When your ex unleashes AI: Kenya's new gender violence weapon
An experienced content creator awoke one morning to find fake pornographic images of herself circulating on a Facebook page with a massive following.
What you need to know:
- A content creator's horrifying discovery of her AI-generated fake nudes on Facebook reveals a growing crisis of TFGBV in the country, where 50 percent of women victims know their perpetrators personally.
- A 2024 study shows women face significantly higher rates of digital stalking, defamation, and sexual harassment compared to men.
- Despite these attacks reaching millions through social media, over 70 percent of users ignore rather than report such abuse.
An experienced content creator awoke one morning to find fake pornographic images of herself circulating on a Facebook page with a massive following. This was just the beginning.
"This also happened on X (Twitter then), with a page dedicated to tearing me to shreds," the content creator recounted her harrowing experience in a 2024 study by Nendo, a research and marketing agency based in Kenya that investigated the impact of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in the country.
The study sampled 100 social media users, including 60 women and 40 men.
Researchers established that women respondents reported significantly more experiences of TFGBV than their male counterparts. Certain forms of TFGBV, such as stalking, defamation, and sexual harassment, were found to be more frequently experienced by women compared to men, who primarily encountered online harassment and hate speech.
Sadly, 50 percent of women who experienced TFGBV reported that it came from a perpetrator known to them, such as an ex-partner, friend, classmate, family member, online acquaintance, or authority figure in a work or school setting. In contrast, only 29 percent of men reported similar experiences.
These findings significantly affected how social media users interacted with social media platforms.
The study revealed that online harassment not only undermines careers but also has a heavy toll on mental health, self-confidence, and financial independence of the victims, most of whom are women.
"I experienced a lack of confidence to the point where I couldn't find the courage to start my new business because I was afraid of what people would say if it didn't turn out well. There was a time I couldn't get out of bed for weeks; my mum had to come in and help me with my two-month-old. I had completely fallen apart. The world had a narrative, and I didn't know how to handle it," shared another experienced content creator.
"Today, I am 35; this happened over seven years ago, and I'm still constantly trying to harden and heal myself. I'm still trying to make some money from content creation and create a space for women to grow because I love to see women win and flourish," she added.
Francis Gikaru, a data scientist at Nendo and one of the authors of the report, noted that OpenAI is currently one of the three most visited websites in the country, an indicator of how extensive artificial intelligence (AI) has become in Kenya.
OpenAI is the company that developed and owns ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that can understand and generate natural language text.
He clarifies the connection of AI in relation to TFGBV.
"Technology-facilitated gender-based violence encompasses all forms of digital manipulation and digital communication of gender-based violence or forms of abuse. AI is a subset of technology-facilitated gender-based violence," he explains.
He identifies X (formerly Twitter) as a social media site where TFGBV is most prevalent.
"An individual can have a Twitter account that is completely run by a bot and can be used for all malicious purposes," he says.
"Our study reveals that platforms like X, Instagram, and TikTok have witnessed a significant rise in the use of masked profiles to create AI-generated images and manipulate individuals' appearances for the purpose of defamation."
He notes that X does not have the same level of content moderation as TikTok.
"TikTok has a better moderation style than X," he points out.
However, he states that the high prevalence of TFGBV is seasonal, noting that it peaks during heightened public activity, such as political rallies and Gen Z protests.
To raise awareness about ending TFGBV, he mentions that the organisation has previously run an online campaign titled 'Stop Scrolling and Report,' reaching at least six million individuals.
The campaign encouraged social media users to avoid technology facilitating gender-based violence and demonstrated what reporting such cases would look like instead of ignoring them.
He emphasises that more than 70 percent of individuals would ignore rather than report instances of TFGBV.
"Even if it is for a stranger, don't let posts sit unreported if they contain content about gender-based violence and forms of abuse," he urges.
