gender and ICTs
This edition of GenderIT.org came together at a time of daily breaking news around artificial intelligence and the risks it poses. In the MENA region, these problems are compounded with a litany of daily struggles, the most devastating of these being occupation, war, conflict and displacement.
This edition focuses on the human dimension of cybersecurity, asking how cybersecurity policies developed from the centres of political, economic and epistemological power affect those at the margins, and how we can think about cybersecurity from a feminist perspective.
APC is currently participating in the fifth substantive session of the UN Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of ICT in the context of international security (OEWG), where it will continue to emphasise the need for a human rights-based approach to the work of the group.
Technology is constantly evolving, with new advances in areas like artificial intelligence which, on one hand, claims to help humans in making tasks easy, but on the other, reinforces harmful societal stereotypes. This piece explores the portrayal of gender through AI in pop culture and chatbots.
Derechos Digitales has mapped cases involving the abusive use of cybercrime regulation to silence and criminalise women and LGBTQIA+ people around the world, and the results warn of the inherent danger of imposing international standards in this matter without building in human rights safeguards.
The UN's Global Digital Compact (GDC) seeks to develop a common understanding of key digital principles by taking an inclusive approach to internet governance. The APC network has been actively engaging in the GDC process by participating in numerous UN-led consultations, discussions and submissions.
This joint submission is a response to the Global Digital Compact (GDC) consultation process and its expected outcome to outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all.
Given that digital technologies and the laws and norms that govern them have the potential to perpetuate and worsen pre-existing structural inequalities, APC and Derechos Digitales believe that a central element of this future convention should be the integration of a gender perspective.
In this statement during the March 2023 session of the Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security 2021–2025, APC focuses on gender-sensitive cybersecurity capacity building.
The overregulation of women's and gender-diverse folks' bodies in South Asian culture has found its way into online spaces and heavily polices how bodily autonomy is expressed and regarded. Seerat Khan discusses barriers to this autonomy and their impact on self-expression.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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