The past year was a true test for anyone defending a digital future that serves social, gender and environmental justice. In a year marked by severe global funding cuts and the increasing use of technology in ways that harm marginalised communities and the planet, our latest annual report, which has just been released, reveals how our network is actively shaping technology for the common good.
During 2025, our staff and network of members and partners worked across 63 countries. In partnership with our financial supporters, through APC's subgranting we directly supported 206 initiatives in 48 of these countries, most of them in the Global South. Together, we built common agendas, while ensuring the presence of rights and justice perspectives in digital tech discourses. We act collectively to shape digital standards, policies, processes and norms, while nurturing our own collective capacity for safety, care and resilience. We shared resources and knowledge as a way to learn, grow and thrive.
But how does all this translate in practice? In a five-part series, throughout the month of October, we will be republishing the experiences gathered for the report’s impact section. They are organised according to our five outcome areas, which are the píllars of APC’s current strategic plan. Here you will find highlights from the report that illustrate how the APC community is taking action on the ground.
Read on for the second piece of the series, focusing on how our community is amplifying rights and justice perspectives in digital tech and rights conversations.
Amplifying rights and justice perspectives in digital tech and rights discourses
We centred the voices of feminists and WHRDs, building their capacity to safely engage in advocacy spaces. Through the work of APC members, the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN), and the Safety for Voices and Our Voices, Our Futures consortiums, we built the capacity of feminists and WHRDs to safely articulate their experiences and engage more meaningfully and confidently in advocacy spaces. Safety for Voices research highlighted the silencing of WHRDs through surveillance laws, content moderation policies and internet shutdowns, and revealed how governments and tech companies escape accountability. The consortium, alongside FIRN capacity building and digital safety training, strengthened the resilience of feminist and defender networks in Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, Tajikistan, Kenya, Uganda and West Africa. Significant capacity for policy influence was built through a Safety for Voices subgrant to ROFAH, a transnational West African network of women with disabilities. ROFAH used the grant to strengthen their structures and policy influence, reporting increased confidence to speak publicly, greater access to spaces where rights were discussed, and greater visibility of their priorities in national debates. In Uganda, civil society participating in the Our Voices, Our Futures consortium built a collaborative agenda among WHRDs and women's rights and queer movements to defend their communities against the anti-homosexuality bill, address TFGBV and engage internet governance processes. This included working with duty bearers such as the police to break down silos. Boda-boda drivers in Mombasa in Kenya were encouraged to reduce their harassment of LGBTQI+ community members after a workshop that focused on creating awareness and securing commitments from the drivers. This initiative was launched through an Our Voices, Our Futures consortium subgrant in alliance with the Initiative for Equality and Non-Discrimination. Through APC support, women-led organisations in Somalia also worked together to engage their parliament on a long-stalled Sexual Offences Bill. While a Tajikistan women’s domestic violence shelter was able to engage with local authorities to help shape TFGBV policy using their own research after a FIRN capacity building, APC supported the Free Territories, Free Technologies project in Brazil, coordinated by Intervozes. In 2025, the project launched a new phase of in-person activities across dozens of communities in the country, offering them a chance to share their experiences, and focusing on how digital technologies can help defend territorial autonomy while supporting women’s rights and socio-environmental justice.
We amplified alternative discourses on TFGBV in global forums, and strengthened national responses to attacks. By supporting feminist organisations working in countries in the Global South through FIRN, the Our Voices, Our Futures consortium and the #FeministTechJoy subgrants, we built the research capacities of women and LGBTQIA+ communities so that they could challenge dominant discursive framings of TFGBV and articulate their own experiences through their research. Among other actors, sex workers in countries in Latin America and Africa became trainers in digital safety and expanded their advocacy influence to better frame discourse affecting their rights as sex workers. FIRN researchers were also invited to share their findings at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Feminist AI and other global forums. A GenderIT.org special edition launched in Novemberprovided critical insights that emerged from the 10 research projects carried out under FIRN. Meanwhile, through a subgrant, APC member Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) set out to strengthen the ability of women-led civil society organisations to prevent, recognise and respond to TFGBV in their country.
We supported digital rights advocacy in Palestine. As part of the Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition, we supported the #ReconnectGaza campaign calling for the international community, humanitarian agencies and telecommunications regulators to treat the communications blackout in Palestine as an emergency. APC also endorsed a statement urging an end to sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, while demanding big tech accountability for violations in Palestine. APC member 7amlehmeanwhile worked intensely to document, amplify and defend against Palestinian digital rights abuses during the war and genocide. The organisation denounced the persistent censorship of Palestinian voices by Meta, exposed biased content moderation practices on LinkedIn, and promoted information on digital security for those at risk. 7amleh also led the ninth edition of the Palestine Digital Activism Forum 2025, held under the theme "Disconnected: The Impact of War on Internet Access and Palestinian Digital Rights", which was attended by over 900 participants from around the world.
We collaboratively raised awareness of the importance of a digital justice perspective. Working with IT for Change, we built a common agenda for the World Summit on the Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20) with organisations in the Global Digital Justice Forum (GDJF), helping to launch the Digital Justice Now! campaign. The campaign pushed for WSIS+20 and other global digital cooperation processes to adopt a human rights perspective, to see the internet as a global communications commons, to work towards a just international economic order, and to ensure a sustainable and human rights-based digital transition.
We amplified community network success stories to inspire others with alternative strategies to achieve digital inclusion. In May, APC members from Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia met online to share insights, outcomes and lessons learned from community-centred connectivity initiatives in the Global South, in a convening that was supported by APC’s advocacy and institutional strengthening grants. The local impact of community networks was also featured in 12 stories from communities in the Routing for Communities podcast. The podcast’s second season was inspired by the need to answer key questions such as: What changes when the internet connection is centred in communities?, How are women changing networks, and networks changing women?, and What makes connectivity really meaningful to people? You can find these and all the episodes of the series here.
We continued to build awareness around gender digital rights and feminist alternative infrastructures. Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a GenderIT.org edition reflected on the legacy of the struggle for gender digital rights. Across diverse contexts, the articles celebrated feminist resilience and called for the reimagining of a gender-just future, asking how feminist movements can shape the future of gender equality in today’s digital age. #FeministTechJoy, a series of annual small grants led by APC and designed to spark the exploration of alternative infrastructures and strategies, also supported several initiatives undertaken by partners celebrating feminist expression and collective support.
We highlighted the impact of disinformation on human rights. APC’s The Full Picture digital campaign shared insights on the impact of disinformation on human rights for journalists and communications professionals using Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to reach them effectively. A joint endeavour between APC and the digital media social enterprise Chambal Media also explored the realities of gendered disinformation in rural India, shining a spotlight on the experiences of women and gender-diverse persons in the country.
We campaigned for an end to internet shutdowns. Following Myanmar’s catastrophic 7.7 magnitude earthquake in March, a coalition of rights groups, including many from the APC community, issued a statement demanding an immediate end to military-imposed internet restrictions. Meanwhile, a statement released by Zaina Foundation, in collaboration with APC and the Tanzania Digital Rights Coalition, criticised the blocking of the X platform in Tanzania, saying it was not a technical issue but a deliberate act of interference. The Spanish language version of the Internet Shutdown Game was also launched. The game is a tool for raising awareness about the different tactics used to restrict internet access, as well as improving participants' understanding of internet infrastructure, blocking procedures and the alternatives available to circumvent them.
APC would like to thank its strong community of members, associates, staff, partners and supporters who, year after year, make these achievements and their significant impact possible. For more information we also invite you to explore our 2025 annual report in full.