Have you heard about the new Women’s Safety Hub on Facebook?

It has been announced that Facebook has pulled together its own team of female experts to help combat women’s safety on Facebook. The social media platform have stated that they believe women should have equal access to all economic opportunity, education and social connections that the internet provides. They’ve taken a comprehensive approach to making their platform a safer place for women. These security changes are applicable to Facebook business pages and groups.

Found on gov.uk the Home Secretary has noted that there are increasing reports of abuse and extreme sexism surfacing in the use of online forums, social media platforms and newer apps.

The hub hopes to be a place for all security resources that will help keep women safe from online abuse. These resources include tools such as comment control, keyword blockers, video on demand training and new procedures to help the public remove inappropriate content.

Amnesty.org has listed some of the main issues that are created from the online harassment of women on social media; apprehension using the internet, a sense of powerlessness and feeling a threat to physical safety. They gathered their statistics from an online survey comprised of women aged between 18-55 in eight different countries.

As Facebook is the biggest social media platform with over 2.85 billion users, it is vital that they take the lead in keeping women safe online.