[IGFmaglist] Online attack launched against work of BPF countering online abuse and violence

[Lynn St.Amour]

Dear Jac,

so very sorry to hear about this.   Very much hope you and all your colleagues are doing OK!

Subi and Shita had some good thoughts re how to counter/better inform.   Perhaps we should also think about having a more formal set of "responses" or a statement from the MAG (either as a whole or with individual sign-on).

Is there anything specifically you would like the MAG to do?

Lynn


On Oct 12, 2015, at 6:41 PM, Jac sm Kee <jac at apcwomen.org> wrote:

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> Dear MAG members,
> 
> As some of you may be aware of, an online attack was launched against
> a Twitter conversation that the BPF on countering online abuse and
> violence against women was planning, on Friday, 9 October. The attacks
> seem to come from persons affiliated to the #GamerGate hashtag, and
> centred on the premise that this is yet another attempt of the UN to
> "control and censor the internet". The attack is still on-going, and
> has now extended to IGF's BPF platform where the draft document is
> being hosted for public comments. If you view the comments, you can
> get a sense of the motivations.
> 
> A video was also created as "proof" of the UN's attempt to censor the
> internet, which basically misrepresents the transparency and openness
> of the BPF process as a vulnerability that was exploited. We have
> reasons to believe that the instigator, or at least one of them,
> participated in the last BPF planning meeting and has subscribed to
> the mailing list.
> 
> Since Friday, more than 20,000 tweets that contains abusive,
> anti-feminist, violent and sexist content have been targetted at the
> hashtag. The conversation's hashtag, #TakeBacktheTech - which was used
> as an effort to engage the broader Twitter community already aware of
> and working on the topic of online abuse and VAW - is associated with
> a campaign that APC has run since 2006 on the issue. As such, APC is
> also a subject of the attack. It appears to be a campaign of
> misinformation and intimidation. The volunteer who coordinated the
> Twitter conversation received several threatening personal emails.
> 
> This clearly has an impact on the continued work of the BPF, and we
> would appreciate a discussion around how to move forward on this.
> 
> Best,
> jac
> 
> - -- 
> 
> - ---------------------------------
> Jac sm Kee
> Manager, Women's Rights Programme
> Association for Progressive Communications
> www.apc.org | www.takebackthetech.net | erotics.apc.org
> Jitsi: jacsmk | Skype: jacsmk | Twitter: @jhybe
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