The fight for a safer and more secure digital world is one that cannot be done alone; it requires partnership and collaboration. This is what our executive director, Agita Pasaribu, emphasized at her panel appearance in the 4th Annual Vital Voices Women’s Global Embassy Festival in Washington, D.C. on October 28.
Under the theme “Women at the Heart of Solutions,” the festival featured discussions on women’s health and economic security, the growing challenge of online violence, and the implications of rising authoritarianism for democracy, governance, and women’s leadership. Agita, who was inaugurated to the first cohort of Vital Voices’ Global Fellowship program, had the pleasant opportunity of sharing her experience founding and transforming Bullyid App. After supporting her friend who went through an online gender-based violence, Agita decided to start Bullyid App to help other victim-survivors.
Bullyid App’s impact didn’t just stop at providing legal and psychological counseling; we also contributed to the ratification of the Indonesian Crimes of Sexual Violence Law in 2022. Agita stressed that this achievement was not hers alone, but rather a culmination of years’ worth of advocacy and coalition work. Two years later, when she became a Vital Voices fellow, she realized that what Indonesians were experiencing was part of a global pattern.
With this realization in mind, Agita wished to expand Bullyid App’s reach to more users worldwide, not just in Indonesia, through various channels. “We want to help women targeted by deepfakes, non-consensual intimate imagery and coordinated online harassment reach trusted legal, psychological, platform and, where appropriate, law-enforcement support,” she explained.
She also hoped that her work in Bullyid App could protect and empower women leaders, who are more vulnerable to online attacks. While it is important for them to equip a response plan in case of abuse — such as using multi-factor authentication and limiting administrative access for their online accounts — they shouldn’t have to handle it all on their own. “A woman should not have to build an entire crisis-response system while she is already under attack,” Agita said. “Institutions must carry responsibility too. Political parties, newsrooms, technology companies, employers, and funders should already have protocols in place when women are abused.”
Through this event, Agita was able to not just introduce Bullyid App to a larger, global audience, but also encouraged women leaders to support one another in crises. After all, to combat online abuse, we are stronger in numbers.
About Bullyid App
Bullyid App is an Indonesian technology nonprofit operated by NMA Foundation providing survivor-centred legal, psychological and digital-safety support for people experiencing online harm and technology-facilitated gender-based violence. Our NCII Help Centre supports adults affected by the non-consensual sharing, threatened sharing or misuse of intimate images, including sextortion and image-based sexual abuse.
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