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http://www.genderit.org/articles/feminist-principles-internet
Feminist Principles of the Internet
By APC – 20 August 2014
Developed at the
Gender, Sexuality and the Internet Meeting organized by the Association for
Progressive Communications
13-15 April,
2014 – Malaysia - In April 2014, the Association for
Progressive Communications, APC, organized a Global Meeting on Gender,
Sexuality and the Internet in Port Dickson, Malaysia, bringing together 50
participants from six continents comprising gender and women’s rights
activists, LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and intersex) movements,
internet and technology rights organizations, and human rights advocates. The
goal of the meeting was to bridge the gap between feminist movements and
internet rights movements and look at intersections and strategic opportunities
to work together as allies and partners.
The existing
discourse around gender and the internet tends to focus on gender components
lacking in polices that govern the internet, violations that take place as a
result, and the need for increased women’s participation in decision-making
forums. In a bid to reframe the conversation, the Global Meeting used a
collaborative process to ask the question: ‘As feminists, what kind of internet
do we want, and what will it take for us to achieve it?’
#ImagineaFeministInternet
Over three days,
the participants discussed and debated intersections of gender, sexuality, and
the internet – not only as a tool – but as a new public space. In thinking
through these issues, the participants at the meeting developed a set of 15
feminist principles of the internet. These are designed to be an evolving
document that informs our work on gender and technology, as well as influences
our policy-making discussions when it comes to internet governance.
1. A feminist internet starts with and works towards empowering more women
and queer persons – in all our diversities – to dismantle patriarchy. This
includes universal, affordable, unfettered, unconditional and equal access
to the internet.
2. A feminist internet is an extension, reflection and continuum of our
movements and resistance in other spaces, public and private. Our agency
lies in us deciding as individuals and collectives what aspects of our lives to
politicize and/or publicize on the internet.
3. The internet is a transformative public and political space. It
facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim,
construct, and express our selves, genders, sexualities. This includes
connecting across territories, demanding accountability and transparency, and
significant opportunities for feminist movement-building.
4. Violence online and tech-related violence are part of the continuum
of gender-based violence. The misogynistic attacks, threats, intimidation, and
policing experienced by women and queers LGBTQI people is are real, harmful,
and alarming. It is our collective responsibility as different internet
stakeholders to prevent, respond to, and resist this violence.
5. There is a need to resist the religious right, along with other extremist
forces, and the state, in monopolizing their claim over morality in silencing
feminist voices at national and international levels. We must claim the power
of the internet to amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s
lived realities.
6. As feminist activists, we believe in challenging the patriarchal spaces
that currently control the internet and putting more feminists and queers
LGBTQI people at the decision-making tables. We believe in democratizing
the legislation and regulation of the internet as well as diffusing ownership
and power of global and local networks.
7. Feminist interrogation of the neoliberal capitalist logic that drives the
internet is critical to destabilize, dismantle, and create alternative forms of
economic power that are grounded on principles of the collective,
solidarity, and openness.
8. As feminist activists, we are politically committed to creating and
experimenting with technology utilizing open source tools and platforms.
Promoting, disseminating, and sharing knowledge about the use of such tools is
central to our praxis.
9. The internet’s role in enabling access to critical information – including
on health, pleasure, and risks – to communities, cultural expression, and
conversation is essential, and must be supported and protected.
10. Surveillance by default is the tool of patriarchy to control and restrict
rights both online and offline. The right to privacy and to exercise
full control over our own data is a critical principle for a safer, open
internet for all. Equal attention needs to be paid to surveillance practices by
individuals against each other, as well as the private sector and non-state
actors, in addition to the state.
11. Everyone has the right to be forgotten on the internet. This includes
being able to access all our personal data and information online, and
to be able to exercise control over, including knowing who has access to them
and under what conditions, and being able to delete them forever. However, this
right needs to be balanced against the right to access public information,
transparency and accountability.
12. It is our inalienable right to choose, express, and experiment with our
diverse sexualities on the internet. Anonymity enables this.
13. We strongly object to the efforts of state and non-state actors to
control, regulate and restrict the sexual lives of consenting people and
how this is expressed and practiced on the internet. We recognize this as part
of the larger political project of moral policing, censorship and
hierarchization of citizenship and rights.
14. We recognize our role as feminists and internet rights advocates in
securing a safe, healthy, and informative internet for children and
young people. This includes promoting digital and social safety practices. At
the same time, we acknowledge children’s rights to healthy development, which
includes access to positive information about sexuality at critical times in
their development. We believe in including the voices and experiences of young
people in the decisions made about harmful content.
15. We recognize that the issue of pornography online is a human rights
and labor issue, and has to do with agency, consent, autonomy and choice. We
reject simple causal linkages made between consumption of pornographic content
and violence against women. We also reject the umbrella term of pornographic
content labeled to any sexuality content such as educational material, SOGIE
(sexual orientation, gender identity and expression) content, and expression
related to women’s sexuality.