"Keep it open, baby": Building principles for a feminist internet

APC held a global meeting on gender, sexuality and the internet in Malaysia between 12 and 17 April, to explore and develop the collective understanding of what a feminist internet looks like.

One of the goals of the meeting was to find, within a sex-positive queer framework, an agreement on core feminist principles for a transformative internet, in order to develop a set of evolving Feminist Principles of the Internet.

“Have we taken over the internet or has it taken us over?”; “Are we using or being used by the internet?”; “How can we resist the globalised commodification of the internet and defend it as open, diffused, decentralised and subversive?”; “Is the divide between our online and offline lives blurring? Is this empowering or threatening?” These were some of the fascinating questions raised during the intense debates that took place for three days, when academics, feminist and queer activists, and internet rights and policy specialists from diverse organisations and networks coming from many different countries reflected on and analysed contentious issues of gender, sexuality and the internet, including questions around “harmful content”, pornography, “hate speech”, gender-based violence and sexual rights.

We invite you to look through some of the materials reflecting the debates that took place during the meeting:

• Storify on the conversation

• Sex and the internet: Intersectionality in internet rights

• What does it take to create a feminist internet? #imagineafeministinternet

• Sexuality, feminism, activism and the internet we dream of

• Panel on “Power, Politics and Agency” to #imagineafeministinternet

• Time to come out!: Pioneering women in history of technology

• “No topic was off limit,” says Nana Darkoa

• Conversation with Maureen James, Funding and Strategy Specialist at IFEX

• Imagining a misogyny-free internet .

Follow the dialogue online using the hashtag #imagineafeministinternet