by Clíodhna Purdue, Assistant Director of Media Literacy and User Education, Coimisiún na Meán
Ofcom’s consultation on how to make life online safer for women and girls started in February 2025 and called for inputs into its practical guidance for tech companies. As part of this consultation process, a focus group took place in Belfast on 8 May. Three representatives from Coimisiún na Meán attended in order to learn more and to share insights.
A safer life online for women and girls: Practical guidance for tech companies
Using a safety by design approach, this 60-page report outlines practical steps or actions that platforms can take in order to make life online safer for women and girls. They ask platforms to consider nine actions. Within each action, there are mandatory steps platforms need to take to comply with the Online Safety Act – the UK equivalent of the Irish Online Safety Code. This guidance takes one step further and, under each action, suggests additional ‘best practice’ steps platforms can choose to undertake voluntarily.
The guidance divides the nine actions into three stages to ensure platforms take responsibility for keeping women and child safe online. For example, it suggests platforms appoint a point of contact to look after gender-based harms. It also looks at preventing harm; an example could be creating stronger settings by default which allow users to disable comments and be reminded of privacy settings.
The final three actions look at empowerment and ask platforms to give women and girls more control over what they see. Examples include making sure that reporting illegal or harmful content is easy to do and that appropriate action takes place if/when reports are made.
Read the full report here
