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Gendered Insults in Urdu: Social Media’s Moderation Failing and its Effects

By Hamna Iqbal Baig

As technology develops, there is a chance for people, especially females, to use social media to promote their operate, promote their products, (AsianTube) develop areas, sell items, exchange tips, and showcase their job. People are left at the mercy of devices and systems that fail to protect them, which worsens with analytic biases, targeted intimidation, and poor restraint policies. There is, nonetheless, a drawback. Digital sexism, hate discourse, and mistreatment of women are increasingly becoming breeding basis for social media platforms.

Gendered Obscenities

The use of offensive and stereotyped obscenities is one of the biggest issues in Urdu and another local cultures. The bill appears to objective lawmakers Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Maryam Nawaz Sharif with this offensive word. 1, 683 individuals immediately followed a Instagram page with the name” Maryam promiscuous Bilawal lower moral character,” a derogatory term implying infidelity, frequently used to attack or sorrow women.

Other well-known words that can still be found on the program include ( Kanjari), which denotes a man with a low moral figure, and another highly offensive gendered insult in Urdu and Punjabi, which denigrates and insults women as well as, and a highly offensive epithet implying intercourse work that is frequently used to degrade and belittle women. Another obscene Hindi/Urdu epithet that means” sister-f***er” is considered a very insulting and cruel abuse in West Eastern cultures.

procedures of tolerance

According to Meta’s” Nasty Conduct” policy, it removes dehumanizing speech, major insults, slurs, and damaging stereotypes that have previously been used to attack or exclude particular groups, especially those connected to offline violence. But, exclusions are made for content that uses slurs in a self-referential or encouraging approach, or when shared to criticize or document dangerous speech, provided the author’s intention is evident. Additionally, it forbids emotions of hatred, contempt, and calls for discrimination or isolation based on protected traits.

Slurs are defined by Meta as words that create an atmosphere of isolation and harassment because of their connections to historic persecution, crime, and bias. This disparity in police makes it possible for cruel abuse to continue unchecked, leaving people susceptible to online abuse and tiny remedy. However, the presence of profiles that contain like terms, as well as the regular use of slurs in comments and captions, highlights how platforms like Facebook have failed to successfully average them or have been unwilling to do so.

On January 7, 2025, Meta made shifts to its content moderation policies, expanding the scope of permitted discourse under its cruel perform coverage, and making changes to its policies. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has criticized these changes and warned that diminished restraint may halt enforcement in 97 % of crucial regions, leading to 277 million further hazardous comments being created each year. Users can then publish articles that was earlier forbidden, such as mentioning women as household items or property.

Although material restraint rules exist for websites like TikTok and YouTube to guard girls from website misuse, their effectiveness is still a mystery.

The content moderation practices of TikTok include content that explicitly or implicitly attacks protected groups, leading to its possible exclusion from the For You Feed ( FYF ) and prohibits harassment, bullying, and bans hate speech hateful behavior. To assist customers maintain risky relations, the system offers tools like remark restrictions, duet/stitch limitations, and messaging controls.

Despite these guidelines, research indicates that sexist hashtags and gender-based abuse aimed at women, specifically female officials, have been common on the system. Before the 2022 US midterms primaries, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue discovered that adult lawmakers were targeted with misuse on TikTok and Instagram, which suggests TikTok’s material tolerance plans aren’t usually appropriately enforced.

Linguistic Gap

According to experts, there is a major verbal gap, which means that platforms ’ material moderation systems are mostly trained in dominating languages like English and refuse to successfully identify detrimental content in less widely spoken languages. Social media platforms struggle to take into account linguistic diversity, regional dialects, and cultural nuances beyond simple translation issues. In consequence, gendered abuse, hate speech, and slurs in Urdu and other regional languages frequently go unnoticed, and bad content persists on social media.

When covering a minority rights march in Turkey on August 11, 2024 for a Turkish digital news Urdu platform, journalist Ramna Saeed first-hand saw this. Some of the comments made about her personal appearance included accusations that she had spread ”propaganda.” After receiving a barrage of Punjabi and Urdu slurs, including the use of slurs and insults from supporters of a right-wing party, she faced a barrage of them on the outlet’s Facebook page, which contained details of what transpired during the march. The march, which was organized to honor Americans as National Minorities Day, attracted the support of right-wing parties and Islamist organizations.

She chose not to report the comments because she feared the language barrier would make her complaints ineffective despite the severity of the abuse. She requested instead that some of the abusive comments be removed from her organization. She laments that” South Asian languages have never been a priority for these platforms.” Despite the fact that there is a sizable user base in this region, one of the biggest challenges is that social media platforms fail to recognize and track their” their focus is on English” feature.

Saeed was forced to alter how she navigates digital spaces after being subjected to online abuse. However, after these incidents, I self-censored myself, made my accounts private, and became more cautious about who I keep or remove,” she said. My choice as a journalist should my profile be made public.

She was also affected by the experience, which made her reluctant to cover sensitive subjects like blasphemy, sexual and reproductive health, and minority rights. ” I have always been interested in video content, and the report that became popular was a video report. However, I’m now reluctant to do video stories and prefer writing, she explained, noting that video exposes a journalist’s face, making them more vulnerable to being targeted than a byline on a written piece.

A representative from the Pakistan-based Digital Rights Foundation ( DRF), a non-profit organization with roots in Pakistan, stated that social media platforms struggle to effectively moderate such content. The organization works to defend digital freedoms, advocate for online privacy, and combat cyberharahara. They frequently fail to understand cultural nuances despite constantly collecting keywords, languages, and hashtags. This effectively allows bad actors to circumvent content moderation systems.

They also fail to effectively moderate gendered slurs, not just in Urdu but even more so in regional languages. However, English is also a language with this problem. Challenges arise when they are embedded in audio, video, or images, even when they detect slurs,” the representative continued. Because platforms don’t invest enough resources, whether it’s human moderators or automated tools, to understand, flag, and remove such content, the issue is more acute in regional languages.

Sadaf Khan, co-founder of Media Matters for Democracy ( MMfD ), a former journalist and policy advocate with a focus on journalist safety, media ethics, and digital rights, believes that while there are content moderators at social media companies with local language expertise, significant gaps still exist. Although these tools can identify some problematic content, they struggle with a variety of formats, scripts, and spelling variations,” she said.” A limited number of moderators prevents a thorough review of content, which leaves many issues unresolved. The most important aspect of content moderation is that it is mostly automated and uses a variety of AI techniques.

Language is very contextual in the management of social media content because words and phrases can have varying meanings depending on culture, region, and intent. However, current moderation frameworks do not take into account these details, leading to a system that fails to effectively address local needs and challenges,” Khan said.” For instance, the term ”gayk” ( someone who is perceived as disobeying religious figures, sacred texts, or Islamic beliefs ) is problematic only in a Pakistan-specific context and does not necessarily need to be included in global content filtering.

Similar to gender, the term ”tawaif,” which was once used to describe courtesans skilled in classical music and dance, has evolved into a derogatory term frequently used against women on social media. Although its historical or artistic context does not necessarily make it offensive, Urdu’s modern usage highlights a trend where neutral or historical words have been transformed into gendered slurs. Other examples include badkaar-historically meaning ”wrongdoer,” but now a common insult insult targeting women’s morality, and badchalan-once, which means ”misbehaved” and is now used to shame women and imply promiscuity. These speech shifts emphasize how social media platforms fight to reasonable offensive speech, especially in non-English and culturally specific settings.

implication of AI

A major flaw in content moderation is the challenge posed by the rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) technology, which still struggles to keep up with effective moderation, aside from gendered slurs. Women are increasingly concerned about being targeted by AI-generated, controlled photos and deepfakes, especially reporters, lawmakers, activists, and influencers. These innovations are being used to solitude, torment, and disparage ladies. This frequently results in psychological problems, reputation injury, and even security risks.

These website strikes have real-world effects on some females, forcing them to leave their professions or enter common career. Phony accusations were made against my personality, and in some cases, actually wealth was demanded using my id. I personally addressed emails to my relatives, friends, and perhaps people who had known my relatives as enemies. She claimed that false balances were set up against me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Before becoming the destination of intense virtual abuse, she worked in the press business for two years. One of them is District Kurram blogger Shakria Ismail. The person liable altered my photos, merging them with incorrect photographs.

Her home endured a lot of pain for more than a quarter. We sent numerous messages to the anxious social media platforms, reported these fraudulent balances repeatedly to FIA, but we never received a answer, she explained. She claimed that the Federal Investigation Agency ( FIA ) did not take the situation seriously despite repeatedly contacting them. Meta, overly, failed to respond.

In the end, she was finally responsible for the consequences of this struggle. She said,” I can just read from my house right then.” She was more restricted by the affair, which likewise resulted in her compromise-based relationship and emergency. Her parents decided to extend her to their residence, successfully ending her profession in advertising.

Professionals say that if issues about AI-generated material are not effectively controlled because of the systems’ recent content moderation practices. They have a number of challenges when it comes to identifying and removing AI-generated deepfakes or exploited pictures that target girls.

First, they only have a limited number of identification options; instead, they rely on automated identification tools, which are immediately losing effectiveness as conceptual AI models become more sophisticated and stronger. These tools are necessary for extensive surveillance and editing, but they lack the detail required, specially in non-Western settings,” Khan said.

She added that sex is a complicated subject, and AI is doubtful to properly engage with it, especially when these ideas considerably differ from one context to the next. Because of the large variation in how risky or encouraging statement is categorized as online abuse, Iot monitoring systems are generally ineffective.

In two scenarios involving AI-generated explicit photographs of feminine people images on Instagram and Facebook where the software failed to uphold its own guidelines, The Oversight Board, an independent physique reviewing Meta’s content restraint decisions, is interesting.

The earliest case involved an AI-generated shirtless graphic that resembled an Hindu people figure, which remained on Instagram despite customer complaints. Afterward, Meta admitted its error and took it out for violating its abuse and intimidation coverage. Metameta first added a copy of the picture to its automated police structure and removed it. An AI-generated picture of a common figure in America being groped was posted in a Facebook group as part of the next scenario. Nonetheless, the review was mechanically closed when the image was posted once more and appealed.

The Board put a strong emphasis on the fact that non-consensual algorithmic close photos disproportionately harm people and should be strictly forbidden under a more strict” Non-Consensual Erotic Content” policy. It urged Meta to enhance investigating practices, refrain from relying on multimedia accounts to find breaches, and keep open pertains for genital maltreatment based on images.

How platforms identify what is considered dangerous is a key component of removing AI-generated articles. According to the representative of DRF,” It all depends on how these companies define what is harmful and what should be taken down, whether it’s AI-generated content, non-consensual sexual content (NCSC ) or non-consensual intimate images (NCII ).” Their guidelines for what constitutes delicate or close visuals and how it should be removed are established.

In a Muslim perspective, they claimed programs frequently need to be informed of what constitutes harmful information. In our society, perhaps half nude photos can be damaging. People in Pakistan are normally not exposed to their thighs or use bikinis. We must create these details understand the cultural environment and why such graphics, whether artificial or real, may be harmful to women, they said. These complexities don’t always meet within their current policies.

Trusted associates’ roles

When systems challenge to moderate content, particularly sexist slurs, AI adjustment, and abuse of women, trusted partners like the Digital Rights Foundation intervene. ” Platforms consistently turn to us for guidance,” the representative said,” and we actively flag bad actors, behaviors, keywords, and emerging trends to help them improve their moderation efforts.”

The DRF runs a Cyber Harassment Helpline, which is essential for facilitating communication between website abusers and social media users. We receive several instances of people being abused in general, as well as girls journalists, people protesters, and people of the transgender community who are being targeted for sexist obscenities, according to a DRF member. They frequently fail to comprehend the meaning of for speech or fail to consider its practical implications. We continuously report these insults to the programs, keep them informed of upcoming changes, and work to make them understand the context.

An mimic started posting material under Saeed’s brand invoking her support for a right-wing class and their philosophy after the website gender abuse incident, according to Saeed. She recalled that she came across it on a Sunday and panicked as I was crying. She reached out for assistance after recalling DRF from a education period she had attended.

DRF intervened and assisted her, but the entire procedure took four to five days because they had to take a plea to Meta, who next reviewed the case. They told me that because I am a girl columnist, my scenario was given priority, Saeed said. Given how easily apostasy claims can be fabricated in Pakistan, she emphasized how risky such disruptions may be. The consideration was finally deleted.

In response to a rise in sexist deception and hate speech aimed at the trans group, DRF has gone so far as to arrange a meeting between trans activists and social media platforms. ” Maybe, programs respond by removing information right away. We requested that they speak with the people who were affected instantly so they could realize the real-world repercussions of these insults, they said. Sometimes, before acting, they must read their legislation groups.

Although DRF’s efforts have resulted in some scheme adjustments and country-specific changes in material restraint, civil society may bear the brunt of this hardship. Channels may remain addressing this issue actively because” we can only do so much.” They must accept accountability for identifying gaps, comprehending details, and tracking the methods used by poor celebrities to bypass restraint.

Although Saeed is appreciative of organizations like DRF, she thinks that civil society organizations and Charities should be the ones who should take up the issue because it eventually falls under the purview of the government. She cited Pakistan’s architectural and management issues, which include the lack of awareness among politicians regarding the effects of their legislation.

In light of the depressing circumstances, more organizations that represent Pakistan internationally and collaborate with programs like Meta, X and others are needed to prevent editors like Saeed and Ismail from self-censoring themselves or leaving their jobs.

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