Global

The Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 focused their discussions on the links between access and power. In this article Shaikh Rafia Sarwar examines how access is linked to women's empowerment and particularly their economic empowerment. And whether the debate around access should focus on economic, cultural and social empowerment of women through and outside technology, rather than ensuring access to…

The BPF is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the UN University on Computing and Society (UNU-CS) in its important endeavour to research and map projects and initiatives that aim to address different gender digital divides around the world. The objective of this collaborative data-gathering process is to help stakeholders better understand women and girls’…

In April 2017 Facebook announced a new tool that will prevent an intimate image posted without consent from being shared further on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Erika Smith and Fungai Machirori go deep and debate the pros and cons of this proposed system, and how feminist-friendly and positive about alternate sexualities it is.

As our cities turn smart and countries turn digital the gender gap in terms of internet access is disturbing. The lack of access directly relates to the loss of rights of women and minorities. Sadly there is a long way to go before we close this gap. Chinmayi S K explores projects that attempted in innovative ways to address the digital gender gap online.

More than 1,500 business leaders, civil society advocates, policy makers, lawyers, bloggers, technologists, and users participated in RightsCon Brussels 2017 (March) and there were over 250 sessions related to human rights and technology. Serene Lim explores the ways in which inequity was addressed at the forum, and how exclusion and marginalisation were framed in various sessions.

If an object has a chip, it becomes smart, and by extension our houses become smarter - and so do our cities, hospitals, toys, phones. But what about the inventors, the creators, the owners, the users of all these smart and tiny things - are we becoming smarter? Reflecting on sessions in Rights Con 2017 in Brussels, Vale examines the ways in which the internet of things can lead to invasive…

How to bring the powerful agency and discourse of women's rights movements and feminism to the digital age of Twitter and other social media. Samukelisiwe Mabaso has researched on various movements across Africa and Asia that successfully and effectively use technology, and shows us ten ways in which to make Twitter work for feminist activism. Lets get in formation!

The gender balance is far from equal even in progressive movements such as the free and open source software community, Mozilla user groups, and others. Despite all the rivers of ink that were written about the gender imbalance in these areas, the changes are slow to arrive.

The Internet Freedom Festival is refreshingly different from most forums around internet rights and technology - it is almost equal in gender ratio, welcoming of gender non conforming and trans persons, and takes privacy of its participants at the venue seriously. Smita Vanniyar tells us more about their experience at the festival this year in Valencia, Spain.

'Interpreting the internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America by Elisabeth Jay Friedman looks at a decade long engagement of feminist and women's movements with technology. Alan Finlay reviews the book for GenderIT.org, and finds it to be essential reading for anyone interested in how feminist (or any) counterpublics are formed and shaped by appropriating whatever technology is…