns on social media to fight cyber violence and cybercrimes towards ladies, in cooperation with numerous native and worldwide companions, in a bid to unfold consciousness on methods to stop damaging practices on the web, improve using security and safety applications, along with studying concerning the out there help companies.

Naswhi al-Deeb, an Egyptian member of parliament, instructed Al-Monitor, “The partnership signed between NCW and Fb is an efficient [step], particularly in mild of the various and unacceptable harassment and inhumane violations that girls face on Fb. The platform has change into a digital world by itself and should have a set of legal guidelines and rules governing it.”

Deeb believes that some Fb customers haven’t any restrictions and ethics on-line, and the existence of such a partnership between the 2 sides would create ethical restraint for a number of the customers, particularly because the safety of girls needs to be a precedence on social networking websites, notably on Fb, the place ladies continually face harassment and violence. She added that this partnership is seen as a brand new outlook for utilizing all out there instruments to guard ladies from every kind of violence and harassment throughout the digital world, particularly Fb.

Ahmed Arafa, director of the digital advertising agency Di Median Firm, instructed Al-Monitor, “The partnership between the NCW and Fb is a good suggestion as it will likely be within the curiosity of girls’s rights, stopping some individuals from violating their privateness and freedoms on their Fb pages via a buddy request or private message to ladies.”

He believes the partnership permits the reporting of an individual or web page making an attempt to harass Fb feminine customers and violate their privateness, which might immediate authorized measures by the Fb administration. Arafa defined that this advantages society and protects ladies from any violation of their privateness, since what has been happening on-line quantities to ethical collapse, whereas this partnership would defend ladies towards any encroachment on their private freedoms and would supply them with safety whereas utilizing Fb.