Andrew TateAn American-British media personality who has become notorious for controversial videos. He has been charged with rape and human trafficking. has been under house arrest in RomaniaA southeastern European country with a population of 19 million. for weeks. His alleged victims now number 35 women, including one who was just 15.¹

Yet still he posts every day to his millions of followers, brags about his exploits, publicises his "university" for people who want to make money. Thanks to the online world, his influence is unabated.

Now BBC PanoramaA British current affairs programme, first broadcast in 1953. has spoken to two women who say they were raped by Tate 10 years ago, long before his rise to fame.

One alleges that Tate invited her back to his flat after a date, strangled her, and then assaulted her. He is said to have later sent her voice notes and texts boasting about what he had done.²

She reported Tate to the police but after five years, the Crown Prosecution ServiceThe agency that prosecutes people in criminal trials after they have been investigated by the police. decided that it did not have enough evidence to bring charges. Figures show that only about 2.6% of rapes recorded by police in England and Wales ever result in charges.³

Another woman says Tate strangled her until she blacked out during a sexual encounter and continued even though she was unconscious.

Panorama also spoke to women who worked for Tate's webcam business in Romania. They say Tate and his brother, who is also facing charges, imposed strict rules on the women they employed and monitored almost everything they did.

The Panorama documentary comes just after the world was shaken by a similar story in France. Dominique Pelicot spent years drugging his wife, Gisele, and then inviting men to assault her.⁴

What unites these two cases is the men's use of the internet to come up with new kinds of abuse.

In Romania, Tate is accused of using the "loverboy" method to groom women. He would pretend to be in relationships with them, then exploit their trust to force them to perform sexual acts for online videos.

Prosecutors say the internet gave him a way to make more than £1 million from exploiting women.⁵

Pelicot, meanwhile, is believed to have frequented online forums where men fantasise about non-consensual sexual activity and used them to find recruits to assault his wife.

These cases are shocking in their scale, but they are not outliers. The use of the internet to brutalise women is on the rise. One study found one in 12 people has suffered explicit images of them being circulated online without their consent, and 90% of the victims are women.⁶

In most of these cases a full name was attached to the content in question, and in almost half their social media information was attached, leaving the victim open to further violence in the form of harassment and stalking.

Some also believe the internet is fuelling violence against women. Studies show teenage boys who are exposed to explicit online content are much more likely to abuse women in their own lives. Surveys show strangling during sex has become commonplace among young people.⁷

But others say the internet is not only a source of harm for women. Online communities can give women advice and aid if they want to escape an abusive partner.

In 2017, the #MeToo movementA campaign against sexual harassment and abuse often committed by people in positions of power. The movement took off after allegations of sexual abuse were made against American film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017. spread most rapidly online, with women using the phrase as a hashtag on Twitter to expose their male abusers and bring their own stories to light.

Is the internet bad for women?

Yes: The internet warps men's minds to make them more violent against women, and gives them more tools to carry out that violence. It has become an engine of mass misogynyHatred of or discrimination against women. The term comes from the Ancient Greek "miso", meaning "hate", and "gyne", "woman"..

No: Unfortunately, male violence against women is nothing new. The internet certainly did not invent it. It gives women ways of talking about their experiences, organising and fighting for justice.

Or... The internet is simply the medium through which we now live our lives. Like the rest of society, it is shot through with sexism. But like the rest of society, we can change that if we put in the work.