By Lea Hellmueller
Publication Date: 2025-12-17 17:34:00
The age of AI-powered online violence is no longer upon us. It has arrived. And it is changing the threat landscape for women working in the public sector around the world.
Our newly released report commissioned by UN Women provides the first, urgent evidence that generative AI is already being used to silence and harass women, whose voices are critical to preserving democracy.
These include journalists exposing corruption, activists mobilizing voters, and human rights defenders on the front lines halting democratic backsliding.
Based on a global survey of human rights defenders, activists, journalists and other public communicators from 119 countries, our research shows the extent to which generative AI is being weaponized to produce abusive content – in a variety of forms – at scale.
We surveyed 641 women in five languages (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish). The surveys were distributed via the trusted…