Developed
at the Gender, Sexuality and the Internet Meeting organized by the Association
for Progressive Communications
13-15
April, 2014 – Malaysia - In April
2014, the Association for Progressive Communications, APC, organized a Global
Meeting on Gender, Sexuality and the Internet in Port Dickson, Malaysia,
bringing together 50 participants from six continents comprising gender and
women’s rights activists, LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and intersex)
movements, internet and technology rights organizations, and human rights
advocates. The goal of the meeting was to bridge the gap between feminist
movements and internet rights movements and look at intersections and strategic
opportunities to work together as allies and partners.
The
existing discourse around gender and the internet tends to focus on gender
components lacking in polices that govern the internet, violations that take
place as a result, and the need for increased women’s participation in
decision-making forums. In a bid to reframe the conversation, the Global
Meeting used a collaborative process to ask the question: ‘As feminists,
what kind of internet do we want, and what will it take for us to achieve
it?’
#ImagineaFeministInternet
Over three
days, the participants discussed and debated intersections of gender, sexuality,
and the internet – not only as a tool – but as a new public space. In thinking
through these issues, the participants at the meeting developed a set of 15
feminist principles of the internet. These are designed to be an evolving
document that informs our work on gender and technology, as well as influences
our policy-making discussions when it comes to internet
governance.
1. A
feminist internet starts with and works towards empowering more women and queer
persons – in all our diversities – to dismantle patriarchy. This includes
universal, affordable, unfettered, unconditional and equal access to the
internet.
2. A
feminist internet is an extension, reflection and continuum of our movements and
resistance in other spaces, public and private. Our agency lies in us
deciding as individuals and collectives what aspects of our lives to politicize
and/or publicize on the internet.
3. The
internet is a transformative public and political space. It facilitates
new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim, construct, and
express our selves, genders, sexualities. This includes connecting across
territories, demanding accountability and transparency, and significant
opportunities for feminist movement-building.
4.
Violence online and tech-related violence are part of the continuum of
gender-based violence. The misogynistic attacks, threats, intimidation, and
policing experienced by women and queers LGBTQI people is are real, harmful, and
alarming. It is our collective responsibility as different internet stakeholders
to prevent, respond to, and resist this violence.
5. There is
a need to resist the religious right, along with other extremist forces, and the
state, in monopolizing their claim over morality in silencing feminist voices at
national and international levels. We must claim the power of the internet to
amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s lived realities.
6. As
feminist activists, we believe in challenging the patriarchal spaces that
currently control the internet and putting more feminists and queers LGBTQI
people at the decision-making tables. We believe in democratizing the
legislation and regulation of the internet as well as diffusing ownership and
power of global and local networks.
7. Feminist
interrogation of the neoliberal capitalist logic that drives the internet is
critical to destabilize, dismantle, and create alternative forms of economic
power that are grounded on principles of the collective, solidarity, and
openness.
8. As
feminist activists, we are politically committed to creating and experimenting
with technology utilizing open source tools and platforms. Promoting,
disseminating, and sharing knowledge about the use of such tools is central to
our praxis.
9. The
internet’s role in enabling access to critical information – including on
health, pleasure, and risks – to communities, cultural expression, and
conversation is essential, and must be supported and
protected.
10.
Surveillance by default is the tool of patriarchy to control and restrict rights
both online and offline. The right to privacy and to exercise full
control over our own data is a critical principle for a safer, open internet for
all. Equal attention needs to be paid to surveillance practices by individuals
against each other, as well as the private sector and non-state actors, in
addition to the state.
11. Everyone
has the right to be forgotten on the internet. This includes being able to
access all our personal data and information online, and to be able to
exercise control over, including knowing who has access to them and under what
conditions, and being able to delete them forever. However, this right needs to
be balanced against the right to access public information, transparency and
accountability.
12. It is our
inalienable right to choose, express, and experiment with our diverse
sexualities on the internet. Anonymity enables
this.
13. We
strongly object to the efforts of state and non-state actors to control,
regulate and restrict the sexual lives of consenting people and how this
is expressed and practiced on the internet. We recognize this as part of the
larger political project of moral policing, censorship and hierarchization of
citizenship and rights.
14. We
recognize our role as feminists and internet rights advocates in securing a
safe, healthy, and informative internet for children and young people.
This includes promoting digital and social safety practices. At the same time,
we acknowledge children’s rights to healthy development, which includes access
to positive information about sexuality at critical times in their development.
We believe in including the voices and experiences of young people in the
decisions made about harmful content.
15. We
recognize that the issue of pornography online is a human rights and
labor issue, and has to do with agency, consent, autonomy and choice. We reject
simple causal linkages made between consumption of pornographic content and
violence against women. We also reject the umbrella term of pornographic content
labeled to any sexuality content such as educational material, SOGIE (sexual
orientation, gender identity and expression) content, and expression related to
women’s sexuality.
By APC – 20 August 2014
http://www.wunrn.com
