What is it about?
Young adults with HIV and key groups in Kenya face serious online harm, including bullying, blackmail, and having private information shared without consent. These attacks often target their HIV status or sexuality. Perpetrators include family, partners, and strangers. The harm causes emotional distress and social problems. Participants want better digital safety training, stronger data protection, and a fair justice system. Researchers suggest that online safety rules should recognize HIV status and sexual identity as key risk factors. They also argue that governments must take more responsibility for protection, rather than leaving individuals to defend themselves alone.
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Why is it important?
Unique: It shifts the focus of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) beyond the usual lens of gender-based violence to instead examine how HIV status, sexual orientation, and gender identity become specific targets of online harm. It also proposes a new, expanded definition of TFA that formally includes these factors—something the authors note is largely missing from existing research. Timely: The study comes at a moment when digital platforms are increasingly used for health access, yet data protection and justice systems in many countries (including Kenya) are still catching up. With ongoing debates about decriminalisation and digital rights in Africa, the paper offers urgent, real-world evidence to push for systemic legal and policy reforms—not just individual safety tips.
Perspectives
This paper brought together researchers, community leaders, and young Kenyans who trusted us with their stories. I hope this work makes digital safety feel less like an abstract policy issue and more like the real, urgent problem it is. Because online abuse doesn't just happen to "someone else"—it happens to people we know, people we love, and people who already face too much stigma. More than anything, I hope this article pushes us all to think differently about who is responsible for keeping us safe online.
John Macharia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Navigating technology-facilitated abuse: A participatory action research study with young adults living with HIV and key populations in Kenya, PLOS Global Public Health, August 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0007060.
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