access to information

Africa is flooded with zero rating services such as Free Basics (Facebook’s zero rating scheme) and other subsidised data strategies. Do these schemes make internet more affordable and bring access to more people? In this column Chenai Chair examines whether ordinary people perceive such schemes as useful.

The BPF is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the UN University on Computing and Society (UNU-CS) in its important endeavour to research and map projects and initiatives that aim to address different gender digital divides around the world. The objective of this collaborative data-gathering process is to help stakeholders better understand women and girls’…

The coming of the digital age and of information technology promises that those 'left out' or excluded from development will be to access their rights and enjoy a higher standard of living. But what is the truth for African women - are the experiences of all 'marginal' women being lumped together and how far away is the promise of equal access and gender equity.

Sexual information is scarce or, worse, misinterpreted in most of the developing countries. Access to information is even more difficult in a predominantly Muslim country like Pakistan, where the culture makes any kind of sexual talk a taboo. In that environment, a Canadian-based Pakistani illustrator and blogger is trying to change the game.

Every March, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meets at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. This year’s theme was the Millennium Development Goals, because a new development framework is being worked out beyond 2015. In addition to the events about technology, this year’s Commission on the Status of Women negotiated a resolution on HIV. Negotiating the resolution on Women…

It's day two of the 'Informal' Asia Europe Foundation meeting on human rights and ICTs, and we're split up into workshops to discuss recommendations that will go to the Foundation's ministerial meeting in November: I'm in the workshop on digital divide. While a lot of interesting ideas came up during the course of the day, the one which causes me most concern is the problem of knowledge that is…

Like any tool, ICTs can be tremendously useful, but dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. This is doubly true for activists and women's rights defenders. Jennifer Radloff and Erika Smith speak to participants from one of our secure online communications for women human rights defenders workshops who share their own experiences with ICTs and what they've learned from the training.

The net has often been portrayed by the media in India as "being a lair of sexual predators". Grady looks at some of the contradictions between policy and practice that were revealed by the EROTICS research in India, which explored the ways that young women negotiate risks online as they strategically use the internet to explore, define and challenge boundaries of gender and sexual norms.

Tapping the groundbreaking findings of the US EROTICS report that investigated the mandated internet filtering in publicly-funded libraries, Flavia Fascendini leads a fictional dialogue with the Denver Public Library FAQ on content regulation.

GenderIT.org contributor Mavic Cabrera-Balleza speaks with EroTICS researchers Melissa Hope Ditmore and Kevicha Echols as well as LGBT activist Nadine Moawad about the role of the internet in our sexual lives. They talk about the effect that filtering and censorship have on sexual expression and access to information, particularly for youth and LGBT persons.