Online advocacy is a growing part of SRHR advocacy work, but what are there pros and cons of using it compared to traditional advocacy? And how can it be used most effectively? hvale vale, Network Coordinator for the Women’s Rights Programme at The Association for Progressive Communications, talks to host Rkia Sayar about how the advantages of using online advocacy; how to keep safe online; and shares her top tips and resources for developing successful online campaigns.
Online advocacy is a growing part of SRHR advocacy work, but what are there pros and cons of using it compared to traditional advocacy? And how can it be used most effectively?
hvale vale, Network Coordinator for the Women’s Rights Programme at The Association for Progressive Communications, talks to host Rkia Sayar about how the advantages of using online advocacy; how to keep safe online; and shares her top tips and resources for developing successful online campaigns.
More information about the APC Women's Rights Programme.
Plus d’informations sur le Programme des droits des femmes.
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The Association for Progressive Communications
Rkia On today's podcast, we will be talking about online advocacy and our guest is hvale vale.
hvale is the Network coordinator at the Women’s Rights Programme at the Association for Progressive Communications, or APC for short.
hvale is a feminist activist and writer. Her interests are the intersection between internet rights, sexual and women’s rights, and the transformative power of technology from a feminist perspective.
Areas that are central to hvale's work include digital safety, and the design of remote interactive and participatory spaces.
hvale, welcome to the podcast. We are delighted to have you as our guest today, and know our listeners are really interested to hear more about you and your work. Welcome.
hvale Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I'm thankful that the internet gave us this chance to sit in our homes and talk together.
Rkia Yeah. Absolutely. My first question, hvale, is how is online advocacy different to more traditional advocacy? And in what ways are they similar?
hvale This is a very large question, no? And there are no one answer. When we think about advocacy done with our bodies in physical spaces, it comes immediately [with] the kind of borders that this entails, no?
While the advocacy online seems to remove borders. It gave us this sense of ubiquity and being together in the spaces. But also, the internet that divides us and fragment it, no?
When we are on a square together, we are physical. We are really, truly together. Side-by-side.
When we are in the internet, we feel we are together, but I am in my little box. I'm in my little digital tunnel; I cannot see all the other people that are there.
I would say the specificity is the possibility of this sense that we are in one unique space. That we bridge the languages, no? And advocacy can be global. So, I would say it's probably the very same in what we would like to achieve: a change, a transformation. But it's very different in the way in which we need to learn those spaces. The technology and all the invisible no that is there, and that can amplify or diminish our ability to influence.
Rkia Great. Interesting. Is there then, an advantage to using online advocacy?
hvale I would say, yes especially considering that we are in year, which is still under the pandemic.
If you had asked me before, I would probably have a different answer. But I think that the internet, if we talk number-wise, masses-wise, it gave us this sense that we can be together. And somehow, with the global pandemic, the internet was the one and only space where we could advocate. Because we had been forbidden to go in the street for public health reason.
Rkia Yeah.
hvale This powerful ability and possibility to make people feeling less alone. To making people feeling that they can find people that think as we think, or people that can help and are willing to help in their own diversity to achieve a common goal.
Rkia So what online platform does Association for Progressive Communications typically use or recommend and why?
hvale The Association itself is on few spaces. Facebook, Twitter, and we are also starting Instagram. But there is a lot of advocacy that you do, for example, in conversation. No? Organising an event or participating to event. It can be the one session, or it can be a more protracted intervention, no? where you talk with people.
Let's say the so-called ‘main square’ are the social media, because it's where you can reach and you can be more visible, or you can build a sort of traction. Then there are different, other platform or tools that you need to combine so that the complexity of the message it's also passed. Because otherwise, what is a tweet in a sea of tweets?
And we also know that civil society traction can never compare with, I don't know, one tweet by Beyoncé, which will make far more conversation than many other tweets. So also, how we interact with testimonial, with symbols, in those spaces, people whose voices become also point of attraction.
Probably the main space and site during the years, is Take Back The Tech. Take Back The Tech it's an online permanent campaign. And that was born originally in the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women. It’s a campaign site, it’s a space, it's also a point of interaction of the different community we have.
Rkia hvale, talking about Take Back The Tech, would you just develop a little bit about the emphasis on Take Back and how the campaign is working?
hvale Take Back The Tech, it's a campaign against violence against women that wanted to focus on technology. So, if we go back in time, it was a big explosion of social media, big networks. And also, enthusiasm, no? Because, the Facebook, the Twitter, they really democratise the access. Before you needed knowledge, means and more, but these kind of tools with all their limitation had really opened up the space for, many, many, many people, local activists, to find a new space. But how you use technology, what is technology, why technology matters?
And so, Take Back The Tech was talking from the very simple thing, how you inhabit a space? How you create a profile? But also, if you are an activist, for example, like queer activist, a non-binary person, you inhabit this space in full disclosure of who you are. So, what is the implication of privacy? How you can protect yourself. How you make sure the certain conversation happens in spaces and with people that you trust, and they are not all over the place.
And so, Take Back The Tech had been always a campaign that had tried to give some, if you want, tips on how to be safe, or what does it means from a feminist perspective? But, also very open to local activists.
We started really with the simplest thing around the technology. What is technology? Is technology being a political site also? Because Facebook, it's a political site. How you interact with Facebook. And is Facebook a space that will naturally support our advocacy messages? Or we need to be aware, as activists and feminists, as we are aware that the world and the patriarchy is there. And so, you also work on transforming this space.
One of the most famous campaigns that we joined was about Facebook and the way in which they were using language or stopping or blocking activists. This interaction also with all this big technology corporation, in a way, to hold them accountable.
So, all this is part of advocacy. So, you advocate for your issue that can be a health issue, a sexuality issue. But you also advocate around the technology, because the technology is not neutral. And it's really important that people own the technology, understanding how I can do my video. But maybe I don't want to let people know where the video was developed or where from it was uploaded.
Rkia Could you explain that a bit and let us know the key online safety principles everyone should consider when doing advocacy online?
hvale Technology has this habit of changing constantly. So, I feel that whenever people embark on using technology, trying tohave a feeling that you are comfortable; comfortable on what you share, comfortable on what is visible. You can learn all the current specificity on one platform; the Twitter or the Zoom, but then it will change. So, I would say it’s a learning curve and it's a constant learning and no one knows everything.
So, what is really important whenever we focus on digital safety is to go and to understand what is at risk. So, where we want to go? What do we want to create? Do we want to create noise, and how we want to create noise?Understanding the risk, what we feel we can cope with and what we don't is really important.
So, whenever you enter in an advocacy space think what do you want to achieve? And then think about who can try to stop you and what they can do. Then think about what are your boundaries? What can make you feel really hurted and bounded? Because there are risks that we can take, and we don't perceive as risks. So, spend the more time to understand which space online can offer you a safer space, and how. And, sometimes, maybe if it's not a global campaign, just think to do the old way; sit and can come together. Or if we use email, the first line of digital security it’s your subject. You don't put: Let's meet to do the revolution at 5 o’clock in the square.
Just put a general subject. So, I think when we talk about digital safety, very simple. Privacy is not about secrets. People say I have nothing to hide.
Well, I can say yes, I have, but not meaning there are things that I do not want to share with everyone.
And then it comes to really spending some time understanding the technology. You will have your own email or username and then you will have a password. So, understanding that password, it's like the key of our flat, of our house, of our room – it is important that this key it's really protected and that we do all the necessary step to make sure that this key is not in a position or in a place where anyone can have it.
So, understanding password and making sure that your password is long and strong. I can use the best possible safer softwares, no? But if my password is 01235, it's not difficult to guess. Or it's the name of my cat. It's not difficult to guess if you are online and you search a bit about to me to find somewhere the name of my cat.
So about digital safety is first, password, login it's really the key to whatever space you are going to be. So, take care of your key.
Rkia What is the most successful online advocacy campaign that Association for Progressive Communication has done, and why was it so successful?
hvale Well, I think in terms of general conversation, I think I would say that the Take Back The Tech, the online campaign that was in general advocating about reclaiming technology and somehow fight back the violence that we are also suffering online and offline. That probably is one of the most successful because it brought a different perspective among activists.
But also, APC work a lot on policy advocacy. You cannot just use one tool, or you cannot do advocacy in one space. I think that people need to understand that advocacy is really a process now where you combine. But I think that the process around understanding that online gender-based violence is a thing, and that it's not another invention of feminists.
So, bodies that are perceived as female or non-conforming are specifically attacked. So how we respond, I would say this is probably one of the most important theses of advocacy. We have done online because we are an online organisation. APC has no offices.
The internet need a political approach because it's not neutral. So, a feminist intersectional approach can help in the Facebook, the internet itself. They needed to be spaces that are friendly to everyone, because if you cannot access the tool at the same level, then of course that your voices will be echoes. They will not be so strong as other voices.
Feminist internet and its ability also to advocate with funders and donors to understand that technology is not a medium, but it's really one of the sites of our politics. I would say for me, in terms of advocacy, have been the most important because it's something that goes beyond the specific one issue - it gives us the possibility to advocate about our own different issues.
Rkia What has been your biggest learning or learnings when doing online advocacy, and what's your top tips for online advocacy for our listeners?
hvale I think that we need a lot of patience, and time because doing online advocacy, it's really consuming. It asks for a lot of preparation. So, there is a lot, a lot of communication, and that communication where you really needed to make sure that we understand each other, no? There are a lot of assumptions.
Rkia Yeah.
hvale So, when we sit again in a physical space together, we can read our body languages. And, this can help us creating trust, but also if you want shortcutting some decision. But when everything is happening online, what you build online it is in a local space or in a global space, you really need to consider time, the time for preparation. You need to consider also the kind of language that you use. We all are in our bubble. So, one big learning we did doing an exploration on sexuality in south Asia. And we used all these words. We used, I don't know, LGBT or we used queer. But those languages and those words comes from a pattern. How people in Nepal, how people in India, that sit in different languages and different cultures, what are their words? Their sentences? Because advocacy cannot happen if the one sending the message and the one receiving are not having the same language.
So, because all the assumption needs to be clarified. So, I would say a lot of patience and understanding of time, but on the other side also an excitement of the incredible creativity that you can use because online the quantity of drawing, messaging, meme, gif that you can produce to create attention but also to reach out to your final target – it's immense. And, it's more affordable, no than other kind of advocacy. Instagram was not meant to be a space of advocacy, but if you go now and browse through in Instagram, you will see how much queer aesthetic is there. How much people talk about things, you know ‘body proudness’ I would say.
hvale And so I think online advocacy is about hacking. Hacking originally in the tech community was not a negative. Hackers are people that are curious, and they test the system to find a vulnerability, but not to exploit so much, as much as to highlight and then solve, to find and to move. But then of course in the mainstream, and this also come from specific place like US and western culture, hacking has been made negative. But if you think of hacking as understanding a space, understanding the vulnerability and then move to a next layer to change, to transform, to make better, useful. Definitely in the WRP and APC hacking, it’s a political practice.
So, for me, hacking it's really the power of understanding and transforming, and anything can be hacked: my understanding of life, I've been hacked by the pandemic. Then you have to reinvent yourself, and how you reinvent yourself with the tools that you have, with the people that you have. So, I think this is a personal but also a collective reclaiming, and then thing can be used and shared and transformed. For me, hacking has this power.
Rkia Do you think online advocacy in some way democratised access and help speed up in terms of achieving goals of a campaign, an advocacy campaign for example?
hvale I think that it's depends on what is the purpose and the final goal. But in term of building pressure, of creating an issue, of raising awareness, online advocacy it's powerful. Because again, it gave people the possibility to connect with each other, it gave the possibility of people to build up the numbers. During the years we have seen that decision-makers were not so much under the influence of social media, now they fear. If something is trending, then they somehow reflect upon.
We have a lot also to learn: how to make this power effective? For example, if you cannot go to Geneva face-to-face in civil society, we'll have challenges, no? Especially the south of the world. In a world that now is getting vaccine, there is a first world that will get it easier, and the rest of the world, I mean the majority of the world will not. This will impede the possibility to have face-to-face advocacy; will impede to be in these rooms. So, we know that when rooms close, the one that will be out it's the activists, not the decision maker.
As APC, we work a lot with the internet governance forum, but these are non-decisional spaces, no? But there are places where decisions are taken. We now need to reinvent this new leg of the advocacy; how to be in those spaces when our advocacy needs before was counting more on our bodies to be there.
We had always used an online advocacy as an awareness raising, as a pressure, and then to open the conversation in small talk or in a different kind of spaces, but not the government.
There is a lot for us to learn and understand because the doors usually have locked. Powers doesn't like to be transformed or to be shared. So, I think that we cannot just have an easy yes/no, but we really need to understand how we can use technology or data. The power of so many people being willing to engage to unlock the door that remain so ostensibly closed.
Rkia What resource, have you found useful and would you recommend to our listeners to help them develop their online skills?
hvale Oh, there are many. I can suggest some of the resources we have as APC and the WRP, but just as a point of departure because, as I say, it's really important that people then look for what they need and what is their circle of trust. So, I think that takebackthetech.net can be one space, but also the FTX website which is ftx.apc.org., it's in four languages so far. But they can be spaces for starting because there are so many organisations now working, local collectives that produce material in their own languages.
Or look for Point of View in India or look for activists and they will bring you to the resources, because also resources evolve and change. Now go to the EROTICS website, which is erotics.apc.org because they have some APC resources, but also a lot of resources from our partners. It's a guide for remote working or how to inhabit these spaces, online spaces that we will be forced this year to continue this virtual or digital advocacy activism with something local but not as much as we are used (to).
But as a point of start because, as I say, there is so much incredible creative material that is just simply amazing.
Rkia hvale Thank you very much for joining us today for a very, very interesting and insightful conversation and input. I'm sure our listener will learn a lot from your interaction. Thank you very much.
hvale Thank you. Thank you for the possibility because you learn while you talk. You also realise your holes [gaps].