hate speech

What does a feminist approach to the internet mean? What difference does approaching the internet as a feminist make? How is our political activity changed by cyber activism? While meditating on political participation at the hashtag #imagineafeministinternet, Florencia Goldsman shares some thoughts about these constructs in progress.

This report highlights the harmful effects hate speech and hate crime have on society. Research shows that the presence of hate speech leads to more hate speech, and that the result is exclusion and polarisation. The report is based on research and experience from civil society, the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud’s advisory work as well as our dialogue and cooperation with key…

Feminism is a political statement, and more importantly political practice, way of thinking, understanding and public articulation of practically every issue of life. Feminism as such would be able to manage, animate and even more importantly took part in the defining and coding of virtual space.

Civil society organisations, engineers, activists, lawyers, companies and governments gathered in Manila on 24-25 March to address the subject of the internet and human rights in this rapidly evolving region, in an effort to protect the open internet and defend the digital rights of its users. APC and members organised several panels were violence against women online and survivor's access to…

How do you challenge existing inequalities by speaking up? When you voice your thoughts, do you face threats and abuse? How is violence used to disrupt solidarity and collective action where you are? How do you fight back? This year's Take Back the Tech! campaign invites you to help us reframe the conversation about violence against women as a violation of our fundamental human right to freedom…

Within days of her highly visible and publicised speech, Emma Watson became the subject and target of violence. The threat and reality of using women’s sexualised bodies as weapons to humiliate, shut them up or blackmail them into submission is an increasingly prevalent expression of violence against women online. Jac sm Kee, APC´s Women´s Rights Programme manager shares her insight on the…

I’d bet my internet that one of your first experiences with the digital social had something to do with sex. Unsolicited nudity arriving in your inbox? Hundreds of sex-related IRC channels that popped up while you searched for your local radio chatroom? Pop-ups spiraling out of control on Internet Explorer? Or maybe you went looking for it in a Lycos search. Or maybe you built a geocities site…

In March 2013 Sitawa Wafula appeared as a guest on Kenya Television Network (KTN) where she shared how she had survived rape as a teenager, and her ongoing struggle with bi-polar disorder and epilepsy. An excerpt of her interview was shared on KTN’s Facebook page and to the horror of Sitawa, her friends and family, she received approximately 514 negative comments.

People Links is a monthly online gathering hosted by May First/People Link members, for members and open to the public. On 27 March they hosted a discussion on technology-related violence against women and the tensions that exist between combating hate speech and the right to freedom of expression. The discussion featured Erika Smith from the APC Women's Rights Programme (WRP).

This is the first in a series of posts reporting on the Global Meeting on Gender, Sexuality and the Internet held in Port Dickson, Malaysia from April 13 to 17, 2014, to envision a feminist internet and to evolve a framework for it. Around 50 activists working on gender rights, sexual rights and internet rights in different parts of the world had come together for the meeting.