censorship

It’s been a great month for cyber-feminism. The #FBrape campaign succeeded in changing the social network giant’s policies on violence against women in record time. The global alarm over the NSA surveillance scandal created mass awareness over privacy and access to personal data. And Instagram launched hipster filters for videos. Perhaps not as breakthrough, but definitely encouraging of more…

Has the internet become an indispensable tool for feminist and LGBTQI advocacy? How savvy are sexual rights activists in handling the legal and technical issues that come along when they use the internet? How do they negotiate online threats and restrictions? Activists from around the world addressed these and other questions through a global online survey on sexual rights work and the internet.

Filed in April 2013, a legal petition that calls for a ban on pornography on account of its linkage to sexual violence in India has raised several eyebrows and debates within the country. This piece written by Richa Kaul Padte explores the context for this proposed legislation, the social and legal cultures in which it sits, and its implications for internet censorship within India.

A recent survey of sexual rights activists in India shows that most consider the internet an integral part of their activism. Tangled, Like Wool explores several intertwined questions arising from this: What does the internet bring to sexual rights activism? Do the online and the offline complement each other in this kind of activism? How does keeping the internet free and open strengthen…

This article by Kamilia Manaf and Ni Loh Gusti Madewanti describes how the discourse on sexuality in Indonesia is becoming more political and part of the public sphere due to the impact of the reformations begun in 1998. However, while the internet has provided a space for the advancement of sexual rights in Indonesia, discrimination and violence against LGBT groups and women in Indonesia that…

Last month a coalition of women's organisations led a campaign to hold Facebook accountable for its content policy. In particular, how it deals with hateful speech and representations of gender-based violence shared by its users. In response, freedom of expression advocates have expressed concern and criticism over the precedent set by demands for Facebook to remove hateful content from its site…

On May 21 more than a hundred organisations lead by "Women, Action…

The discourse of censorship is well-known to most people, as India’s right-wing moral brigades routinely flock to the streets to prevent everything from item numbers in Bollywood films to sex education posters in trains to the greeting-card shop Archies (for its ‘promotion’ of Valentine’s Day) from going ahead. But what does this mean for freedom of speech and expression in the country? And more…

Since November 22, when I made a password error, Facebook has restricted me from certain features for 30 days. Highly inconvenient because I am admin of several groups and pages (mostly related to peace and human rights). Each I try to take any of the above actions, I get a note saying I have been blocked from certain features because I may have violated community standards. Like which ones?

In India, the largest democracy on Earth, 21-year old girl Shaheen Dhada was arrested for posting a status update on Facebook questioning the complete shutdown of cities for Bal Thackeray’s (rightwing leader notorious for inciting religious hatred and violence) funeral on Sunday, 18th November. Her friend Renu Srinivas was also arrested for “liking” the update which reportedly read: "People like…