Meta, National Commission for Women (NCW) partner Farhan Akhtar's MARD to boost for women safety online

Meta and the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Wednesday partnered with actor Farhan Akhtar's MARD (Men against Rape and Discrimination), to announce the launch of a reporting campaign "Don't Hesitate, Do Report, Stay Safe" to improve the online safety of women.

The campaign will focus on increasing awareness and knowledge around tools and resources available to users to report online abuse, inappropriate content, or behaviour.

The campaign has been launched in English along with five regional languages — Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and Tamil. It will help raise awareness amongst users on reporting the content that they find objectionable rather than sharing it further.

"With Don't Hesitate, Do Report, Stay Safe' we are confident we will be able to encourage more people to report online harms they see against women and partner with us in creating an empowering experience for women across Facebook and Instagram," said Madhu Singh Sirohi, Head of Policy Programmes and Outreach, Facebook India (Meta), in a statement.

Meta has also been a long-standing partner for the NCW on driving digital literacy initiatives including an online resource centre to deal with topics like cyberbullying, cyberstalking and financial frauds and training to effectively use online resources and grievance redressal mechanisms available to women.

"To ensure greater safety of women on online platforms, users need to be sensitised on how to safely report problematic content. We are furthering our efforts today with the launch of this campaign to encourage more and more users to come forward and help stop online abuse faced by women each day,a said Rekha Sharma, NCW Chairperson.

Built in consultation with various leading civil society organisations in India, the campaign also aims to bust existing myths such as "if I report nothing will happen" or "If I report, it will not stay anonymous".

Further, the campaign will help users understand that when they report content they are in control of their experience on Facebook and Instagram.

"It is important to raise your voice against online abuse and reporting content, which will help combat different forms of harassment," added Farhan Akhtar, Director, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador South Asia and Founder MARD Initiative.

Meta has always made efforts in creating an internet which is safer and inclusive for women. Last year, Meta launched StopNCII.org that empowers women across the world to combat and prevent the spread of non-consensual intimate images (NCII).

Meta also launched a Safety Hub for Women in English and 12 Indian languages that hosts all the safety resources women need when navigating the platform. (IANS)

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