133 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
133 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
Feminist principles of the internet •
|
||
https://feministinternet.org/sites/default/files/Feminist_principles_of_the_internetv2-0.pdf •
|
||
2016 •
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
Preamble
|
||
|
||
August 26, 2016
|
||
|
||
A feminist internet works towards empowering more women and queer persons – in all our
|
||
diversities – to fully enjoy our rights, engage in pleasure and play, and dismantle patriarchy.
|
||
This integrates our different realities, contexts and specificities – including age, disabilities,
|
||
sexualities, gender identities and expressions, socioeconomic locations, political and religious
|
||
beliefs, ethnic origins, and racial markers. The following key principles are critical towards
|
||
realising a feminist internet.
|
||
|
||
Access •
|
||
|
||
1 Access to the internet •
|
||
A feminist internet starts with enabling more women and queer persons to enjoy universal,
|
||
acceptable, affordable, unconditional, open, meaningful and equal access to the internet.
|
||
|
||
2 Access to information •
|
||
We support and protect unrestricted access to information relevant to women and queer
|
||
persons, particularly information on sexual and reproductive health and rights, pleasure, safe
|
||
abortion, access to justice, and LGBTIQ issues. This includes diversity in languages, abilities,
|
||
interests and contexts.
|
||
|
||
3 Usage of technology •
|
||
Women and queer persons have the right to code, design, adapt and critically and sustainably
|
||
use ICTs and reclaim technology as a platform for creativity and expression, as well as to
|
||
challenge the cultures of sexism and discrimination in all spaces.
|
||
|
||
Movements & public participation •
|
||
|
||
4 Resistance •
|
||
The internet is a space where social norms are negotiated, performed and imposed, often in an
|
||
extension of other spaces shaped by patriarchy and heteronormativity. Our struggle for a
|
||
feminist internet is one that forms part of a continuum of our resistance in other spaces, public,
|
||
private and in-between.
|
||
|
||
5 Movement building •
|
||
The internet is a transformative political space. It facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable
|
||
individuals to claim, construct and express selves, genders and sexualities. This includes
|
||
connecting across territories, demanding accountability and transparency, and creating
|
||
opportunities for sustained feminist movement building.
|
||
|
||
6 Internet governance •
|
||
We believe in challenging the patriarchal spaces and processes that control internet
|
||
governance, as well as putting more feminists and queers at the decision-making tables. We
|
||
want to democratise policy making affecting the internet as well as diffuse ownership of and
|
||
power in global and local networks.
|
||
|
||
Economy •
|
||
|
||
7. Alternative economies •
|
||
We are committed to interrogating the capitalist logic that drives technology towards further
|
||
privatisation, profit and corporate control. We work to create alternative forms of economic
|
||
power that are grounded in principles of cooperation, solidarity, commons, environmental
|
||
sustainability, and openness.
|
||
|
||
8. Free and open source •
|
||
We are committed to creating and experimenting with technology, including digital safety and
|
||
security, and using free/libre and open source software (FLOSS), tools, and platforms.
|
||
Promoting, disseminating, and sharing knowledge about the use of FLOSS is central to our
|
||
praxis.
|
||
|
||
Expression •
|
||
|
||
9 Amplifying feminist discourse •
|
||
We claim the power of the internet to amplify women’s narratives and lived realities. There is a
|
||
need to resist the state, the religious right and other extremist forces who monopolise
|
||
discourses of morality, while silencing feminist voices and persecuting women’s human rights
|
||
defenders.
|
||
|
||
10 Freedom of expression •
|
||
We defend the right to sexual expression as a freedom of expression issue of no less
|
||
importance than political or religious expression. We strongly object to the efforts of state and
|
||
non-state actors to control, surveil, regulate and restrict feminist and queer expression on the
|
||
|
||
internet through technology, legislation or violence. We recognise this as part of the larger
|
||
political project of moral policing, censorship, and hierarchisation of citizenship and rights.
|
||
|
||
11 Pornography and “harmful content” •
|
||
We recognise that the issue of pornography online has to do with agency, consent, power and
|
||
labour. We reject simple causal linkages made between consumption of pornographic content
|
||
and violence against women. We also reject the use of the umbrella term “harmful content” to
|
||
label expression on female and transgender sexuality. We support reclaiming and creating
|
||
alternative erotic content that resists the mainstream patriarchal gaze and locates women and
|
||
queer persons’ desires at the centre.
|
||
|
||
Agency •
|
||
|
||
12 Consent •
|
||
We call on the need to build an ethics and politics of consent into the culture, design, policies
|
||
and terms of service of internet platforms. Women’s agency lies in their ability to make informed
|
||
decisions on what aspects of their public or private lives to share online.
|
||
|
||
13 Privacy and data •
|
||
We support the right to privacy and to full control over personal data and information online at all
|
||
levels. We reject practices by states and private companies to use data for profit and to
|
||
manipulate behaviour online. Surveillance is the historical tool of patriarchy, used to control and
|
||
restrict women’s bodies, speech and activism. We pay equal attention to surveillance practices
|
||
by individuals, the private sector, the state and non-state actors.
|
||
|
||
14 Memory •
|
||
We have the right to exercise and retain control over our personal history and memory on the
|
||
internet. This includes being able to access all our personal data and information online, and to
|
||
be able to exercise control over this data, including knowing who has access to it and under
|
||
what conditions, and the ability to delete it forever.
|
||
|
||
15 Anonymity •
|
||
We defend the right to be anonymous and reject all claims to restrict anonymity online.
|
||
Anonymity enables our freedom of expression online, particularly when it comes to breaking
|
||
taboos of sexuality and heteronormativity, experimenting with gender identity, and enabling
|
||
safety for women and queer persons affected by discrimination.
|
||
|
||
16 Children and youth •
|
||
We call for the inclusion of the voices and experiences of young people in the decisions made
|
||
about safety and security online and promote their safety, privacy, and access to information.
|
||
We recognise children’s right to healthy emotional and sexual development, which includes the
|
||
right to privacy and access to positive information about sex, gender and sexuality at critical
|
||
times in their lives.
|
||
|
||
17 Online violence •
|
||
We call on all internet stakeholders, including internet users, policy makers and the private
|
||
sector, to address the issue of online harassment and technology-related violence. The attacks,
|
||
threats, intimidation and policing experienced by women and queers are real, harmful and
|
||
alarming, and are part of the broader issue of gender-based violence. It is our collective
|
||
responsibility to address and end this.
|
||
|