In 2020, 20-year-old R. Thivya Nayagi was found dead at her family home. She is believed to have died by suicide after she was bullied online for a TikTok video she filmed with a colleague.
As the tragedy of R. Thivya demonstrates, women are still at risk of violence online. Although there is no official data on gender-based violence cases in Malaysia, the women’s group, All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) believes online sexual harassment is on the rise.
The most common forms of technology-facilitated violence include sexist or misogynistic online comments, gender-based online hate speech, online harassment and threat of sexual violence, online stalking, doxing, unsolicited nude images and distribution of non-consensual sexual explicit content.
