The collaboratively developed Feminist Principles of the Internet (FPIs) emerged from “Imagine a Feminist Internet” meetings that took place in Malaysia in 2014 and 2015 with diverse activists and advocates working in sexual rights, women’s rights, gender-based violence, and internet rights.

Version 2.0 of the FPIs was launched in August 2016 on a new interactive web platform. The platform allows for the creation of a user account that can be used to add new resources, case studies, suggested readings, etc., linked to the different Principles. It also features an events section and FAQ section. Throughout the year, the FPIs were featured and used to frame conversations regarding gender and technology in a variety of events and scenarios, such as hacker spaces in Brazil, Take Back the Tech! events, the 2016 Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum, digital security workshops, and more.

The FPIs provide entry points and a framing to question and understand the politics of the internet from a feminist lens.

In Montevideo, Uruguay, members of the APC Women’s Rights Programme network in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC WRP) used the FPIs to frame the “Women in the digital economy: Challenges to inclusion and equity” panel, held during the 13th LAC Regional Conference on Women. In South Africa, sex workers examined internet access and economy via the FPIs.

In India, EROTICS South Asia project partner and APC member Point of View held an “Imagine a Feminist Internet” meeting on gender, sex and technology and explored questions such as: “Is internet access for women being increasingly binarised into ‘good access’ and ‘bad access’? How is micro-targeted digital porn changing human sexuality? And are the consequences of tech surveillance gendered?” FPI City Conversations emerged as a methodology for partners to create encounters for exploring the FPIs and how they relate to specific contexts, and a first one took place in Beirut.

To watch out for: Explore the FPIs using different methodologies from the new FTX: Safety Reboot curriculum, to open up a conversation on the feminist politics of the internet in your community, and through FPI City Conversations in different locations organised by APC as well as partners.