Meta has announced new safety initiatives aimed at protecting Indian women, as well as the appointment of two Indians to a worldwide committee of independent experts who assist the company on formulating rules and programmes to better support women on its applications.
Karuna Nain, head of global safety policy at Meta Platforms, said the firm is on target to spend more than $5 billion on safety and security this year while introducing the projects.
"We are constantly looking at our policies, pressure testing them, making sure they are responsive as norms are changing around the world. For woman safety, we have policies around hate speech, bullying and harassment, non-consensual intimate imagery, and sexual exploitation of adults," she added.
StopNCII.org, a portal run by the UK Revenge Porn Helpline and designed by Meta, was launched globally to combat and prevent the transmission of non-consensual intimate photographs (NCII). StopNCII.org expands on Meta's NCII Pilot, an emergency programme that allows potential victims to preemptively hash their intimate photographs so they can't be spread on its platforms, in collaboration with the UK Revenge Porn Helpline.
For the effort in India, the platform has worked with organisations including Social Media Matters, Centre for Social Research, and Red Dot Foundation.
Meta also stated that the Women's Safety Hub programme, which has been launched in Hindi and 11 other Indian languages, will allow more female users in India to gain access to knowledge about tools and resources that will allow them to have a safe social media experience.
The first Indian members of Meta's Global Women's Safety Expert Advisors group are Bishakha Datta, executive editor of Point of View, and Jyoti Vadehra, head of media and communications at the Centre for Social Research. Twelve other non-profit leaders, activists, and academic professionals from around the world make up the group.
According to Nain, India is a key market for the company, and adding Datta and Vadehra to the advisory group will help the company's efforts to make its platforms safer for women in India.
"At Meta, building a safe online experience has been a priority and our commitment and efforts to keep women safe are industry leading. While we continue to build and invest to ensure online safety, the launch of these initiatives today is another step towards our commitment," said Nain.
"We are confident that with our ever-growing safety measures, women will be able to enjoy a social experience which will enable them to learn, engage and grow without any challenges," she added.
