editorial

What does this mean for activism, political engagement, and human rights defense? What are the relationships and interdependencies influencing the promises of being online: voice, visibility, and power? This ARROW for Change (AFC) issue on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and the internet documents some of these dynamics.

Speech Acts. A significant dynamic of the internet is the struggle to use it as a platform for speech and expression, sexual speech and content in particular. However, States and technology corporations emerge as partners in the regulation of sexual speech and content online. For example, as part of a wider suppression of LGBT communities, in February 2016, Indonesia's Communications Ministry banned gay emoji stickers in messaging applications like Line and WhatsApp, as well as on larger social media platforms.1 Other states in the region, anxious to maintain control through arbitrarily defined notions of “local culture,” imposed bans and issued takedown notices to social media companies. Between July and December 2014, for example, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in South Korea asked Google to remove or age-restrict a total of 5,034 YouTube videos claimed to be “harmful” to youth with no definition of what was considered “harmful.”²

...sexual health information is being censored, and nudity is being equated with pornography.

Online Censorship³ is a project that documents removal of content by technology corporations that own popular social media platforms– Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The project's aim is to push for transparency in how speech is regulated online by these corporations. From November 2015 to March 2016, people submitted 186 reports of takedowns of their social media content on these five platforms. Of these, 89 are related to nudity concerns and primarily on Facebook. Some broad themes emerged from Online Censorship's early findings: sexual health information is being censored, and nudity is being equated with pornography.⁴

At the same time, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are also sites of abuse and harassment, which affect women and sexual minorities disproportionately compared to the other populations online; and yet these are not regulated with quite the same vigour. Through these initiatives and high-profile cases of online harassment, there has been a mainstream discussion of its scale and effects.⁵ In 2014, research by Women, Action, and Media, in partnership with Twitter, demonstrated that in 800 reports of harassment, 27% were about hate speech, 12% about threats of violence, and 22% were to do with doxxing (uncovering details of the user's identity and location, and sharing this as an incitement to violence offline).⁶

In the past few years, there have been new guides and toolkits to help internet users mitigate harassment online. These resources typically give information and direction on how to manage abusive people and vulnerable spaces online. There are some initiatives that emphasise proactive responses to online harassment, de-emphasise “protection,” and focus on claiming freedoms: feminist counter-speech7 such as the Peng! Collective's Zero Trollerance campaign⁸ and Wikipedia's edit-a-thons. UX designer Caroline Sinders suggests that experimenting with platform design and architecture could enable more user control over harassment, and enable privacy.⁹ Blank Noise marries online and offline actions, creating innovative ways to rethink space and freedom.¹⁰

How can we rethink the role of these platforms and companies when they take credit for supporting popular uprisings around the world, and yet have no accountability to their users in the regulation of speech?

Recognising online harassment, particularly verbal harassment, raises a difficult and challenging issue: that labeling verbal material offensive, upsetting, hurtful, or harmful runs the risk of limiting someone's freedom of opinion and expression. The reasoning goes that identifying abusive words and language is entirely subjective, and that subjective interpretations cannot be used to police everyone. Michael Hume notes the culture of “trigger warnings” and “micro-aggressions” that he thinks limit speech:¹¹

The notion that words can oppress makes a nonsense of the concept in the present and insults the struggles of the past. Oppression involves the denial of equal legal and social rights to a group. It does not mean somebody being a bit rude or making you feel uncomfortable with the way they talk.... Words can be weapons in a battle of ideas or a slanging match. But words are not literally weapons with which to do violent harm, or magic spells with the power to oppress.

Hume makes it sound like thicker skin is required to be on the internet. However, the reality of being online is that it is not only about disagreeing about gendered pronouns; women who are online and are articulate about their opinions and views, like journalists and activists, also receive death and rape threats. Such threats cannot be considered as “free speech” because they are violent, or incite violence.

Yet, how should speech and its reception be regulated? What is the role of technology companies in enabling freedom of opinion and expression, as well as freedom to be online? Organisations such as APC's Women's Programme actively lobby for both the Internet Governance Forum¹² and the Human Rights Council¹³ to engage with these questions by compiling feminist research and policy advocacy directions.

Private Control and Public Interest. The question of regulation of content online, and harassment, leads to questions of public interest in a privately-controlled internet. A leaked internal memo from Facebook revealed that employees asked if the platform had a role in “preventing] President Trump in 2017.”¹⁴ Facebook is therefore aware of its power to curate content to shape public opinion–but who regulates Facebook in what opinions it decides to shape? In a parallel development, the recent revelation that Facebook actively curates its “Trending Topics” reveals something fairly banal save for the fact that the opacity of the company's workings makes the news special: online content is moderated and curated by people!¹⁵

There is a powerful role that technology corporations have in shaping this de facto public sphere, to which they are increasingly expected to be accountable, to some extent the ways in which news media are.¹⁶ How can we rethink the role of these platforms and companies when they take credit for supporting popular uprisings around the world, and yet have no accountability to their users in the regulation of speech? The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression frames the questions around private enterprise and its role in securing rights:¹⁷

In digital environments, important questions about applicable law and the scope of private authority and public regulation cannot be avoided. Should these private actors have the same responsibilities as public authorities? Should their responsibilities derive from human rights law, terms of service, contractual arrangements, or something else? How should relationships among corporate actors and States be structured? When faced with pressures to conduct their businesses in ways that interfere with freedom of expression, what steps should private actors take?

Private enterprise in the technology sector goes beyond creating platforms for speech and expression. Facebook is also a company that wants to bring internet access to poorer parts of the world, as in the case of Free Basics, a mission they were unable to accomplish18 because they violated the principle of net neutrality, that all content on the internet should be treated the same. Other technology companies also have similar missionary intentions. Google has Project Loon, which aims to partner with telecommunications companies in using balloons to bring WiFi connectivity.¹⁹ However, Google's acquisitions since 1999 indicates that it is no more just a search engine company: its acquisitions extend from longevity research labs, to mining the moon.²⁰ Meanwhile, Bill and Melinda Gates has donated US$11,316,324 to Microchips Biotech Inc. to develop a wireless-connected slow-release contraceptive chip. Clinical trials will be conducted in the “developing world” in 2018.²¹

...as Amelia Abreu writes, the trendiness of personal quantification, driven primarily by white, middle-class men, suggests a “universalising aspect” in the search for data points. At the same time, the work that women do, such as caregiving, remains invisible despite the computing and technical power available in consumer technology applications.

Quantified Environments. The profitability of this privately-owned internet now comes from how effectively commercial applications can harness big data. Big data conceals significant biases and inaccuracies²² and also enables a range of new services from taxi rentals and menstruation apps to dating sites. Relying heavily on users sharing personal information, it promises to make predictions expected to help advertisers, marketers, and governments alike to target products and policies, and to collect feedback about how these work, or not.

One growing market for personal data comes from the body itself; an example is the quantified self (QS) movement with the slogan “self-knowledge through numbers,”²³ which relies on tracking sites, applications, and devices such as FitBits. According to QS enthusiasts, recording and analysing physiological and physical states can empower an individual to make healthy decisions. However, as Amelia Abreu writes, the trendiness of personal quantification, driven primarily by white, middle-class men, suggests a “universalising aspect” in the search for data points. At the same time, the work that women do, such as caregiving, remains invisible despite the computing and technical power available in consumer technology applications.²⁴

Self-quantification apps to monitor menstruation, fertility, and pregnancy aggregate large amounts of granular, personal data about sleep, appetite, digestion, hair quality, skin quality, motivation levels, productivity, and so on and so forth. In a personal interview, the lead developer of one such app said that his company does not sell personal data; in the interest of science, the company gives women's data to American universities citing the significant knowledge gap on menstruation and fertility.²⁵ However, the developer's “generous” approach suggests an instrumentalisation of women's bodies. There is an unfortunately long and significant history to the use of women's bodies for scientific inquiry, from how Western scientific knowledge has been co-constituted with colonial rule,²⁶ to the development of “cures” for women's “madness,” such as clitoridectomies and cold showers.²⁷

Abreu goes on to ask if quantification of everyday life can be a more “messy” space in which data may be in the hands of those who create it, and if it has any value in improving the conditions of their lives.28 A politicised perspective on data use and applications, and from global feminist perspectives, is much needed.

A politicised perspective on data use and applications, and from global feminist perspectives, is much needed.

Big data is also shaping practices of development, through application across a range of civic technology projects, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals.^29,30,31 There is still not enough robust evidence around if and how “big data for development” affects practices of NGOs and development actors, and what its impact will be on individual communities. We can now only ground what we think the challenges may be discursively, such as the sensitivities of visibility and exposure–what is the tradeoff between knowing, monitoring, and managing progress, and the rights to privacy and protection for people? How does the use of data change how NGOs and states make claims to achieving targets more or less authoritatively based on large or small data?³²

Things would be simple if one could get off Facebook, if all transnational organising and mobilising could move to sustainable and freedom-friendly autonomous infrastructure owned and maintained by activists (some try to!), or if users had more agency. We do not always have the choice to opt out, though different choices can be made, with some investment.³³ In thinking through how we inhabit the internet, and practice our politics and activism through it, it is time to consider how we feel, and enable, responsibility for this shared space.

in our own words

GENDER, ROMANCE, AND THE INTERNET:

However, to me, the most worrying implication of this clubbing together of homosexual men and transgender women was the implicit assumption that both sets of people were attracted solely to “other” men. Are human beings only defined by their romantic and sexual attraction? Is identity, therefore, determined externally?

Amina Abdallah, the “Gay Girl in Damascus,”1 was not born till much later. A character, a false persona created by Tom MacMaster in 2011, Amina portrayed herself as a lesbian in a Syria going through uprisings and revolts. Although as a persona Amina had existed on various chat forums and networking sites from 2006, it wasn't until the Arab Spring that she gained a large following. Through a blog, Amina “reported” on events shaping up in Syria, including how her father, her hero, stood up to the militia seeking to arrest her. Later, after her alleged “abduction,” doubts began circulating as to her identity, and it was revealed that Tom MacMaster was the “real” person behind Amina.

Even before then, I was already constructing an identity, I was building up Nadja whose aspirations, dreams, and hopes were entirely mine. However, her face, body, life, and history, were an amalgam of fact and fiction, culled from friends' lives, from books, and from every image resource I could find on the internet. Like Amina, my Nadja too needed photographs, needed plausible truths and believable lies in the construction of identity. Chat friends needed a picture of me, to help them sustain the fiction of my life. Yahoo Profiles and Groups needed biographies and hometowns and schools studied in to present a complete person, a “true” person. So I “stole” images freely, not worrying at all about copyright, consent, privacy, and authenticity. As an Indian, I studiously avoided sending my friends pictures of white women. I found an image closest to my dark brown skin, and used all available tools to make it as “authentically south Indian” as possible. As Nadja learnt, and as Amina too discovered, photographs that were closest to the identity one constructs help sustain the deception.

This deception, this half-lie, half-truth, was easy in the early Internet. It was expected too, perhaps. You could be who you claimed to be, and no probing would be necessary. This was essential for some of us who were expressing desires and opinions that had little offline, “real world” support. This was plausible deniability, a cloak to hide under.

Years later, I discovered Second Life,² a multiplayer game that allows users to create a virtual world. Avatars—digital selves—interact with each other, exploring ideas of what makes humans, what it means to be a man or a woman, what it means to desire other men and other women with no “real world” rules to play by. For me, it became more than a game, more than an addiction. It became an existence.

On Second Life, I created a me that was more me than I could be. The Nadja of Yahoo Chat was slowly becoming the Nadika that I am today. As someone who struggled with her own body and how it was perceived, the women I pretended to be and the avatars I created became necessary crutches. A body shaped for, and by, the Internet.

Social media and queer forums online and offline are spaces to add layers and depth to my identity, allowing me to tie my various lives and loves together into a coherent narrative. Having learnt to be more aware of my privileges and my oppression, and having an outlet to broadcast my politics and my personal life, I am now able to tell the world all about me. I am Nadika. I am a non-binary, non-binary person.

IS ACCESS REAL?

The environment is such that infrastructure, systems, and processes are far from being sensitive to the needs of the disabled, and a medical and charitable approach to disability is still prominent.1 WWD are considered as a burden and changes in this way of thinking, though growing gradually, are few and far between. Understandably, the focus is on access to health systems, education, and employment, but there is a clearly marked hierarchy of needs that the able-bodied world thrusts on the disabled; sexuality and sexual needs of the PWD are at the very bottom.²

...there is a clearly marked hierarchy of needs that the able-bodied world thrusts on the disabled; sexuality and sexual needs of the PWD are at the very bottom....What everyone forgets perhaps is that persons with disabilities are more than just scrabbling for food, clothing, and treatment; they are battling for inclusion which means the right to be human in every sense.

My aunt sat me down one day and started sharing her concerns for the marriage of my siblings. She discussed each of their preferences, likes, dislikes, and crushes with me. Out of us sisters, she only forgot one person—that was me.

— A wheelchair user from Pakistan

Assumptions around PWD's asexuality and incapability to engage or desire intimacy and romance got me started on my work. Little did I know that as a young, disabled activist talking about disability and sexuality, I would experience strong reactions, not only from the nondisabled community, where women's sexuality is still hushed, and a deeper silence thrives around that of WWD; but also from the disabled community, who thought that my work was superfluous at best and a complete non-issue at worst.3 What everyone forgets perhaps is that persons with disabilities are more than just scrabbling for food, clothing, and treatment; they are battling for inclusion which means the right to be human in every sense.

To start with, I researched and co-authored Sexuality and Disability,⁴ an online resource that busted the strong myths around the asexuality of WWD, and offered WWD more nuanced information and practical advice on understanding their own bodies, sexuality, possibilities, and opportunities for relationships, safety, violence, and abuse. The process of developing this project gave me the opportunity to understand and reflect on how the digital world could help alleviate the exclusion that WWD face in terms of access to unprejudiced information, and that too in accessible formats.

Bias Hardwired in Accessible Systems. When an app or a website is launched, do we ever sit back and see whether it meets with the accessibility guidelines created to make platforms accessible for persons across disabilities?⁵ I registered on Truly—Madly, a dating app in India, and the option to express interest in a person is inaccessible with the voice-over technology that I use. While I work, live, and socialise independently, experiences with dating apps indicate that I should hire a personal assistant to help negotiate a dating app!

At Point of View,⁶ we started a study of dating apps for disabled people. We found out that the combination of gendered and cultural filters has had an impact on users of these technologies for relationships and the accessibility of these platforms. First, it was extremely difficult to find WWD who used dating apps, as compared to men with disabilities. When WWD were reached and asked why they did not use dating apps, the reactions were not unexpected. They found it much more difficult than men with disabilities to express their desire for a partner; if it was expressed at all, it was only within the language of matrimony. Moreover, according to a few, dating was too western a concept for them.

When an app or a website is launched, do we ever sit back and see whether it meets with the accessibility guidelines created to make platforms accessible for persons across disabilities?

Marriage is the inevitable future that is imagined for Indian women by their families and communities. Indian women are expected to epitomise beauty and perfection; anything that is different from the “normal” impacts their existence, place in society, and eventually, their chances of finding a suitable partner. Parents are worried about daughters who are too fat, too thin, too tall, too dark, and of course, those who are visibly disabled. This non-acceptance harms all women, and when you have a disability, not being allowed to accept or acknowledge your disability and labouring under the prejudice that surrounds it can be devastating.⁷

Matrimonial (i.e., matchmaking) sites are very popular in India, but there is bias against disabled people built into the very architecture of these sites—because they are built into society. You have categorisations on the basis of caste, education, physical attributes, but also one on disability. Of course then you can set search filters. Given the existing levels of prejudice against PWD, it is not surprising that one ends up being filtered out by the non-disabled world.⁸ So, as a PWD, I might have access to these matrimonial portals, but is the access real?

On some websites, the disability categorisation is taken to another level. Bharat Matrimony, a mainstream matchmaking website, copies the user's profile on to their “exclusively for disabled” portal, Ability Matrimony. It is possible they think they are being helpful and giving you two bites of the same apple. Consequently, the user is registered on a site that she never signed up for. However, when the profile is moved to Ability Matrimony, the user's information and personal contact details suddenly become public, after being hidden and regulated on the main parent portal, Bharat Matrimony. Of course she is disabled, why would she need security and privacy?!

monitoring regional and global activities

People with diverse sexualities and gender identities are both stigmatised and often criminalised in Asia. In Southeast Asia alone, five out of 11 countries criminalise same-sex acts.1

In response, B-Change launched Connecting the Dots, a strategy focused on supporting sexual and gender minority youth in Asian countries by using technology. Part of this strategy was the 2015 launch of BE—a peer support web platform that serves as a safer space where young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people in Asia can find resources, connect with supportive communities, and get help in accessing services.

This article discusses some of the learnings of the organisation since launching BE. The discussion is focused on digital security issues and some suggestions for organisations whose work includes online components.

Dealing with online security issues is not exclusive to web-based service providers like B-Change. Online and offline spaces have been increasingly converging, which makes online presence necessary for practically every organisation. Our knowledge of the internet is constantly evolving and we begin to see how digital issues are not limited only to technical concerns but also reflect issues that we deal with offline. In a 2015 report, From Insult to Inclusion, UNESCO links online and offline harassment and suggests that these should be tackled as interconnected issues.²

Online and offline spaces have been increasingly converging, which makes online presence necessary for practically every organisation. Our knowledge of the internet is constantly evolving and we begin to see how digital issues are not limited only to technical concerns but also reflect issues that we deal with offline.

The intention of LGBTI and allied social media pages to be safer spaces, for example, is often threatened with the presence of comments attacking LGBTI people.... [R]eporting mechanisms built to protect social media users from online abuse are also used to maliciously report posted LGBTI-friendly resources.

For LGBTI people, much harassment is linked to stigmatisation by social, religious, and political groups. Shortly after BE launched in May 2015, there was a targeted digital attack that attempted to prevent users from accessing its services. The landing page was replaced by an image suggesting a connection to fundamentalist and extremist groups.

Growing extremism in online spaces was discussed in a cyberbullying webinar that B-Change conducted in 2015 featuring representatives from organisations working on rights and welfare of LGBTI groups in Southeast Asia. Participants of the webinar discussed their experiences with online attacks which limited their ability to distribute important content.³ The intention of LGBTI and allied social media pages to be safer spaces, for example, is often threatened with the presence of comments attacking LGBTI people. Pink Dot—a Singapore-based movement fighting for the freedom to love—shared their struggle with finding a balance between allowing free speech in their social media pages, while keeping it a safer space by removing hateful comments. They also shared how reporting mechanisms built to protect social media users from online abuse are also used to maliciously report posted LGBTI-friendly resources. Often, these resources are falsely flagged as containing pornography or nudity, to which the immediate response by site administrators is usually to remove the materials. Pink Dot's main campaign consultant one day found that his Facebook account was disabled and Pink Dot's campaign video was taken down due to these false reports.

1. Technical bases should be covered. Prepare by backing up assets and having a reliable recovery plan. It is also crucial to employ the help of external security partners to maintain the health and security of the online infrastructure. B-Change sought out online security experts during a time of need, but it is better to identify connections to technical support before any actual issue arises. Tactical Technology Collective is a non-profit organisation that provides technical help to activist groups. Their website, Security In-A-Box, is an excellent digital security resource for human rights defenders.4
2. Digital security is an organisational issue. Resilience can only be achieved if it becomes a concern of everyone in the organisation. In the case of B-Change where activities are web-based, each team member has different access points to the technological infrastructures. Each of these access points is a security risk and also an opportunity for defense. It is crucial that team members acknowledge their role in maintaining security by taking accountability over their accesses and remaining vigilant of threats.
3. Investing in digital security is an ongoing process. Investing in comprehensive digital security protocols is worthwhile, and considering the dynamic nature of technology, it should be a continuous process that also constantly reinvents itself to stay abreast in digital safety. Security processes should be regularly updated and members of the organisation should always be informed with latest developments on security issues. To tie up digital security with a more holistic idea of security for human rights defenders, support for security trainings and creation of security plans are available through Freedom House's Dignity for All programme.⁵

Safety and security have always been complex issues. Having to tread them both offline and online—an environment with which we still have limited understanding—makes it even more challenging. Digital resilience is an important area that can often be overlooked in organisations, and thus we must consciously include building it in our plans and strategies.

SAFER NUDES!

— Fannie Sosa1

The expression “Send Nudes!” went viral in 2015 in Brazil.² The common perception of nudes is that they are taken by young girls with low self-esteem, pressured by some boyfriend or her social³ network, and that eventually she will be the target of slut shaming, exposure, or online violence. Nudies are understood as something you just should not do. If you are a woman who deliberately sends it, you are an attention whore.⁴ If you are fat, trans, or anyone who is beyond the traditional standards of what is visible in the mainstream media, you are labeled as ugly, disgusting, or a freak.⁵

However, as it happens with social phenomena appropriated (not created) by pop culture,⁶ making selfies and nudes can be an opportunity to empower people beyond the mere reproduction of sexy pictures of women already in mainstream and digital media. It can be used as a way to know yourself, connect with other people, and represent yourself in your own terms.

.making selfies and nudes can be an opportunity to empower people beyond the mere reproduction of sexy pictures of women already in mainstream and digital media. It can be used as a way to know yourself, connect with other people, and represent yourself in your own terms.

Motivated by the recurring leaks of celebrities' nudes, many media platforms have published their warnings about the risks of sharing nudes. The vast majority of them suggest, more or less explicitly, that the only safe way to send nudes would be to not to send them at all.⁷

For Coding Rights, a women-led organisation addressing digital rights, such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression, this was unreasonable. It overlooked the fact that people, including teenagers, would not stop doing it and advising them to stop would be repressive and result in an illusion of changed behaviour.

As in offline spaces, it is not possible to be 100% safe online. Digital security is not a one-size-fits-all formula. There is no button to press, box to tick, or device to activate that will mitigate all possible security vulnerabilities. However, there are ways to mitigate your risks according to what you are communicating, to whom, and how. The most important thing in digital security is to understand what you are doing and what the risks are in a given situation.

With that in mind, the sexy guide to digital security provides some information about how digital communications work to enable nude lovers to understand and be able to minimise the digital traces that they leave behind when sharing pictures online, as well as to diminish the risk of exposure of such content.

As security of tools change over time, apps recommendations are secondary. This holistic way of thinking should lead to the understanding of the importance of practices, such as implementing strong passwords in your devices and apps; using apps that use end-to-end encryption8; blocking screen shots; using self-destructing messages that are erased from both servers and devices; encrypting your devices; and deleting files, among other security considerations, when exchanging pictures.

We believe this approach towards communications is a powerful way of thinking to protect our right of self-determination and autonomy over the control of our bodies and self in online communications.

You can download the guide here: http://www.codingrights.org/pt/manda-nudes/

WOMEN'S BODIES ON DIGITAL BATTLEGROUNDS:

Networks of Information and Support by Pro-choice Activists in Latin America¹

I was educated in the idea that women should be silent, so the fact that now I can dare to say what I really feel has made me feel very free.

— Bertha, the grandmother blogger²

This article analyses the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by pro-choice activists and Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) from Latin America. It shows that technological practices enable networks of information and support, and create new kinds of risks and vulnerabilities online.

The interviews conducted for this research revealed that the legislations³ in place, and the civic struggles for the advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), are felt as highly unstable. For instance, in Brazil, there is an extremely worrisome bill proposed⁴ that intend to forbid the production and sharing of information about abortion with jail sentences of up to ten years in prison. In Honduras, the government has banned any policy or programme related to emergency contraception. So far, though, it is not illegal in any other Latin American country to publish SRHR information.

Table 1 presents the geographic and legislative characteristics of the nine testimonials we have gathered for this study, and lists the type of ICTs they are using. The interviews consisted of four questions around their perception of the main risks they were facing, advantages and risks associated with their use of ICTs, current needs for moving their activism forward, and other resources or documentation they wanted to share with this inquiry.

Freedom of Information, Social Stigmatisation, and Criminalisation. Confronted with the absence of legal, safe, and/or publicly funded conditions within which to access abortions, women in Latin America have created and engaged in networks of information and support that generally work in two ways. On the one hand, groups raise awareness, remove stereotypes about abortions, advance women's rights, and create impact at a political level by seeking the legalisation or decriminalisation of abortion. They work intensively in producing useful information and ensure that these can be accessed by their audiences, allies, and other progressive social agents. On the other hand, groups and networks also provide direct support to women, either by providing them with misoprostol or accompanying them before, during, and after the abortion. It should be noted that for many groups, those objectives can overlap.

Table 1. Characteristics of Testimonials

Even though the region is still characterised by low levels of digital literacy (more so among women in rural areas), there is an increase in the rates of connectivity of urban population largely through the use of smartphones. This trend has enabled more women to get online. However, very often their first experience of being online happens on social media platforms that can be both non-secure in terms of the visibility of personal information or even abusive. They have little orientation on how to take advantage of the internet and its positive benefits, as well as protect themselves from its negative consequences.5

There is an increase in violence against activists and WHRDs involved with feminism or sexual and reproductive rights. This violence is expressed as hate speech, or harassment online, on blogs, discussion forums, or social media platforms. Surveillance, harassment, and stalking that are enabled or amplified by ICTs are routinely taking place through identity theft, blackmailing, doxxing (broadcasting an individual's identity and location information without consent online), smear campaigns, censoring, takedowns of content, through individual or mob rape, and death threats. Examples are the documented cases of “Nad Ro” and “Menstruadora”6 who have been harassed with hate speech or threatened with death. The same has happened in less well-documented cases, such as when members of pro-choice groups are targeted by pro-life activists on Facebook.

According to our interviews, online attacks are being carried out by relatives and partners, anti-choice or hate groups, organised crime, and governments. There is extensive literature regarding Latin American governments' practices in relation to the monitoring and surveillance of their citizens' communications.⁷ Similarly, the use of ICTs by narcotics trafficker gangs and cartels to track down their adversaries has also been documented. For instance, there are some reported cases of Mexican women murdered by drug traffickers who were apparently made visible through their exposure in social networking platforms.⁸

In countries like Argentina, pro-choice activists felt that as long as the networks of support, and women's access to abortion, remained under the radar, they are safer. The main attacks they have detected take place when there are activities that attract public attention on pro-choice arguments and/or there is a requirement for support and/or resources from public institutions.

However, the strong context of social stigmatisation of pro-choice positions can also lead to different forms of attacks. In Argentina, there are public escraches: anti-choice groups who gather information about women who had legal abortion, or pro-choice activists and their allies, and share those in the public domain in order to shame or prosecute them. There have also been reports of attacks on and closing down of places where legal abortions were conducted; and harassment of specific doctors in order to pressure them to stop performing abortions. In Chile, one respondent noted that “when the abortion hotline was launched in 2009, their spokespersons faced surveillance, harassment, and illegal intrusion of their phones and email. However, they failed to reach beyond this because there was no criminal prosecution possible as they were only providing information and counselling.” Another interview from Mexico reported that they had faced intrusion and Denial of Services (DoS) attacks⁹ against specific websites and information portals.¹⁰

For us the paradox is: protect yourself until you can't communicate any more, or become visible until you are unprotected.

— Doulagem de Guerillha

Navigating between Visibility, Anonymity, and Secrecy. Interviewees were aware of the fact that their “misinformed” or “inexpert” use of ICTs could likely increase the risks they were facing. They also explained that, in general, their awareness of the existence of methods and tools to mitigate or even overcome those risks did not translate into engaging in safer communication practices among themselves, much less with the women they were supporting.

This was mainly because they lacked support and resources (e.g., time, money, learning opportunities, and training). As put by one interviewee from Chile: “When a woman needs to have an abortion, the last thing she worries about is how she can encrypt emails or navigate the internet with Tor.” In the same way, the pro-choice group from Brazil raised the flag that many women who have limited internet access need to organise face-to-face meetings and screening within community-based organisations in order to share information.

This situation points at the dilemma of learning to use safer tools to communicate among the network of pro-choice activists. At the same time, they have to undertake new activities in order to engage with their target audience through selected safer spaces and safer tools that can be as easily accessible and appropriated as the commercial and more unsafe ones they are currently using.¹¹

Another challenge deals with the need to reach maximum visibility for accurate information around safe abortion and women's right to decide over their bodies, and at the same time to make it happen within a context of relative or strong clandestinity. Many interviewees underlined how complex it was to combine their clandestine endeavours and their choice whether or not to remain anonymous. One interviewee explained, for instance, that she was fired from her job because of her personal pro-choice opinions and postings in her Facebook personal page. For testimonies coming from Honduras or Nicaragua, the only option was anonymity. However, in other contexts, many pro-choice activists have become trapped into displaying a visible and traceable persona, and in many case, they believe that anonymity is incompatible with defending freedom of expression and opinion, or feel that their online activism must be a mirror image of their offline activism.

Another possible layer of risk lies in the phenomenon of the “time travel robots,”12 in which information and metadata¹³ that are seen today as innocuous and not sensitive could become highly problematic in the future if new type of businesses, legal frameworks, and criminalisation dynamics took place.

This risk analysis points at the need to learn how to remain vocal and visible, maintain a reputation that provides you with trusted and solidarity networks, and at the same time, reduce as much as possible the amount of personal identifiable information that can lead an adversary to profile, identify, track, and shut you down.

[The best mitigation measures will hopefully... be] implemented within a security perspective that also engages with [activists'] physical integrity, self-care, and psychosocial well-being, and provides them with a good understanding of the evolving dimensions of privacy and the politics of data...

When applied to pro-choice activities that take place online and in the real world, the best mitigation measures will likely take place in safest and more autonomous uses of ICT in order to publish, share, move information, coordinate and communicate, and defend against spying and stalking. Hopefully, they will be implemented within a security perspective that also engages with their physical integrity, self-care, and psychosocial well-being, and provides them with a good understanding of the evolving dimensions of privacy and the politics of data in order to navigate among spyware and utilise other specific apps and platforms that could enhance their safety online and in real-life situations.

More concretely, there would also be a need to develop specific training and resources so that pro-choice activists can learn how to explore the deep web anonymously and receive purchased materials in a safe way. There is also a great need for awareness and educational materials that are non text-based, using other formats and distribution channels to reach out more effectively to undereducated women, women with disabilities, and allies living in urban, rural, and remote areas. There is a need to support researches and initiatives that can create more data and evidence regarding the impact on women's mental and physical health of prohibition policies, in countries that do not aggregate data about women morbidity due to unsafe abortions or unwanted pregnancy.

Finally, more transboundary networks of solidarity should be formed to support the technological needs for hosting, mirroring, and distributing contents tackling the current situation in Latin American countries.

resources

ARROW'S SRHR Knowledge Sharing Centre hosts a special collection of resources on gender, women's rights, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). It aims to make critical information on these topics accessible to all. To contact the resource centre, write to dc@arrow.org.my or arrow@arrow.org.my.

Internet, Sexuality, and Rights

Finlay, Alan, ed. Global Information Society Watch 2015: Sexual Rights and the Internet. USA: APC & Hivos, 2015. http://www.giswatch.org/sites/default/files/gw2015-full-report.pdf.

This comprehensive report produced by Open Societies, Hivos, and Association for Progressive Communications (APC) adds to the existing discourses on how the internet has enabled young people to get sexual education by augmenting their access to online resources, how violence and discrimination in the offline and online spaces are interlinked, and how the internet has paved the way for the expansion of spaces for collective activism. Through case studies and country reports, this study also examines the increased threats of online surveillance, assaults on human rights defenders, and the emergence of alternative online economies.

Kee, Jac sm, ed. ://Erotics—Sex, Rights and the Internet. South Africa: APC, 2011. https://www.apc.org/en/system/files/EROTICS.pdf.

This exploratory research report examines the existing landscape of sexual and internet rights in Brazil, India, Lebanon, South Africa, and the USA. It also explores the value that internet brings in the exercise of rights by people of diverse sexualities. The report outlines various forms of challenges, threats, and restrictions to the exchange of information and dialogue online and the actors involved. It also identifies key questions for future research in this area.

Shah, Nishant, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, eds. Digital Activism in Asia Reader. UK: Meson Press, 2015. http://meson.press/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9783957960511-Digital-Activism-Asia-Reader.pdf.

This reader is a compilation of crowd-sourced digital tools, theoretical concepts, policy questions, case studies, and political analyses, identified by changemakers in their own practices of digital activism in Asia.

Sexuality Education and Discourses on Sexuality in a Digital Age

Berry, Chris, Fran Martin, and Audrey Yue. Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

This collection of essays provides a snapshot of the queer cultures in Asia in the age of new media. It explores how access to mobile technology and the internet has augmented opportunities for public discourses on sexualities, gender roles, and global and indigenous queer cultures. It also offers a case against the argument about internet-facilitated “sexual imperialism.”

Collins, Rebecca L., Steven C. Martino, and Rebecca Shaw Rand. “Influence of New Media on Adolescent Sexual Health: Evidence and Opportunities.” ASPE. April 2011. https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/influence-new-media-adolescent-sexual-health-evidence-and-opportunities.

This report examines nine interventions implemented through new media (SMS and internet) to improve adolescents' attitudes towards sexual risks. It provides evidence on the effectiveness and influence of new media, and also discusses variables that should be considered while strategising for future interventions.

Daneback, Kristian. “Love and Sexuality on the Internet.” Doctoral dissertation, Goteborg University, 2006. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/10169.

This paper provides a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of user trends, usage, information-seeking patterns, and other arenas that constitute the landscape of sexuality on the internet. It also studies the generational differences and how it affects the ways users engage with different actors in the sexuality landscape on the internet and attempts to find linkages between informants' behaviors online and offline.

Access to the Internet—Socioeconomic and Gender Divide

Alliance for Affordable Internet. “The 2015-16 Affordability Report.” A4AI.org, n.d. http://a4ai.org/affordability-report/report/2015/.

The Alliance for Affordable Internet's report on Internet Affordability looks at the policies, investments, and infrastructures in place that drive progress towards more accessible and affordable internet. The report also examines the gender gap with regards to access to the internet and the “cost to connect” for women. Lastly, it recommends policy changes to support and augment women's effective participation in a growing digital society.

“Women's Rights Online: Translating Access into Empowerment.” World Wide Web Foundation, October 20, 2015. http://webfoundation.org/about/research/womens-rights-online-2015/.

This study by World Wide Web Foundation explores the extent of the gender gap in access to the internet in order to understand the empowering potential of information and communications technology (ICT) as tools against poverty and gender inequality. The research provides insights on the gender divide in accessibility to the internet as a reflection of societal disparities and the interlinkages between the realities of offline and online spaces. It also considers the barriers and challenges that must be resolved to address this gender divide.

Being Safe Online

Association for Progressive Communications. “Online VAW: From Impunity to Justice.” GenderIT.org, n.d. http://www.genderit.org/onlinevaw/.

This pioneer research series—conducted under “Take Back the Tech” campaign—examines the patterns of violence against women (VAW) in online spaces, its emotional, physical, and psychological impact on women, and the various redressal mechanisms and legislations that women can use against the perpetrators of VAW in digital spaces. The research series also explores the redressal mechanisms on popular social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as domestic legal remedies in seven countries—i.e., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

Comninos, Alex, and Gareth Seneque. “Cyber Security, Civil Society and Vulnerability in an Age of Communications Surveillance.” Global Information Society Watch, 2014. https://giswatch.org/en/communications-surveillance/cyber-security-civil-society-and-vulnerability-age-communications-sur.

Cyber security is becoming increasingly important to internet users including stakeholders like civil society, human rights defenders, and activists as they become more vulnerable to hack attacks and malware attacks. At the same time, states are employing “cyber commands” under the guise of “cyber security” to increase and strengthen their surveillance capacities. These technologies are often used to monitor civil society organisations and to target human rights defenders and activists which is also a violation of their rights. This report asks for a radical change in the discourses around cyber security to ensure that state agencies and corporate units do not violate human rights and privacy under the guise of cyber security.

Henry, Nicola and Anastasia Powell. “Beyond the 'Sext': Technology-facilitated Sexual Violence and Harassment against Adult Women.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 48, no. 1 (2014): 10418.

Distribution and exchange of sexual images in online spaces in the context of harassment and intimate violence is an emerging trend. This paper examines this trend and argues that technology-facilitated sexual/ intimate violence—such as revenge-porn and non-consensual making and exchange of sexual images—is often looked at as an issue of victim's naiveté and not as a case of violence against women. It also argues that criminal law fails to adequately capture the harm done by technology-enabled VAW, sexual harassment, and coercion.

Maltzahn, Kathleen. “Digital Dangers: Information and Communications Technologies and Trafficking in Women.” APC Issue Papers. August 2006. http://www.genderit.org/sites/default/upload/digital_dangers_EN_1.pdf.

This report examines the case study of non-consensual making of sexually-explicit videos and its distribution through the internet to understand the role technology plays in virtual trafficking of female bodies. It also explores the concept of trafficking of women's bodies/images in a virtual world, how recruitment for trafficking is facilitated and/or promoted through new media, and what interventions could be taken to address these emerging threats.

Nyst, Carly. “Towards Internet Intermediary Responsibility.” GenderIT.org, November 26, 2013. http://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk/towards-internet-intermediary-responsibility.

Responses to technology-facilitated and technology-enabled VAW are often defined by the assumptions about the nature of violence and the conflicts between addressing VAW and protecting the freedom of expression. This article explores the responsibilities of intermediaries to address technology-enabled and technology-facilitated VAW to ensure that the internet remains a safe space for women.

Tools for Activists and Human Rights Defenders

Association for Progressive Communications. “Digital Security First Aid Kit for Human Rights Defenders (Second Edition).” APC.org, n.d. https://www.apc.org/en/irhr/digital-security-first-aid-kit.

This is developed by activists for activists to help human rights defenders (HRDs) become more secure in the digital landscape. This easy-to-use and simple kit provides guidance to mitigate security issues that might put the integrity and privacy of HRD's communications mechanisms under risk. (Summary is adapted from the introduction page of the kit.)

“Internet Monitor Dashboard.” https://dashboard.thenetmonitor.org/.

Internet Monitor aims to study the “means, mechanisms, and extent of Internet content controls and Internet activity around the world” to help advocates, policy makers, and researchers get a better understanding of the internet landscape, its actors, and stakeholders. Internet Monitor is a project of Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

“Me and My Shadow.” MyShadow.org. https://myshadow.org/about.

This website helps individuals understand the concept of digital tracking and its usages. It also provides a simple how-to guide to control your digital data traces.

“Why We Post?” https://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post.

“Why We Post” is an anthropological study of uses and consequent impacts of social media. A series of three books—open access and free to download—has also been released under this project. How the World Changed Social Media provides a summary of key findings of the research project conducted in eight countries. It is followed by Social Media in an English Village and Social Media in Southeast Turkey.

“Women's Rights Campaigning—info-activism Toolkit.” https://womensrights.informationactivism.org/en/about-toolkit.

This toolkit provides a guide for women's rights activists, NGOs, and civil societies around the world to digital tools for advocacy and campaigning. This was produced by Tactical Technology Collective in collaboration with CREA.

OTHER RESOURCES

Booysen, Tarryn. “Building Women's Access to Justice: Technology-related VAW in Law and Corporate Policy.” GenderIT.org, January 10, 2015. http://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk/building-women-s-access-justice-technology-related-vaw-law-and-corporate-policy.

Datta, Bishaka. “Tangled, Like Wool: Sex, Sexuality and the Internet in India.” GenderIT.org. http://www.genderit.org/articles/tangled-wool-sex-sexuality-and-internet-india.

Garcia, Liza S., and Florence Y. Manikan. Gender Violence on the Internet: The Philippine Experience. Report. http://www.genderit.org/sites/default/upload/monograph_finalz.pdf.

Tactical Technology Collective. “Gender and Tech Resources.” https://gendersec.tacticaltech.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.

Kee, Jac sm. “Cultivating Violence through Technology? Exploring the Connection between Internet Communication Technologies (ICT) and Violence against Women (VAW).” Technical paper. APC Women's Networking Support Programme. April 16, 2005. http://www.genderit.org/sites/default/upload/VAW_ICT_EN.pdf.

Kunnuji, Michael. “Risk-bearing Sexuality within the Context of Internet Use among Young People in Lagos Metropolis.” 45 Inkanyiso: Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, no. 2 (2011). http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ijhss/article/view/74135.

McLean, Nyx. “Considering the Internet as Enabling Queer Publics/Counter Publics.” GenderIT.org, August 19, 2015. http://www.genderit.org/resources/considering-internet-enabling-queer-publics-counter-publics.

Mitchell, Mia. “The Digital Gender Gap: Unleashing the Value of the Internet for Women.” Kennedy School Review, April 30, 2015. http://harvardkennedyschoolreview.com/the-digital-gender-gap-unleashing-the-value-of-the-internet-for-women-2/.

Mustanski, Brian, Tom Lyons, and Steve C. Garcia. “Internet Use and Sexual Health of Young Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Mixed-Methods Study.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 40, no. 2 (2010): 289-300. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20182787.

Nwagwu, Williams E. “The Internet as a Source of Reproductive Health Information among Adolescent Girls in an Urban City in Nigeria.” BMC Public Health 7, no. 1 (2007): 354. http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-7-354.

Security In-a-box: Tools and Tactics for Digital Security.” https://securityinabox.org/en.

Sonenstein, Freya. “The Internet, Teenagers, and Sexual Health Information: A Cautionary Tale.” Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 1, no. 1 (2012): 39. https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2045-4015-1-39.

UNDP, UNFPA, WHO, and World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP). “The Internet Is an Effective Means of Providing Sex and Reproductive Health Education to Young People in Shanghai, China.” (Social Science Research Policy Briefs WHO/RHR/HRP/06.16). 2006. http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/adolescence/policy_brief_internet/en/.

SELECTED ARROW RESOURCES

Aside from ARROW for Change, which is produced in English and translated strategically in various Asia-Pacific and global languages, ARROW also develops cutting-edge publications. Below are key ARROW publications from the past five years. All resources from 1993 to the present can be downloaded at http://arrow.org.my/publications-overview/.

2014-2016

Various Authors. Call for Action to Integrate SRHR into the Post-2015 Agenda. Available for Africa, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR (in English and Lao), Pakistan, Latin America and the Caribbean (in English and Spanish).

ARROW. Leadership Experiences of Young Women in South East Asia: Reflections on Advancing Young People's SRHR Agenda.

Access: “The principle of universal access refers to the need to guarantee connectivity and access to the Internet infrastructure and other ICT services that is universal, ubiquitous, equitable, truly affordable, and of adequate quality, all throughout the State's territory...” This means, amongst others, putting in “measures that ensure that price structures are inclusive in order to facilitate access; that connectivity extends throughout the States territory, in order to effectively promote access for rural users and marginal communities; that communities have access to information technology and communications centers and other options for public access; and that efforts for training and education are reinforced, especially for poor, rural and older segments of the population. Universal access also places a priority on ensuring equitable access when it comes to gender, as well as inclusive access for disabled individuals and/ or individuals belonging to marginalised communities.”1

Big Data: The corporate definition is “high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process automation.”² However, “others argue that it's not the size of data that counts, but the tools being used or the insights that can be drawn from the dataset.”³ A fourth V— veracity—to refer to the uncertainty of data has also been added as a dimension.⁴ Some activists, practitioners, and researchers looking at using big data for positive social change proposes a redefinition as follows: “[Big data] refers to digital datasets of unprecedented size in relation to a particular question or phenomenon, and particularly datasets that can be linked, merged and analysed in combination.. [I]t may be more relevant to define big data as involving a process of analysis that characterises the data involved as big, rather than as a particular size of product. Thus big data could be seen more as a verb than a noun, and more as a process than an object.”^5,6

Censorship vis-à-vis Right to Freedom of Expression and Right to Information: “The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR)⁷ and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantee the right to freedom of expression, both in Article 19. Freedom of expression is not only important in its own right but is also essential if other human rights are to be achieved.”⁸ Article 19 of UDHR says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”⁹ “The right to freedom of expression belongs to everyone. No distinctions are permitted on the basis of someone's level of education, race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or any other status.”¹⁰ [Editors: Other bases for non-discrimination are age, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, health status, and citizenship and migration status, amongst others.]

“The right to impart information and ideas is the most obvious aspect of freedom of expression. It is the right to tell others what one thinks or knows in private or via the media. But freedom of expression serves a larger purpose. It enables every person to access as wide a range of information and viewpoints as possible. Known as the right to information, this includes: reading newspapers, listening to public debates, watching the television, surfing the internet, and accessing information held by public authorities. The right to information has emerged as a new right, distinct but inseparable from the right to freedom of expression.”11

However, freedom of expression can be limited. One way is through censorship, which is “the use of power by the State or other entity to control the freedom of expression. Censorship is any intent to prohibit access to information, viewpoints or diverse forms of expression.”¹²

Some forms of online censorship are content regulation, filtering, and website blocking:

Content regulation is “the ways the free flow of information on the internet is controlled. Regulation takes many forms and is imposed by different people—governments (e.g., through laws), the private sector (e.g., through 'terms of use' and contractual agreements), the technical community (e.g., through standards and protocols), and individuals (e.g., through installation of filtering software on PCs).”¹³

In internet filtering,¹⁴ “a government, an ISP, a company, or a parent can install software, either on a personal computer at home or on a server in an organisation that restricts content to users. A filter can screen particular words, email addresses, websites, or other addresses and be used, for example, if a country wishes to prevent users within its borders from seeing a particular news site online.”¹⁵

Website blocking “works by blocking a computer access to a particular internet address. The user may receive a 'Site not found' message.”¹⁶

It must be noted that “the principal reason [for censorship] cited by governments across all geopolitical spectrums has been sex—or 'harmful sexual content.'” There are a variety of sexual content available online that cannot be considered 'harmful,' including information about sexual health, information on reproductive health and contraception, sexuality education for young people, networks on combating sexual violence, sharing knowledge and information on sexuality and building communities such as for the LGBTIQ communities where homosexuality is prohibited by law or culture, and expressing one's own sexuality on one's own terms. However, often, these are also regulated and censored, resulting in “banning and blocking of sites by governments—directly or through the encouragement of blacklists censorship of material by internet service providers (ISPs)— who take down content that goes against their 'terms of use'; over-reliance on technical solutions like content filtering by key word— which notoriously fail to distinguish between different types of sexual content, such as those mentioned above; technical blunders—leaving swathes of the population unable to use the internet; and governments and groups using moral arguments to approve censorship.”¹⁷

It must be noted that “the principal reason [for censorship] cited by governments across all geopolitical spectrums has been sex—or 'harmful sexual content.'” There are a variety of sexual content available online that cannot be considered 'harmful,' including information about sexual health, information on reproductive health and contraception, sexuality education for young people, networks on combating sexual violence, sharing knowledge and information on sexuality and building communities such as for the LGBTIQ communities where homosexuality is prohibited by law or culture, and expressing one's own sexuality on one's own terms. However, often, these are also regulated and censored...

“The position in international law can be summarised as follows: Although the right to freedom of expression does not require an absolute ban on prior censorship, this should be a highly exceptional measure, taken only when a publication threatens grave harm, such as loss of life or serious harm to health, safety, or the environment. An article deemed defamatory, blasphemous, obscene or overly critical of the government would rarely if ever meet this threshold. Moreover, a system whereby media content must be officially cleared before it can be released would be unacceptable; its harm to freedom of expression would plainly far outweigh the benefit to its goals.”18

Internet Governance: “The development and application by governments, the private sector, and civil society of shared principles and rules that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”¹⁹ “Essential to democracy and governance are open debate, the sharing of ideas, and the opportunity to take part in decisionmaking.”²⁰

Net Neutrality: “[T]he principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.”²¹ Net neutrality is key to having an open internet. “It means that Internet service providers should provide us with open networks—and should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that ride over those networks. Just as your phone company shouldn't decide who you can call and what you say on that call, your ISP shouldn't be concerned with the content you view or post online. Without Net Neutrality, cable and phone companies could carve the Internet into fast and slow lanes. An ISP could slow down its competitors' content or block political opinions it disagreed with. ISPs could charge extra fees to the few content companies that could afford to pay for preferential treatment—relegating everyone else to a slower tier of service.”^22,23

Privacy and Data Privacy:^24,25 “Privacy is a qualified, fundamental human right. The right to privacy is articulated in all of the major international and regional human rights instruments,” including Article 12 of the the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948, Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1966, Article 14 of the United Nations Convention on Migrant Workers, Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 10 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Article 4 of the African Union Principles on Freedom of Expression (the right of access to information), Article 11 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Article 5 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, Articles 16 and 21 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, Article 21 of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. “Over 130 countries have constitutional statements regarding the protection of privacy, in every region of the world.”

“An important element of the right to privacy is the right to protection of personal data. While the right to data protection can be inferred from the general right to privacy, some international and regional instruments also stipulate a more specific right to protection of personal data, including: the OECD's Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, the Council of Europe Convention 108 for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Automatic Processing of Personal Data, a number of European Union Directives and its pending Regulation, and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Privacy Framework 2004, and the Economic Community of West African States has a Supplementary Act on data protection from 2010. Over 100 countries now have some form of privacy and data protection law.”

And yet, in today's technological world, “Increasingly institutions are subjecting people to surveillance, and excluding us from being involved in decisions about how our lives are interfered with, our information processed, our bodies scrutinised, our possessions searched. [I]n order for individuals to participate in the modern world, developments in laws and technologies must strengthen and not undermine the ability to freely enjoy this right.”