FMA urges Sillimanians to ‘imagine a feminist internet’

FMA urges Sillimanians to ‘imagine a feminist internet’

Participants form a circle as the workshop is facilitated in an open discussion.

 

Even for those who are not feminists, the Feminist Principles of the Internet (FPIs) helps examine rights of all internet users and understand the internet’s “transformative nature” in society, said Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) Executive Director Liza Garcia, during the workshop on FPIs organized by the FMA recently at the American Studies Resource Center, Silliman University (SU) Main Library.

FMA, a non-government organization that promotes the use of information and communications technologies for democratization and empowerment, introduced the FPIs to the students who participated in the workshop by first assessing internet-related issues students experience and observe online.

(L-R) Cheekay Cinco, FMA Advisory Board member, and Liza Garcia, FMA executive director, lead the workshop discussion on the Feminist Principles of the Internet (FPIs).

 

Garcia said with the current digital environment, the FPIs serve as a framework in understanding how the internet can help people “realize [their] rights,” especially gender and sexual rights for women, queer individuals, and feminists who seek to “dismantle patriarchy.”

Through group discussions, participants came up with internet-related issues which Cheekay Cinco, FMA Advisory Board member and main speaker of the workshop, incorporated in her discussion on the FPIs.

Principles

Cinco said the FPIs were first drafted after the “Imagine a Feminist Internet” meeting organized by the Association for Progressive Communications in 2014, which gathered women, queer individuals, activists, researchers, and other advocates working in women’s rights, sexual rights, and internet rights.

Currently, there are 17 FPIs presented in a series of statements that offer a feminist approach on the internet. The FPIs are organized in five clusters, namely: Access, Movements, Economy, and Embodiment.

Under the Access cluster is access to technology, access to information, and equalizing the capacity between men and women to create, design and use technology.

Cinco said this cluster emphasizes the need to address inequalities in access to technology and information brought about by economic and gender inequality. The inequality in access also stems from how technology is still developed largely by men, she added.

Meanwhile, the Movements cluster consists of FPIs about the internet and technology as avenues for resistance, movement-building, and challenging patriarchal values.

“The internet is a space and should remain a space for groups of people who are marginalized, [such as] women and queer individuals, to be able to resist, and part of resisting is to sustain and create movements,” said Cinco.

Part of the Movements cluster is also internet governance, specifically how decision-making processes regarding the internet should include women and other sectors.

As for the Economy cluster, Cinco said these FPIs challenge economic norms that favor capitalism and a few, big technology companies, and therefore introduce alternative economies and call for open source technology.

The Expression cluster, on the other hand, are FPIs that seek to ensure that the internet remains a safe space for discourse on feminism and queer rights and a space for sexual expression. Cinco said this includes challenging the notion that “all pornography harmful,” such as in justifying censorship.

For the Embodiment cluster, FPIs call for better policies on consent over users’ content, privacy, “memory” on the internet, anonymity, inclusion of children and the youth, and cases of online gender-based violence.

Before the discussion on FPIs, participants who were grouped into six share their experiences and observations on internet-related issues.

 

“The problem with consent right now in the mainstream proprietary of the corporations on the internet is, by just agreeing to the terms, you’ve given them permanent consent. What we want to challenge is maybe there are other ways to look at consent, [like] being able to take back consent,” said Cinco.

Cinco also cited the concept of the “right to be forgotten” on the internet, which helps users control and take back their past content on the internet.

“[The FPIs] is not a list of solutions…This is a framework to think about the internet, technology, and how it affects us, with a feminist lens,” said Cinco, who added that the list of FPIs is an “evolving document” which people can still contribute to.

FMA organized the workshop in partnership with SU, the SU Student Government, and Illuminates of the Spectra.