ICTs and Women’s Political Participation

British MP Jess Phillips describing the online attacks she has received from Elon Musk in recent days as “very, very, very tiring” will have struck a chord with many women. Powerful men trying to silence women happens so often that it rarely makes news.

From the United States to Italy, Britain, and Pakistan, female politicians are increasingly becoming victims of AI-generated deepfake pornography or sexualised images, in a troubling trend that researchers say threatens women’s participation in public life.

An online boom in non-consensual deepfakes is outpacing efforts to regulate the technology globally, experts say, with a proliferation of cheap artificial intelligence tools including photo apps digitally undressing women.

A new report has found that women in Congress are 70 times more likely to be targeted by deepfakes than men, often with sexually explicit images created by AI.

The American Sunlight Project (ASP) found that out of over 35,000 images of politicians, 26 different people have been exposed to non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII).

Out of these, 25 were women. Strikingly, one in six congress women have fallen victim to non-consensual imagery.

More than two dozen members of Congress have been the victims of sexually explicit deepfakes — and an overwhelming majority of those impacted are women, according to a new study that spotlights the stark gender disparity in this technology and the evolving risks for women’s participation in politics and other forms of civic engagement.