The online world has become a minefield of harassment for women who work on behalf of others in the public eye, a new study finds.
A collaborative effort between UN Women and data forensics company The Nerve, the 2026 study involved pouring over survey responses from 641 women from nearly 120 countries, all of whom publicly work to protect human rights, engage in visible forms of activism, and report on such topics for media organizations. Through this, researchers found that rates of online harassment are continually rising – just over 40% of respondents spoke of unsolicited, often sexually charged direct messages, emails and more from strangers.
But there is another growing threat in the mix: Generative AI. The digital tool has become an increasingly powerful one for online harassers, with many using it to create so-called “deepfake” images of publicly known women, falsely depicting them nude or engaging in sexual acts – none of which were made with their consent. As of 2025, 12% of the women polled reported the nonconsensual creation and sharing of such imagery of themselves.
It’s not about sex, researchers add – it’s about power. “For women human rights defenders and activists, journalists and … other public communicators, online violence is often deliberate and coordinated, aiming to silence them while undermining their professional credibility and personal reputations,” the team behind the study wrote in the report.
And to a certain extent, it’s working. Of the women polled, nearly half (41%) say that they self-censor when speaking or posting publicly in order to avoid suffering further abuse. The women journalists were particularly prone to rethinking or editing their words in order to avoid harassment, with 45% of them admitting to doing so.
The mental health of publicly active women is suffering, too. Nearly a quarter of respondents (24.4%) report being diagnosed with anxiety or depression, and 12.8% are suffering with PTSD.
“AI is making abuse easier and more damaging, and this is fueling the erosion of hard-won rights in a context marked by democratic backsliding and networked misogyny,” Kalliopi Mingerou, UN Women’s Chief of the Ending Violence Against Women Section, said in a press release on the study. “Our responsibility is to ensure that systems, laws and platforms respond with the urgency this crisis demands.”
But as a 2025 study found, such institutional protections are hard to find. Fewer than 40% of countries in the world have laws in place that protect people against online harassment and violence, leaving nearly 2 billion women and girls legally unprotected.
Leaders and laypeople alike need to engage in creating and implementing solutions to this problem – with everything from policy prescriptions to social consequences for perpetrators on the table – lest we perpetuate a “vicious circle,” Mingerou added.
