GenderIT.org
In June 2015, an organised online defamation campaign began against Iranian queer feminist and writer Shadi Amin. A website claimed that Amin had perpetrated rape, abuse, bullying and money laundering. The website was accompanied by a Facebook page, a Twitter account and an Instagram account, all of which replicated its claims that Amin was guilty of “documented cases of verbal, physical and sexual violation”, that she was corrupt, that she was a homophobe, “anti-male”, and had engage...
A brief observation of the analytical frameworks used by a great number of Kenyan social media users around the controversy surrounding the release of the Kenyan film Rafiki may make you more familiar with the rubrics of “artistic freedom” and “freedom of speech” than those of “queerness” and “precariousness” (here “queerness” accounts for those Kenyans who live outside of gender and sexuality norms). These uneven uptakes were on full display on 21 September 2018, th...
It is awfully painful to read online trolling, threats, hateful and dehumanising comments, and insults on Twitter against the queer Ethiopian community. Yet, I can’t help feeling that there are opportunities that arise from the explosion of support in spite of the extreme hatred on social media platforms. It started when religious groups, particularly the Ethiopian Orthodox church, protested ...
In the past year we have seen a number of countries implement laws that recognise diverse gender identities and expand the rights of transgender people. Uruguay is one such example. In October 2018, Congress passed a law setting out legal gender recognition through self-determination, defining gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy as a right paid for by the national government, reserving...
Fighting for a free and open internet for all involves recognising the many ways that online access and experience are affected by identity and social position. This understanding has not only informed but motivated the work of APC and its community throughout our existence. Our projects always seek, in one way or another, to level the digital playing field. One of the most significant factors ...
Nyangi, an 18-year-old woman in Kenya, was turned back for lack of documents when she went to register for the Huduma number. The unique number has been the talk in the village. Without it, she will not be eligible for government aid programmes such as the Community Development Fund and Joint College Admission, among others. In future, she will have trouble acquiring Kipande, an ID card. Youth ...
TikTok is a mobile platform for creating and sharing 15-second videos. Or as described by Wired, “a short-form monitised musical meme machine”. TikTok users lip sync, dance and perform to popular songs, dialogue or voiceovers from films and television shows and other audio clips from popular culture and edit the videos creatively using the templates and effects provided on the platform. It ...
A large number of the world’s population is now living online. Since 2016 especially, there has been a huge increase in people’s connectivity and interest in social media. The year 2016 also witnessed several online controversies and events both globally and locally during the elections in the USA, the Ghana elections and the Gambian elections that happened almost concurrently. About half o...
In the recent report from Privacy International, From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy, author Eva Blum-Dumontet frames privacy legislation as a “protector of human dignity and an enabler of autonomy”. Privacy allows women and members of marginalised communities to create safe spaces of expression and makes available tools that challenge norms that restrict equality...
There are so many places to get porn. The online space is awash with naked bodies, a good majority of them on there consensually and a small but disturbing proportion not. The watching of naked bodies is big business, with one porn-based hub stating that in 2018 alone, 111 years (or one million hours) were uploaded onto their platform. This would mean that even if you dedicated your entir...
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