Dianne: Access to and participation on the internet is greatly determined by one’s cultural, political, and economic context and capital. What the pandemic has unfortunately and finally highlighted for everyone to see –– something that feminists and digital rights activists have been campaigning towards since we have identified the potential (and harms) of ICT – in the most basic sense, is that any “innovation” that takes a neutral ground, i.e. does not take into consideration the experience of marginalised groups and communities nor are designed with them, will exacerbate existing inequalities.  

It is crucial we take a step back and take a more inquisitive look at the internet as a platform for embodiment. Imagine we all have individual ladders that represent our capacity to participate in digital platforms, trying to reach a fully meaningful existence at the top. Then we will remove steps as representation of barriers that we experience across our intersecting identities.  

Some ladders would be so short because they cannot economically afford connectivity, or because they require the permission of their husbands to purchase and use a digital device. Some would stop halfway because they routinely experience violence online. And some would not even know what to do with the ladder because it primarily uses a language they do not use.  

How short will your ladder be? Your grandmother’s? Your friend with a disability? Our migrants and refugees?  

The analog and the digital are mirrored, interconnected. What happens in the analog impact how we use and access the internet. 

 
Jane: Digital exclusion in today’s world is economic exclusion, political exclusion, and social exclusion. This makes the digital gender divide a huge threat to progress in gender rights that so many have fought for, for so long. The cycle of marginalization can and must be broken. This calls for nationwide campaigns for socio-economic development. 

Governments must support training initiatives to help citizens mitigate the risks and harness the benefits of being online, including online safety, cyber security, and ways to communicate with friends and family. These programs must have a gendered lens with an understanding of the specific risks that women and girls face. 

Governments must also invest in the expansion of fast, affordable broadband access and devices to help close digital divides. This again must include a strategy to address the specific barriers keeping women and girls offline. And to invest in enabling more women to work in ICT and networking infrastructure — sectors which remain overwhelmingly male. 

Dianne: The marginalised are “sealed off” from these spaces because these spaces move within a neocolonial framework. Those who usually participate in these conversations also have the privilege to participate; they have the economic and cultural capital to contribute and thrive.  

There are of course attempts to be representative and inclusive, but we should ask: Where are these conversations happening? What do I need to have to participate? In what language are they sharing meaning? Whose voices are the loudest in the room? What happens after these conversations, what is the accountability framework? 

After these “consultative” convenings in digital rights policymaking and internet governance, we will all go back to the same digital power structures that allow and disallow the information we access and retain, and what identities are allowed to exist in these platforms.  

Truly inclusive digital communities and infrastructure require transformative lens from its inception – they reject a capitalist internet. They are driven by creativity, sharing, care, consent, and well-being; they challenge and circumvent infrastructures of surveillance. And we will build that by first, shifting our focus, from working towards being accepted by the loudest, most articulate voices in a stingy meeting room, to holding space and looking for those who are not even able to go through the door. 

Jane: There are increasing opportunities for fellowships to attend local, regional, and global internet governance forums and other training. We must ensure more women and girls around the world access these opportunities. Part of our challenge as non-profits and civil society organizations is to compete less and collaborate more, so instead of duplicating efforts, we get the right training to those who can most benefit.  

As someone passionate about expanding broadband infrastructure, I fiercely advocate for local-local training, financing and community mobilization to close digital divides. This is where local people are at the center, leading their digital futures. If broadband infrastructure is to be more representative, we urgently need to support more women to work in this space so that not only do they receive training, they are training others, building networks, and reversing decades of an industry dominated by men. We make online communities more representative by giving women real power in them. 

Dianne: While there is global hype, sustainability can have varying meanings across sectors, but what stands true is the need for evidence building, content creation, and collective care. 

In this context, evidence drives innovation. Beyond the politics of one’s cultural capital (like having easy access to funding platforms because your parents are friends with venture capitalists), evidence and data help us highlight the need for more transformative, feminist technologies. When we build evidence of our experiences, we embed it in memory, to be able to review relevant signals and trends, and weave it into our imagined scenarios of how sustainable digital futures would look like for us and our communities. 

In the same grain, we need to take up space by creating more content. While Big Tech is driven by capitalist, for-profit algorithmic decisions and biases, when we create more content and share our realities without losing consciousness of the politics and risks in which we are existing, we are maximising these platforms’ infrastructure and audience for movement-building. When we create more content in our local languages, we create spaces for participation for those who come from the same context. When we share our experiences, we rally people to do the same.  

Lastly, no digital futures are sustainable without embedding collective care. There should not be a conversation about sustainability without a shared understanding of what drives us: for the betterment and well-being of those who will come after us. Without integrating genuine collective consideration of the technologies’ impact on our and future communities’ mental, physical, and emotional health, who and what are we doing it for then?