online gender-based violence
This research intends to better understand the barriers and biases resulting from algorithms in women’s access to freedom of opinion and expression, and to examine how they navigate these algorithms to create the much-needed space to speak out, to be heard, and to occupy digital spaces.
Shia Muslims are constantly at risk of being targeted with violence online and offline for their religious belief. And when Shia women and queer folks go online, they find themselves at risk of being targeted with abuse from multiple fronts as their two identities combine.
During the high-level discussion on countering the negative impact of disinformation on the enjoyment of human rights, APC called for efforts to collect and study community-based responses to disinformation and improve the exercise of communication rights and tools by marginalised communities.
In its submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, APC stresses that online attacks against women and gender-non-conforming people are one of the most serious contemporary threats to their safety, to media freedom and to gender equality more broadly.
In its submission to the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, APC welcomed the concerns raised regarding defamation campaigns against legal professionals on social media, and highlighted the case of Tunisia, where women judges are the target of online gendered attacks.
The meta-research project formed part of the broader Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) project led by APC and created a feminist space for dialogue to explore the complexities of doing internet research.
APC has been working towards imagining and making a feminist internet by building and strengthening networks of researchers, activists and others. This paper aims to assess feminist internet research on internet governance and policy, with a particular focus on scholarship in the global South.
Mardiya Siba Yahaya argues that digital surveillance is part of gendered and racist disciplinary structures that manifest in specific forms of online gender-based violence experienced by Black Muslim women influencers.
Florencia Goldsman reviews the study "Engendering Hate: The contours of state-aligned gendered disinformation online", adding pieces to the puzzle of targeted digital violence that undermines women's and LGBTIQ+ people's online presence.
We welcome the commitments made by Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter to tackle online abuse on their platforms. However, without ensuring that the systems they create do not reproduce and amplify existing inequalities, built-in safety tools will only mitigate harms on the surface.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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