Global

The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression's report explores key trends and challenges to the right of all individuals to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through the internet. The Report underscores the unique and transformative nature of the Internet but also outlines the growing global trend of restricting freedom of expression and association online.

The outcome of the Commission’s consideration of the priority theme takes the form of agreed conclusions, negotiated by all States. These identify gaps and challenges in the implementation of previous commitments. They also provide action-oriented recommendations for all States, relevant non-governmental bodies, mechanisms and entities of the UN System and other relevant stakeholders, in order to…

Jac sm Kee talks about the Take Back The Tech! campaign, as well as introduces the Erotics - Exploratory Research on Sexuality and the Internet - project. Jac presents examples from Brazil, Lebanon, India and South Africa illustrating how the queer movement is using the internet for mobilising and for the exercise of sexual rights. She also explains how the Take Back The Tech! campaign connects…

How many times have you received a forwarded message that contains photographs or a video of someone being violated or humiliated? What do you do with it? The action “I Don't Forward Violence” calls on internet and mobile phone users to take action to create an online and offline culture that does not tolerate misogynist or violent images of women and girls. It was launched by APC WNSP in…

Jac sm Kee reports on her second day at the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York. She posts about the connectivity irony, her doubts about the framing of this year's theme, the opening session, Michelle Bachelet's - UN Women Executive Director - introductory speech, women's empowerment principles developed in consultation with the private sector and Abigail Disney's…

Jac sm Kee arrives to a cold and expensive New York for the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. She reports on her first impressions.

The report focuses on the lives of adolescents in two of the current scenarios of faster growth: the urban environment and the digital world. Both have new opportunities for girls and young women but also risks that have hardly been investigated and regulated. Prejudice and poverty exclude millions of girls from taking advantages of the transformative possibilities that cities and information and…

This briefing relies on new research into how new technologies are being used by abusers and by women fighting back. The cases were uncovered in research commissioned by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in 12 developing countries in 2009, unless an additional website reference is included.

“How exactly GEM can influence the discourse at the CSW, I think it is really to challenge the notion of development, or at least how governments understand it. “ The APC’s Angela Kuga Thas speaks with GenderIT.org editor about the Gender Evaluation Methodology, what it is and the value it adds to grassroots work on gender and ICTs.

When does making a joke in bad humour become a criminal act? In the UK, issues of privacy, freedom of expression and violence are being raised as Tweets are being made the basis for criminal action. Sonia Randhawa is intrigued, and concerned.