Gendered Disinformation: The War on Women and Gender Minorities

By Naurah Khurshid

A woman tries to escape an abusive marriage, but her husband threatens to circulate doctored images and videos of her on social media in order to blackmail her into staying. He has easy, practically free, access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that are able to generate very believable images and videos. Once out, this content can potentially ruin the woman’s life. This is not merely an imaginary scenario for hundreds of women who are targeted by social media disinformation campaigns that have a devastating impact on their lives, future and mental health. In a conservative society like Pakistan’s, doctored images can lead to women being killed in the name of ‘honour.’^[1] Women are typically blamed for trusting intimate partners with their private pictures in cases where men blackmail women with, often doctored, images. With the latest AI capabilities, very realistic images and videos can be created by superimposing faces on bodies. It takes as little as a woman rejecting a man’s advances, for him to threaten making her fake pictures viral. Once an image is on social media, it gets seen, shared and reshared thousands of times before it gets reported or taken down. By the time any action is taken, or the victim even realises that they are the target of a disinformation campaign, the damage is already done. We will never know the true scale of this issue because the vast majority of the cases remain unreported. In 2023, the Federal Investigation Agency received 1200 complaints related to ‘deepfakes’ and only 12 were investigated.^[2] ‘Deepfakes’ are pictures, videos or audio clips generated by artificial intelligence to look real.^[3] These are used to impersonate people in order to mislead or spread disinformation. According to research, deepfakes are predominantly used to create pornographic material and target women.^[4]

Politicians

Pakistani women from all walks of life, and with varying levels of privilege,  have experienced targeted attacks on social media. In January, UAE President Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived in Pakistan for a private visit and was received by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz. The Chief Minister’s handshake with the President went viral on social media, with many criticising her for it and an opposition political party worker calling it a “hand hug” on X. The tweet was liked 7400 times and retweeted 2700 times.^[5] Not only was the actual picture circulated by opposition party supporters with sexist and misogynistic comments, several deepfake photos and videos of the Chief Minister also went viral on social media.^[6] In these pictures, the actual photo was manipulated to look like Maryam Nawaz was hugging the President.

Screenshot from X

It is not extraordinary for political opposition to take sexist jibes at women politicians, and social media websites such as X and Facebook provide a platform for targeted disinformation campaigns. Even after being alerted that the information they are sharing is fake, politicians and journalists refuse to take down such posts. If the Chief Minister of Punjab, who is also the niece of the sitting Prime Minister of Pakistan, and arguably the most powerful woman in Pakistan, can be targeted with deepfakes that went viral within minutes, what hope do ordinary women and girls have in Pakistan? The Federal Investigation Agency  (FIA) was able to arrest the people responsible for creating fake content targeting Maryam Nawaz, however, are perpetrators who commit similar crimes dealt with this expeditiously? Other prominent women politicians have also been targeted regularly, including ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, PTI politician Zartaj Gul, and Punjab’s Information Minister Azma Bukhari. The picture in which Zartaj Gul seems to be hugging fellow colleague, Ali Muhammad Khan, was liked 29,100 times on Facebook and shared 12000 times.^[7]

Targeted disinformation campaigns and online abuse have a serious impact on the nature of political discourse in the country, in addition to causing significant mental distress to the victims. Azma Bukhari, whose face was superimposed on a sexualised picture of an Indian actress, said she was “depressed” and went “quiet for days.”^[8] There are plenty of factors that dissuade women from taking on leading roles in public life without them having to deal with the burden of being victimised and endangered by deepfakes.

Activists

Every year after Aurat March in Pakistan, where hundreds of women, girls, men and transgender people march to demand their fundamental rights and protest against the violence they face in their daily lives, doctored images and disinformation campaigns start making rounds on social media. Every year, people participating in these marches are forced to deactivate their social media accounts out of fear of being physically harmed due to false allegations of blasphemy and holding ‘vulgar’ placards. Scores of women and girls are given rape and death threats for merely stepping out of their homes to demand respect and equality in a deeply unequal society. YouTube channels with millions of subscribers use clickbait titles, altered images, and false accusations to make their anti-feminist content viral.^[9] Journalists, analysts and vloggers know that blasphemy allegations in Pakistan can get someone lynched, yet they do not even think twice before putting up fabricated content for their millions of followers.

The transgender community is also at the receiving end of transphobic vitriol and online abuse, which results in very real consequences to their safety. Maria Butt, the owner of fashion brand Maria.B., has been a vocal opponent of transgender rights and feminist activists. In one of her posts on X, she claimed that the Aurat March receives funding from abroad and is against Pakistan’s cultural and religious ideals. She called the transgender  community “Qom e Lut” insinuating that they are a cursed community.^[10] She, like many others on social media, has a history of spreading disinformation about a community that is already marginalised and endangered in Pakistan. Transgender activist Shahzadi Rai, who has been targeted by Maria Butt in her X posts, has faced numerous threats to her safety and continues to be harassed online and in real life.^[11] The transphobic narrative that transgender people are men pretending to be women, corrupting the youth of the country and assaulting young children, makes a marginalised community more vulnerable to mob violence, sexual and physical assault, and acid attacks.

Screenshot from X

Journalists

In February, renowned journalist Munizae Jahangir invited families of victims of false blasphemy allegations. These young individuals, currently in jail, were trapped and blackmailed for money. Following her show, an organised campaign was launched on X accusing Jahangir of supporting people convicted of blasphemy. Despite vocal support from fellow journalists, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) associated lawyers and social media accounts persisted in repeating these allegations, calling Munizae Jahangir and her deceased mother, renowned lawyer and activist Asma Jahangir, supporters of “Qadianis.”^[12] Anyone familiar with the history of blasphemy allegations and mob lynchings in Pakistan knows how serious a threat this is to a person’s life. This pattern is similar to the one seen in smear campaigns against feminist activists. When besmirching a woman’s character is not enough, social media disinformation and abuse gets elevated to a level where it is sure to cause physical harm to the victim.

Women journalists have suffered organised disinformation campaigns on social media for a long time and have openly talked about how the abuse they receive is more vicious as compared to their male colleagues, and often threatens their safety. Women journalists are accused of biased reporting if a political party does not like or agree with what is being reported. This results in a barrage of abuse and rape threats on social media, including circulating women’s private or doctored images.^[13] According to a report published by Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD) in 2020, 93% of women journalists who did not self censor were vulnerable to online violence, 45% self-censored due to threats of physical harm, and 65% due to fear of online harassment.^[14]

Screenshot from X

Screenshot from X

Government and social media platform responsibility

Social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube and Instagram all claim to have a policy against misinformation, deepfakes, and online abuse. According to X rules, users “may not share abusive content, engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.”^[15] It has rules against sharing manipulated media and hateful conduct based on gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. And yet, according to research, social media is rife with fake news, WhatsApp in particular playing a major role in spreading disinformation in Pakistan.^[16] Messages shared on WhatsApp contain links to social media websites such as Twitter and YouTube, making these platforms sources of disinformation and false news.^[17] Furthermore, since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, it has withdrawn from the European Union’s code of practice on disinformation under the Digital Services Act.^[18] The code is a voluntary effort by major social media platforms to counter disinformation and commit to more transparency with regards to political advertisements. Earlier this year, Meta also announced that it is doing away with fact checkers and replacing them with community notes. Media manipulated for “entertainment purposes”, opinion posts and ads by politicians are amongst the content that will not be fact checked.^[19] This is done ostensibly in order to respect freedom of speech. However, hate speech directed towards women and gender minorities is very often cloaked in the right to free speech, and AI generated pictures of women celebrities are used more as a means to harass them rather than harmless entertainment. Even if the social media platform deems a post to be objectionable enough to take it down, it has already been reshared thousands of times across different platforms. In a country like Pakistan where only one manipulated picture can result in someone’s death, the issue of targeted disinformation is too big to look away from. Posts on X that were accusing Munizae Jahangir of supporting blasphemy have not been taken down despite heavy opposition by the journalist community.

At a time when social media companies need to reaffirm their commitment to countering hate speech and misleading information due to the growth of AI, billionaires who own these companies are heading in the opposite direction. They are reducing their control over the content that is shared on their platforms. Furthermore, fact checking mechanisms need to account for different languages. Posts targeting women and gender minorities  written in Urdu or other regional languages bypass the website’s algorithms. According to a webinar conducted by Uks Research Centre in 2024, abusive posts targeting women are written in Urdu and use romanised script to bypass social media filters.^[20] Transgender activists have voiced their dissatisfaction over the response of Facebook and X to abusive content targeting them despite reporting these posts numerous times.^[21] On X, for example, whenever politically motivated misogynistic content is posted with a hashtag, it goes viral and starts showing up more often than other posts.

Pakistan passed the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) in 2016 as a means to counter online crimes including cyber stalking, hate speech, creating and spreading deepfakes, etc. by imposing a punishment of a jail term and/or a fine.^[22] The FIA, responsible for investigating these crimes, has a dismal record when it comes to addressing these crimes. Only a fraction of reported cases are investigated and even fewer result in arrests or trial. According to first-hand accounts, the FIA is incompetent at ensuring objectionable content is taken down and pressures victims into pardoning the perpetrators.^[23][24] Moreover, digital rights activists have raised concerns over PECA being used to silence journalists and political dissent rather than curbing electronic crime. Earlier this year PECA was amended expeditiously without any consultation from digital rights bodies, introducing penalties for spreading fake news and giving absolute authority to the government to determine what constitutes misinformation based on a vague criteria.^[25] Human rights activists and journalists fear that the government, which has used PECA before to target freedom of expression and penalise journalists for doing their jobs, will continue to clamp down on free speech and dissent with even more impunity. In the past, the Pakistani government has used the law to detain journalists for criticising the government and the military online.^[26] Therefore, by all accounts, laws that claim to protect Pakistanis against cyber-crime are used instead to target and silence journalists and the state’s critics.

In order to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology and the ensuing threat to women and gender minorities, it is pivotal for social media platforms and the government to do their job and ensure that the internet is a safe space for everyone. Rights organisations must continue to put pressure on social media platforms like Meta and X to moderate content and make their disinformation policies more effective. It should be the platform’s responsibility that fake and abusive content does not get viral and get as much visibility as it currently gets. Reporting mechanisms should be faster and more effective. Social media fact checkers and content moderators should collaborate with local organisations and communities to ensure that their regulation tools extend to content in local languages as well.

The government must acknowledge the urgency of digital literacy especially amongst women and the transgender community. It should work with digital rights activists to start awareness campaigns regarding online safety and reporting of cyber-crime. Furthermore, the FIA must be held accountable for their ineffective investigation of complaints. Women and gender minorities should have confidence that if they have been a victim of cyber-crime they will not be blamed for it and the process of getting justice will not be tedious and in vain. Officials dealing with such complaints must be adept at navigating the internet and should receive sensitivity training.

Effective and powerful legislation is the only way that victims of disinformation campaigns can get justice and such crimes can be deterred. Laws like PECA must fulfil their purpose instead of being tools for the state to spread tyranny against journalists and dissenters.  If the government is sincere about protecting women and gender minorities against the easily accessible AI generated content and disinformation campaigns then it should take digital rights activists and local communities on board while formulating or amending laws. Government functionaries should extend vocal support to women and transgender people, who are so often the target of online disinformation and bullying, rather than only expressing outrage over what they deem anti-state propaganda.

[1] “Pakistan Police Investigate Killing of Woman Over Social Media Photo”, Mushtaq Ali, Reuter. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-police-investigate-killing-woman-over-social-media-photo-2023-11-27/

[2] “Rights: Deepfakes and the Pakistani Woman,” Kinza Shakeel, Dawn.  https://www.dawn.com/news/1820489

[3] “Deepfake technology,” BBC.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/69009887

[4] “What are deepfakes and how can you spot them,” Ian Sample, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-you-spot-them

[5] Shahbaz Gill on X. https://x.com/search?q=from%3ASHABAZGIL%20hand%20hug&src=typed_query

[6] Soch Fact Check, Ayesha Mirza.  https://www.sochfactcheck.com/ai-generated-videos-of-maryam-nawaz-with-uae-president-go-viral-on-social-media/

[7] Soch Fact Check, Anisa Shabir. https://www.sochfactcheck.com/video-of-zartal-gul-hugging-ali-mohammad-khan-is-ai-generated/

[8] France24. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241203-deepfakes-weaponised-to-target-pakistan-s-women-leaders

[9] “Misinformation on YouTube,” Amel Ghani. https://mediamatters.pk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2-Misinformation-on-YouTube.pdf

[10] Maria Butt on X. https://x.com/RealMariaButt/status/1890740178437710095

[11] “Suspect sent to prison for harassing trans rights activist,” Naeem Sahoutara, Dawn https://www.dawn.com/news/1742930

[12] “Blasphemy Laws Misuse.” https://voicepk.net/2025/02/blasphemy-law-misuse-no-one-is-safe-from-ire-of-extremists/

[13] “Online Attacks Against Women Journalists,” Kiran Nazish.  https://www.womeninjournalism.org/testimonies/online-attacks-against-women-journalists

[14] Aroosa Shaukat, Waqas Naeem, “Women Journalists and the Double Bind,” https://digitalrightsmonitor.pk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Women-Journalists-and-the-Double-Bind.pdf

[15] “Rules and Policies”, X. https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-rules

[16] Digital Rights Foundation, “Sifting Truth from Lies,” https://nhrf.no/assets/images/Policy-brief-fake-news.pdf

[17] Haroon D, Arif H,et al, “ Misinformation Dissemination on Social Media in Pakistan,” 2021, https://europepmc.org/article/PPR/PPR362212

[18] Cynthia Kroet, Euronews.  https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/02/13/online-platforms-disinformation-code-going-formal-but-x-is-out

[19] Meta Business Help Centre. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/315131736305613?id=673052479947730

[20] “Popular social media..”, The News, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1246105-popular-social-media-services-urged-to-adopt-safety-system-against-online-anti-women-abusein-urdu-punjabi.

[21] “Gendered Disinformation,” DRF. https://staging-m.digitalrightsfoundation.pk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DRF-Case-Study-GD-SA.pdf

[22] PECA, 2016. https://na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/679255ee36f45_595.pdf

[23] Hija Kamran, Meher Ahmad.  https://restofworld.org/2021/pakistans-revenge-porn-law-is-stronger-than-most-for-one-woman-that-made-no-difference/

[24] “Gendered Disinformation,” DRF. https://staging-m.digitalrightsfoundation.pk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DRF-Case-Study-GD-SA.pdf

[25] International Federation of Journalists.  https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/pakistan-peca-amendments-further-tighten-government-grip-on-digital-expression

[26] Asad Hashim. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/2/pakistans-new-regulations-aim-to-silence-the