New Ofcom VAWG guidance is welcome, but more is needed to tackle online abuse

Today (25th November 2025) online regulator Ofcom has published its highly anticipated Violence Against Women and Girls Guidance for tech platforms, brought in after a successful campaign by the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Glitch, and supported by a coalition of experts.

Today’s guidance has been introduced three years after the government made a commitment in the Online Safety Act. In its original format, this legislation did not mention women or girls once.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) is pleased to see this guidance published today. This guidance is urgent not only due to the devastating impact of this abuse, but the chilling effect it has on women and girls’ freedom of expression online in our everyday lives.

We will be reviewing the guidance in detail to assess its response to growing threats, including the prevalence and accessibility of increasingly violent porn, which is shaping attitudes to sex and consent, and contributing to dangerous behaviours like strangulation.

We also expect to see the guidance address how profit-seeking algorithms serve harmful content to those who are not necessarily looking for it, and how this content influences men and boys’ attitudes towards women and girls.

Guidance must be made a mandatory Code of Practice 

However, we remain concerned that as a voluntary set of guidelines it will not have the teeth of a mandatory code of practice with strong consequences for non-compliance. Ultimately, we want to see this guidance made a mandatory Code of Practice like those in place for child sexual abuse and terrorism, which have strong consequences for platforms that fail to comply.

If this guidance is to meet its goal of preventing violence against women and girls online, it must be bolder. Earlier this year, we submitted evidence to Ofcom calling for stronger interventions rooted in prevention and safety by design, greater transparency and accountability from tech platforms, and an upgrade of the guidance to a statutory Code of Practice, to ensure it is enforceable and taken seriously by the tech industry.

This is work that cannot be allowed to stagnate as the online environment continues to evolve and produce new ways to harm women and girls – from the metaverse, to surveillance and spyware – Ofcom needs to keep pace with this.

Responding to the guidance, Andrea Simon, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“We welcome this guidance and urge tech companies to take it seriously regarding where recommendations can and should be introduced. An online world where women and girls are safe and free to express themselves is better for everyone.

The guidance deals with behaviour linked to serious criminal offending such as when a perpetrator is using technology to stalk or control someone or share non-consensual intimate images of them. Ofcom will suggest tech firms take action such as using automated technology (hash-matching) to detect and remove intimate image abuse material, but we are concerned that there is no guarantee that tech platforms will follow these guidelines because it is not mandatory to do so.

Ultimately, until tech platforms are made to fix the problem they won’t. We are concerned this guidance doesn’t have teeth, and multi-billion dollar tech platforms will be able to continue facilitating, promoting and profiting from misogyny and abuse. 

Ofcom will not report on the progress that has or hasn’t been made as a result of this guidance until summer 2027. In another two years, many thousands more women and girls will experience preventable harm online while we wait for tech platforms to choose to do this work.

In addition to this guidance, there is more the government must do to address online abuse. We continue to call for better civil law routes to redress and accountability for survivors, and quality relationships and sex education relevant to the digital age, including media literacy education for young people. The government should also create an avenue by which survivors can report when they have been failed by platforms, and an ombuds-role which can champion individuals. Over 72k members of the public support these calls.”

ENDS