take back the tech!

"As part of my research, I found it important to not just study and document such instances of misogynistic violence in online spaces but also instances of activism, of resistance, of solidarity," states Sujatha Subramanian in this great article that tracks back the path she walked to write "From the streets to the web: Looking at feminist activism on social media".

In late 2014 the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) began publishing findings from our seven-country End Violence research project, which included an analysis of Twitter's reporting procedures. Case studies that involved abuse on Twitter and steps the company could take to improve the safety of their platform. Around the same time, the US organisation Women, Action and the Media (…

Does social media enable forming networks of solidarity between different marginalised groups? Is there a space for non-normative discourses such as the discourse on pleasure? Does digital technology aid in the construction of feminist counter-publics? These are some of the questions explored in this paper. Power relations that operate through social media, including forms of gendered and…

Among over 4,800 submissions, APC’s Take Back the Tech! campaign was recognised with the prestigious award The Bobs in the People’s Choice for English category.

This report was produced at the request of Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!). From November 6–26 2014, WAM! took in reports of Twitter-based harassment, assessed them, and escalated reports as necessary to Twitter for special attention. This document presents fidings from this three-week project; it draws on both quantitative and qualitative methods.

In the last couple of years, I have found myself getting angry often. Working for social justice means seeing, analysing, and talking about injustice a lot. It's important to expose injustice and be exposed to it, and I'll get to that later, but it's also hard sometimes to hold your anger about all that's unfair and ugly in the world. I would get so angry sometimes I felt like smashing things,…

After four years working as an advocate of sexual and reproductive rights, Lorena M., had already gathered quite an experience for the type of insults that could come across her path in meetings and public events. But she never thought her life would get dangerously complicated when anonymous hands hacked the defenders’ network site and began receiving insults and threats of all kinds in her e-…

In this GenderIT.org edition, our collaborators take a moment to reflect and celebrate. They celebrate the great Take Back the Tech! campaign developed in late 2014 that for 16 days brought together women from around the world to reclaim their right to expression online. They also reflect on the first load of findings from the “End violence: Women’s rights and safety online” project research…

If you know how to use the technology, you can avoid becoming a victim. Before speaking out, it is important to take your time to understand the way the internet works.

I've been trying to interview women and girls for the documentation action that Take Back the Tech! announced. I've found it's more difficult than I anticipated, so I wanted to explore the reasons why because I think they are directly related to the theme of freedom of expression.