freedom of expression

Join us on Thursday, March 27th from 6-7pm EST and 4-5 CT-MexDF to discuss technology related violence against women and the tensions that exist between combating hate speech versus the right to freedom of expression with Erika Smith from the APC's Women´s Rights Programme.

AWID, in collaboration with members of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition, has developed this publication in an effort to assess the various mechanisms developed to provide protection to WHRDs at risk, including initiatives developed by national governments, and regional and international human rights bodies. The publication counts with a specific section addressing digital …

Nora Quebral (2012) - who is credited with coming up with the concept of 'development communication' in the early 70s - argued recently in an account of Asian domestic workers in the Middle East, and the right-to-drive protest by women in Saudi Arabia, that any analysis of rights is necessarily deeply contextual: “A tough question to answer would be: in which [of these two societies] do women…

The second African Internet Governance Forum started in Nairobi, Kenya just a day after a terrorist attack was launched on this African country. The media reported 24 hours a day from the site of the attack; Twitter hashtags were created to make sure messages related to the crisis were passed on to the masses; and Facebook ready-to-use pictures of support to Kenya were circulated. It was actually…

From 17 to 18 June 2013 I took part in the conference on online freedom known as Freedom Online. This conference, carrying the same name of the coalition behind it, highlighted the continent in which it was hosted. In the midst of the international storm about surveillance and censorship, our specific focus was online freedom in Africa and the Arab world as Tunisia, like all of the Maghreb, has…

Last month a coalition of women's organisations led a campaign to hold Facebook accountable for its content policy. In particular, how it deals with hateful speech and representations of gender-based violence shared by its users. In response, freedom of expression advocates have expressed concern and criticism over the precedent set by demands for Facebook to remove hateful content from its site…

On May 21 more than a hundred organisations lead by "Women, Action…

The campaign “Take action to end gender-based violence on Facebook” has re-opened up debate among internet rights advocates about the right to freedom of expression and responsibilities of internet intermediaries in regarding the content that circulates through their services. Margarita Salas, who is currently doing research consultancy of internet intermediaries corporate policies for APC's…

‘She's begging to be raped.’ That's the response that many feminists in Pakistan get online from Pakistani men seeking to shut them up. This is a response from Pakistani men to women merely tweeting about issues related to sexualised violence.

Tonight, as I was thinking through this blog, my three-year-old offered to help. “It's not easy,” I warned her. “You see, there was a man who hurt a woman. He hurt her lots, and told her that if she didn't keep quiet, that he'd hurt her again. But she didn't keep quiet, and she told people her story.”