From agency to accountability: aligning caring masculinity with digital regulation

News & insights
February 13, 2026
Aferdita Bytyqi
By -

On 11th February, Aferdita Bytyqi, DTH-Lab’s Executive Director, attended a fireside chat hosted by Giga, where Safe Online and Equimundo shared their new collaboration on Caring Online Spaces. In this blog she explores why ‘caring masculinity’ resonates with her both personally and professionally.  

When I was invited to the fireside chat launching Caring Online Spaces: a new framework for boys and men, I welcomed the opportunity to learn, listen and collaborate. As the mother of a son and daughter, and a health policy practitioner, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the conversations we’re having about boys sit at the intersection of gender equality, digital governance and public health. 

The event opened a debate on how to mainstream caring online spaces – moving beyond safety to build a framework for platforms defined by care and pro-social connection. The collaboration between Safe Online and Equimundo – one of seven action tracks within the MenCare Changemaker Journey – centres on a simple but powerful idea: caring masculinity. Not asking boys and men to lose power, but to gain the agency to live their full humanity.

Growing up digitally and the need for governance

Growing up digitally and the need for governance

Eighteen years ago, when my son was born, public debate focused largely on screen time: how long children were online, how to limit it and how to supervise it. That framing is no longer adequate. Growing up digital is no longer optional. Participation in social, educational and professional life requires existing within algorithmically structured environments. What once felt like a parallel universe is now social infrastructure.

From a digital determinants of health perspective, this has clear governance implications. Platforms, algorithms and data practices shape exposure to norms, risks, belonging and opportunity. They influence what is amplified, rewarded and normalized. These effects are not accidental; they are the product of design choices, commercial incentives and regulatory boundaries.

Our work at DTH-Lab shows that digital systems actively structure health and social outcomes. Adolescent mental health, identity formation and gender norms are shaped within platform environments. The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030 (the precursor to DTH-Lab) similarly identified growing up digital as a central determinant of health.

If digital systems function as social infrastructure, then governance must treat them as such.

Misogyny, alienation and predictable outcomes

Misogyny, alienation and predictable outcomes

Today, millions of boys go online seeking connection, belonging and purpose. But all too often they find themselves in spaces designed to exploit loneliness, confusion and resentment – spaces where equality is framed as a zero-sum project. 

Against this backdrop, we have seen the rise in online misogyny and the growing alienation of men and boys. 

DTH-Lab’s research(see related reading material below) and related evidence highlight several structural drivers: algorithmic amplification that rewards outrage, grievance and polarisation: platform architectures that prioritise attention and virality over reflection or care; unmoderated peer-driven environments where boys and young men encounter gendered content during key developmental periods; and fragmented, weak or reactive governance focused on content-removal rather than prevention. 

This is not a failure of individual boys. It is a failure of system design and oversight.

Aligning regulation with digital determinants of health

Aligning regulation with digital determinants of health

Encouragingly, many regulatory frameworks are beginning to recognise this new digital reality. 

The UK’s Online Safety approach, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and emerging duty-of-care models all move beyond content moderation towards systemic risk governance. They acknowledge that platform design and algorithmic amplification can generate foreseeable harms, particularly for children and adolescents.

The challenge now is implementation.

If digital environments function as social infrastructure, then platforms must be held to explicit duties of care that include gender-based and identity-based harms. This means requiring platforms to proactively identify and mitigate risks linked to misogyny, radicalisation and grievance-driven content, rather than responding only after harm has occurred.

Under the DSA’s systemic risk provisions, very large online platforms must assess and address risks to fundamental rights, public health and societal cohesion. A digital determinants of health lens sharpens this further by making mental health, gender norms and social belonging visible as measurable outcomes, particularly for boys and young men navigating identity formation online.

Similarly, the UK Online Safety regime’s focus on safety by design creates space to ask harder questions about algorithmic incentives: what kinds of masculinity are being promoted, rewarded or normalized by recommender systems? What forms of care, empathy or cooperation are systematically deprioritized?

From safety to caring

From safety to caring

Mandatory algorithmic risk assessments should include gender and health impact dimensions, be independently audited and evolve as systems change. This aligns with DTH-Lab’s findings that digital harms are best understood and prevented as systemic risks, not isolated failures of individual behaviour.

Within this regulatory context, caring masculinity is not a soft or abstract aspiration. It is a policy-relevant outcome. Supporting boys’ agency, emotional well-being and capacity for care depends on digital environments that do not structurally reward hostility, dominance or exclusion.

As both a policy practitioner and a parent, one thing is clear: we cannot place responsibility for navigating algorithmic systems on children, families or schools alone. Agency must be supported through governance, through regulatory frameworks that translate duty of care into enforceable design, accountability and prevention obligations.

Further reading

Click on the links below to read the reports:
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References

As Executive Director of DTH-Lab, I'm driving forward the recommendations of the Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030 — bridging digital literacy, health literacy and civic engagement to empower communities and ensure young people thrive in a digital world. I am passionate about operationalizing innovative governance models to advance equity, protect communities and drive meaningful health outcomes in the digital transformations for health.  From building multistakeholder partnerships to co-creating solutions with young people, I work to strengthen health systems, protect digital health rights and foster sustainable, inclusive digital health ecosystems.  

My career spans over 25 years, spearheading international research, development, and regeneration initiatives on behalf of multilateral and bilateral agencies, as well as private donors. My previous professional roles include ICS Integrare, MBM, FAO, WHO and the Senior Coordinator of the Lancet and Financial Times Commission.

I am a DTH-Lab Founding Member and member of the Steering Committee; Member of the Advisory Board: “Health literacy of adolescents in Switzerland in an increasingly digital society” by the Swiss National Science Foundation and Member of the OECD Expert Group on AI in Health . I have a Dipl. Ing in Architecture and an M.Sc. in Urban Design in Development from UCL.

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