By: Laraib Farhat
The author leads the Policy and Govt. Affairs Department at Pakistan IT Industry Association and contributes her opinionated articles both nationally and internationally.
When the notification flashed “You have a match!” on Zoya Shah’s phone, it felt like a small victory. Thirty-one, Karachi-born and newly posted to Islamabad for a policy fellowship, she had promised herself she would meet new people instead of letting work swallow her evenings. The cardiologist’s profile; Stephen, Denver-trained, loves mountaineering—turned into an animated chat about music and K2.
What Zoya could not know was that Stephen Matthews had already been reported for assault; twice. Hinge’s safety team had flagged him but never forced him off the platform. Zoya had entered a digital city whose zoning laws favoured the powerful; the danger tape was invisible.
Later that night, relaxing with Spotify, the algorithm served her a podcast coaching men to “level up” by “pimping hoes.” A quick search revealed 155,000 people had begged Spotify to remove it; the stream was still live in Pakistan.
Scrolling to finish a memo on women’s political participation, she saw Punjab minister Azma Bukhari tearfully denying a viral sex tape—another deepfake designed to ruin a career before dawn.
Three taps and one search had mapped the modern landscape of tech-facilitated gender-based violence. No broken glass, no sirens, just code doing what its architects optimised it to do: maximise time-on-screen, externalise harm with no safety measures.
Now, that we have established how does the tech-landscape for women look like, let’s break it down;
Swipe Left on Safety: Dating Apps as paradise for predators
Platforms like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and Grindr are often celebrated for facilitating modern relationships. Still, their failure to address rampant abuse has turned them into a paradise for predators, especially for women and the LGBTQI+ community. One of the most disturbing cases is that of Dr. Stephen Matthews, a Denver-based cardiologist, who reported on Hinge for sexual assault as early as 2020, remained active on the app for years, despite multiple warnings. He was convicted on 35 counts, with investigations revealing that Hinge’s parent company had prior knowledge but failed to act.
Streaming Misogyny: How Spotify Boosted a Predator’s Mic
In a world where content moderation is supposedly a priority, Spotify’s laissez-faire approach to misogyny hits differently. In March 2025, it took 155,094 signatures and weeks of outrage via a petition initiated by a non profit called Collective Shout for the platform to finally remove Andrew Tate’s podcast, charmingly titled “Pimping Hoes,” after a Guardian investigation revealed it was rife with dehumanizing rhetoric and calls for the exploitation of women.
Deepfakes as Political Weapons Against Women in Pakistan
Deepfake pornography has become a potent tool of TFGBV, disproportionately targeting women in public life. In Pakistan, it’s increasingly used to shame and silence female politicians and activists. In late 2023, Punjab Information Minister Azma Bukhari and PTI activist Sanam Javed were both targeted in deepfake smear campaigns. In conservative societies, the professional and personal fallout is especially severe, echoing a growing global crisis.
Fixing the Glitch: What Must Change Now
Systemic change demands shared responsibility. Governments, tech platforms, and men must step up to build safer digital spaces. Here’s what each must do to confront harm, redistribute power, and reimagine digital safety:
Rewriting the Rules: What Platforms Must Confront
The violence didn’t begin in the chatbot’s flirtation or the algorithm’s indifference. It began long before that—in the quiet architecture of power that shaped these systems. In Meta’s decision to dismantle its U.S. fact-checking program, we see more than a policy shift—we see the codification of convenience over accountability. In the erasure of human oversight, we see an industry betting on chaos because chaos clicks. But what are platforms if not the new architects of public space? And if these spaces are designed to extract attention, not ensure dignity, then the violence they enable is not accidental—it is structural. When a Meta chatbot can engage in sexually suggestive roleplay with a child, and the system doesn’t flag it until journalists run tests for months, this is not a failure of technology; it is a failure of will. When a dating app like Hinge allows a serial rapist to remain active despite years of reports from survivors, it’s not because the system didn’t know—it’s because it didn’t care. Because safety isn’t what gets VC funding. Platforms don’t need better tools. They need better imaginations. An imagination that sees fact-checking not as a liability but as civic infrastructure. That views content moderation not as censorship, but as harm prevention. That treats the safety of girls, queer youth, and gender minorities not as niche features—but as foundational design principles. These systems weren’t broken—they worked exactly as they were built to.
Four Reforms Platforms Must Implement Now to not add to the already chaotic world:
- Reinstate Independent Fact-Checking as Core Infrastructure: Meta’s shift to “community notes” in place of professional fact-checking has already sparked backlash. Platforms must treat truth-telling as essential, not optional, and re-establish partnerships with credible, independent verification bodies.
- Prioritize Human Moderation for Sensitive and Harmful Content: Automated systems failed to detect chatbot grooming risks until reporters exposed it. Algorithms cannot be the sole gatekeepers of safety. Human-led, trauma-informed moderation must be resourced and embedded at scale.
- Mandate Safety Protocols Across High-Risk Features Like Dating and AI Chatbots: Cases like Dr. Matthews on Hinge show that reporting systems are not just broken—they are often ignored. Platforms must introduce transparent accountability processes, conduct regular safety audits, and be legally required to act on user reports in a timely, verifiable way.
- Include Women, Girls, and LGBTQI+ People in Design and Governance: Digital safety cannot be achieved without structural inclusion. Platforms must ensure that women, girls, and LGBTQI+ people are meaningfully represented in programming teams, ethics committees, AI governance boards, and any decision-making spaces that shape digital infrastructure. Safety must not be something built for marginalized groups—it must be built with and by them. From writing code to reviewing content policies, their presence is essential to dismantling bias and creating systems that reflect a plurality of lived experiences.
And How Men Can Step In to Ensure Safe Digital Spaces
There is a quiet comfort in anonymity, especially when one is not the target. Digital safety feels natural for many men—because the system was never built to restrain them. But that comfort is privilege, not neutrality. Ignoring its cost means being complicit. Here are three ways men can help make digital spaces safer for women and gender minorities:
- Interrupt Harm—Even When It’s Familiar
- Disengage from Comfort, Embrace Responsibility
- Push for Structural Change and advocate for Ethical AI
As the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) reminds us, discrimination is often structural, not always visible, but always intentional in its impact. The same message is echoed in the WHO’s 2023 guidance on AI and sexual and reproductive health, which warns that AI systems, unless rooted in human rights, can deepen existing inequalities and reinforce injustice.
In short, Inclusive AI is not a moon-shot technology; it is a governance choice. When the next notification lights up someone’s phone, whether it’s a match, a podcast recommendation, or a trending video, the underlying code should carry the same civic responsibility as a streetlight on a busy road. Safety is infrastructure. Build it once, maintain it always, and every digital citizen, especially women and gender minorities, can walk the web in daylight.