social media
“So many years past being raped, I tell myself what happened is 'in the past.' This is only partly true. In too many ways, the past is still with me. The past is written on my body. I carry it every single day. The past sometimes feels like it might kill me. It is a very heavy burden.” These words from Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxanne Gay are more or less the exact words a victim of sexual assault told me when she confided in me about her rape issue. Unfortunately, that was the se...
For the last few years, I’ve worked in different corners of what can be generally be dubbed as the content moderation industry. First as a contractor, then as an employee for well-known social media platforms, where day-to-day work is intimately linked to crucial social outcomes in different parts of the world. The decisions made in that industry can decide what counts as a real identity, the level of nudity deemed socially acceptable, and even what war images will make it to society’s co...
This is an attempt to narrate the speak-out movement led by the Dalit-Bahujan women in Kerala. It is a social media-based (particularly through Facebook) campaign, that is still ongoing in Kerala, to narrativise the experiences of sexual harassment faced by Dalit-Bahujan women. These attacks had happened in their work place, within friends’ circles and political spaces. Surprisingly, the wome...
Here are some tips and insights on how to use social media for activism and movement building. These are learnings from the vocal and active African feminists who have used the internet and social media to amplify their causes. The fact that social media is nominally free to use – and we say nominally because we have to be aware that we provide our data to corporate bodies that own the social...
The undersigned organisations condemn the recent vicious attacks on environmental justice activists in South Africa. In one case, we are outraged at the reported murder on 11 July 2018 of Mr. D. Panza, an activist who had opposed a relocation of the community in KwaDube in KwaZulu Natal (KZN). KZN violence monitor Mary de Haas has reported that people living on this land have been informed by v...
Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD), our member in Pakistan, has published a letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan to curb the spread of election-related online misinformation and ensure implementation of the Code of Conduct (CoC) for political parties in online spaces. We are republishing their letter here, in the context of political and religious violence i...
Article republished from CIPESA's website. As of midnight on July 1, 2018, telecom companies in Uganda blocked access to social media platforms for all users and required them to pay a newly introduced Over-The-Top (OTT) tax before regaining access. The tax resulted from a March 2018 presidential directive for social media to be taxed to raise resources “to cope with the consequences” ...
Oral statement delivered under Item 3: General Debate UN Human Rights Council 38th Session 25 June 2018 Thank you, Mr. President. This statement is delivered on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), Derechos Digitales, and the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). As organisations committ...
Online violence, bullying, harassment, theft of identity, and non-consensual circulation of intimate images are now being recognised as offences in most countries, and acknowledged in public discourse as misogyny and attempts to silence women and gender-diverse people (gender non-conforming, gender queer, transgender, non-binary and intersex people, and others) from participation in public life...
The Internet, it used to be said, would let a thousand flowers bloom. The low cost of market entry would enable thousands of application and content developers to reach out to users. There’d be more diversity, more choice, more freedom for users to exercise that choice. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Sure, it’s easier for individuals and small companies to bring something ...
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2018
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