access

The Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 focused their discussions on the links between access and power. In this article Shaikh Rafia Sarwar examines how access is linked to women's empowerment and particularly their economic empowerment. And whether the debate around access should focus on economic, cultural and social empowerment of women through and outside technology, rather than ensuring access to…

Africa is flooded with zero rating services such as Free Basics (Facebook’s zero rating scheme) and other subsidised data strategies. Do these schemes make internet more affordable and bring access to more people? In this column Chenai Chair examines whether ordinary people perceive such schemes as useful.

The coming of the digital age and of information technology promises that those 'left out' or excluded from development will be to access their rights and enjoy a higher standard of living. But what is the truth for African women - are the experiences of all 'marginal' women being lumped together and how far away is the promise of equal access and gender equity.

In this column, Chenai Chair explores motivations of internet use through the ResearchICT Africa study in Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Business, local and global communication, social ties, and curiosity seem to be the main motivators. By understanding why people go online, we can better shape interventions for a connected society.

In this column series, Chenai Chair explores the barriers to accessing the internet in four countries in Africa - Rwanda, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. The study in particular looks at the impact of affordability of internet and subsidised data services, and what impact this has on people in different locations (countries, urban-rural), of different genders, and so on. In the first column,…

The introduction of OTT services that replace regular messaging applications in built into a phone, definitely has an impact on internet use. OTT services have become the main entry point to the Internet for most users in the prepaid mobile environment that characterises most African markets. This comparative country study, based on focus groups conducted in November 2016 in Kenya, Nigeria,…

Not being able to connect online has geopolitical and infrastructural dimensions. On the one hand, we face the challenge to defend internet as a common good, beyond the claws of Capitalism and Patriarchy; on the other hand, we encounter the possibility of creating and engaging in other landscapes. Bringing to life places (though sometimes ephemeral) like the Feminist Internet Exchange FixHub in…

A feminist internet works towards empowering more women and queer persons – in all our diversities – to fully enjoy our rights, engage in pleasure and play, and dismantle patriarchy. This integrates our different realities, contexts and specificities – including age, disabilities, sexualities, gender identities and expressions, socioeconomic locations, political and religious beliefs, ethnic…

A feminist internet can mean many things, it means that everyone has affordable, unconditional, open, meaningful and equal access to the internet; it means acknowledging that attacks, threats, intimidation, and policing experienced by women and queers is real, harmful, and alarming; it means that the right to free expression for women and queers; and it includes principles on access, movements…

Access is a right. In June this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution that condemns "measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online" and affirmed that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online." But what does access really mean? How important is it to women, especially to marginalized women?