Graphic by Ousainou Jonga, copyright Equals Now.This is the first organisation in The Gambia to implement a project focused on online gender-based violence (OGBV) and start a national conversation about it. OGBV, particularly in The Gambia, targets feminists and activists who use online advocacy to work toward a better country for women. Having found that this important aspect of gender-based…
Image from Tunapanda Kibera comic strip. The community of Kibera in Nairobi is one of the largest urban informal settlements and is estimated to have a population of over 1 million. This community, like many across the continent, faced higher rates of gender-based violence (GBV) due to COVID-19. At the heart of this crisis is women, especially those in lockdown with abusive partners. A lesser-…
Image from Safe Sisters website. My project is highly motivated by what I learnt at the Making a Feminist Internet convening in 2019, amongst other things. I learned about the Feminist Principles of Internet in depth and I thought that women’s rights advocates could benefit even more if the work was translated into 3 major languages. This project was very personal to me. Selamawit T. Chaka…
Image from the GLITCH Toolkit on online gender-based violence. Recent research highlighted that Black women are 84% more likely to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets than white women; that 83% of trans people have indirectly experienced online abuse and that 45% of LGBT+ people have witnessed homophobic, transphobic or bi-phobic abuse online. – Glitch Report: The Ripple Effect: COVID…
Image via Sound The Call: Battle Cry Sound the call and this time, it’s a Battle Cry! In this voice note series, we share stories of gender-based resistance throughout the continent. In this ten-episode series, our voices will highlight stories of pain, healing, injustice, and our determination to change a system created to oppress us based on our gender and sexual identity.This is the…
It was as a martial arts practitioner that I first learnt the dark irony of violence. It very rarely looks like an anonymous attacker or a dark alleyway. It also doesn’t go around seeking a randomised, weak and vulnerable-looking target either. Rather, it shows up as an exercise of power by a mentor we respect, or by an intimate partner we love. It shows up in our schools, gym classes and news…
Shorgol presents brief stories regarding experiences and conversations around sexual agency and rights and the digital space. The illustrated stories are based on case studies, research and in-depth discussions with university-aged youth in the community. This graphic story is the result of research by an All Women Count - Take Back the Tech! grantee in 2020.
This piece was originally published by the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA). You can also consult their recent analysis, using the TBTT mapping tool, of online gender-based violence in the Philippines in this article. While the Internet has grown to become a basic need for people to access information, services, and form social connections and communities, it similarly allows for same…
This is not just another of the dozens of articles about COVID-19 apps already published in the media around the world. This post is based on the assertion that we women experience a continuum of surveillance over our bodies, and that this control is exacerbated during health crises. We are not safe when we move around cities. We are raped or killed just for walking down the street, but we are…
The world is suddenly and radically changed. But this is not the radical change that we as feminists, activists, thinkers and campaigners had hoped for. At the APC Women’s Rights Programme (WRP) we believe in putting people at the centre and leading with care and responsibility for each other, ourselves and the planet. We work towards imagining and making a feminist internet, and as much as the…
In October 2019, student protests ignited in Chile, the first was in response to an increase in transport fares in the capital. The movement rapidly gained momentum. It was a revolt against increasingly extreme inequalities, privatisation and neo-liberalism. Government repression was not long in coming: a state of emergency, curfews, internet shutdowns, censorship on social networks, police…
"I can't upload this video", "they deleted my post because it's considered 'sensitive content'," "they closed my account" or "I lost my connection" are some of the requests for help repeatedly heard in different parts of Latin America. The focused censorship has been notable during the enormous social upheavals that continue today with massive street demonstrations and the strong participation of…
We have talked before about what we think are the steps to take when it comes to combating hate and discrimination online. But this time we want to delve deeper into a specific topic: conversation analysis.Ideally, this analysis is carried out prior to any act of communication. In practice, this is not always the case, as we often come across campaigns that, apart from repeating the same old…
How do we appropriate the internet? This was one of the questions that most resonated with me during the Cyber/hack/feminist Meeting against Patriarchal Violence held December 2 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities of UNAM (Mexico).And do we really want to appropriate it? - given the burden of power relations implied in this phrase. Haydeé said appropriation is…
Take Back the Tech! is a campaign that reclaims the internet and women's often ignored herstory with technology, exploring and encouraging the creative use of digital technologies to denounce and eliminate online gender-based violence (GBV). Its name echoes back to the Take Back the Night marches all over the world, where women reclaimed public streets as their own, especially at night when they…
A daisy with a blurry pastel background, a sunset in an enchanting landscape, more flowers, coffee cups... If you are a Whatsapp user, you've probably encountered them a lot: “good morning” forwards. They might be flowing through your Whatsapp family groups, you might forward them yourself or you might be tired of seeing them everyday. Apparently, these specific forwards are so popular around…
For Take Back the Tech! the internet is a space for play, exploration, experimentation and learning, as well as a vital political space of free association and expression. That’s why we created a series of online sharing sessions so that TBTT campaigners and other curious cyberfeminists from all over the world can participate, create and put their knowledge into action to occupy the internet…
The movements denouncing sexual violence are unstoppable. We noted this in our previous post and questions continue to emerge: some focus on the way people are publicly shamed in "escraches"*, others on whether the internet is a legitimate place to denounce violence, and about its characteristics with respect to the over-exposure of both the victims and the aggressors. In order to follow up on…
Why do women still have to file reports of violence anonymously? Because we are talking about things that no one ever imagined. Why do we choose to do it over social media platforms? Because (for now) they remain the most accessible bridge to a large number of people. How can confidentiality be preserved at a time when there is an urgent need to publicly shame aggressors? Find out in this article
As we embark on a new year of #metoo and other forms of powerful testimonial movements such as #survivingRKelly, the wisdom shared in January’s Take Back the Tech! Webinar was an important learning opportunity and reminder of how we can contribute to collective wellbeing and care in our movement. Take Back the Tech! kicked off the New Year with a Reboot Webinar on documentation and reporting for…
