How do women, queer and gender diverse people occupy online spaces? How are they represented, how we can counter discourses and norms that contribute to discrimination and violence? The FTX: Safety Reboot training curriculum launched by the APC Women's Rights Programme (APC WRP) tackles these questions and more, by offering strategies for representation and expression and enabling more women’s rights and sexual rights activists to engage technology with agency and awareness. Between 23 and 27 November, we will be sharing stories in the words of the global network of people who have contributed to and shaped this evolving resource.
The FTX: Safety Reboot is a training curriculum made up of several modules for trainers who work with women’s rights and sexual rights activists to use the internet safely, creatively and strategically. It is a feminist contribution to the global response to digital security capacity building and enables trainers to work with communities to engage technology with pleasure, creativity and curiosity.
The curriculum is grounded in the APC WRP's unique methodology and approach, which we call Feminist Tech eXchanges (FTX). APC WRP has developed the FTX: Safety Reboot in collaboration with a global network of trainers, writers and activist allies to root a feminist approach in digital security training. It is a work in progress to assist trainers to enable activists to use the internet as a transformative public and political space, to claim, construct, and express ourselves more safely.
@c5 - “ftx: safety reboot is grounded in a collective feminist response to technology & is a reflection of the way that has been developed - many voices, exploratory, creative, fun.”
Feminist trainers are familiar with the obstacles and challenges faced where misogyny, censorship and surveillance are restricting activists’ freedom of expression and ability to share information, create alternative economies, build communities of solidarity and express desires.
@CeciliaMaundu - “on ftx: safety reboot. It has been made for feminists and sexual rights activists, when you feel it has been made for you you feel powerful. Ftx makes feminist activists feel part of it.”
The FTX: Safety Reboot explores how we occupy online spaces, how women, queer and gender diverse people are represented, how we can counter discourses and norms that contribute to discrimination and violence. It is about strategies of representation and expression and enabling more women’s rights and sexual rights activists to engage technology with agency and awareness.
@froatosebe “with digital safety training, it is critical for people to discover that it is not more difficult than other things they are confronting.”
The current modules are:
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Online gender-based violence
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Creating safe online spaces
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Mobile safety
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Risk assessment
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Feminist Principles of the Internet
Follow us we tell the FTX: Safety Reboot story through introducing the curriculum and in the words of the global network of people who have contributed to and shaped this evolving resource, at @apc_news, @takebackthetech on @dominemoslasTIC on Twitter, using the hashtag #FTXStory, and on the APC Instagram account @apc_network.
You can also email ftx@apcwomen.org and visit, use and contribute to the FTX: Safety Reboot:
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https://en.ftx.apc.org (English)
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https://fr.ftx.apc.org (French)
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https://es.ftx.apc.org (Spanish)
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https://pt.ftx.apc.org (Portuguese)