1. Bodily autonomy
Bodily autonomy is the ability to freely make decisions regarding one’s own body and life, without coercion or violence (1).
2. Deepfakes
Deepfakes are fake photos, videos or audio that depict a real person doing or saying something that they did not do or say, created using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including generative AI (2, 3).
3. Gendered violence
Gendered violence is any form of physical or non-physical violence or abuse enacted against a person or group of people because of their sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
4. Generative artificial intelligence
‘Generative artificial intelligence’ (generative AI) is a term used to describe models of AI software that produce ‘novel content such as text, images, audio, video and code in response to prompts’ (4 p. 3).
5. Image autonomy
‘Image autonomy’ is a term coined by CEO of Body Safety Australia Deanne Carson in 2018 (5). Image autonomy is defined as the right of an individual to make informed decisions about participating in a photo or video, having informed consent about how their image may be used or altered, and how it may be shared. Image autonomy is a strengths-based approach to taking, creating, altering and sharing images, which recognises children’s agency, right to participation and respect for the rights of others.
6. Image-based harm
This term is used throughout the report to describe harmful sexual behaviours, gendered violence or other types of abuse that are enacted by taking, artificially generating, and sharing or threatening to share images of a person or people. This term also captures the consequences and ill-effects for those whose images are taken, created and shared. We use this term to refer to harms enacted against both children and adults.
7. Manosphere
The manosphere refers to diverse websites, social media accounts, chat forums and other online communities formed as backlash to the perceived threat of feminism, feminists and women (or people of any gender who are seen to disrupt rigid gender norms and ideas of ‘natural’ patriarchal power). The manosphere can include spaces where issues such as men’s health and wellbeing are discussed, but these may include or overlap with forums where participants’ resentments or sense of disenfranchisement are aired in ways that promote or feed into male supremacist and misogynistic views (6-9).
8. Primary prevention
Primary prevention seeks to stop family violence, violence against women and other forms of gendered violence from occurring in the first place by addressing their underlying drivers. This requires changing the social conditions that give rise to this violence; reforming the institutions and systems that excuse, justify or promote it; and shifting the power imbalances, social norms, practices and structures that maintain it (10 p. 6).
9. Recommender systems (social media algorithms)
Recommender systems, or content creation systems, are ‘systems that prioritise content or make personalised content suggestions to users of online services’ such as social media sites (11 p. 3). These systems rely on complex algorithms that employ machine learning to process large amounts of user data and feed users content tailored to their perceived interests. Colloquially, they are often referred to as simply ‘the algorithm’ or ‘social media algorithms’.
10. Respectful relationships education
Respectful relationships education (RRE) is a core component of the Victorian Curriculum and of primary prevention of gendered violence. RRE takes a whole-school approach to modelling respect, consent and equitable relationships, and teaching children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence. RRE within schools has been identified as an important component of primary prevention of gendered violence within national primary prevention framework Change the story (12) and the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032 (13).
11. Technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviours (TA-HSBs)
Harmful sexual behaviours are sexual behaviours exhibited by children and young people under the age of 18 that are inappropriate for a young person’s age or stage of development, or that are sexually exploitative or harmful. When these behaviours occur in a digital setting, they are referred to as online or technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviours (14).