Bot Populi
Bot Populi
Subscribe
Bot Populi is an alternative media platform dedicated to looking at all things digital from a social justice and Global South perspective. Our podcast features insights from scholars, activists and academics from across the globe, who discuss questions around digital justice, internet governance and data rights, and examine the new contours of our digitalizing world. Engage with our work at botpopuli.net
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
Apr 4, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Erika Smith
The final episode of Feminist Digital Futures features Erika Smith, who emphasizes the importance of freedom, transparency and fun in feminist imaginations of social media. Erika discusses how social media algorithms can foist violent content on users, why we need to foreground choice when it comes to internet access, why reform in platform design and governance needs to move beyond being tokenistic, and what the on-ground impact of social media content moderation programs have been like.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Erika
02:46: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
07:18: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
13:38: Erika's vision of a feminist social media
17:51: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
22:04: Impact of platform content moderation programs
28:16: Conclusion
Erika Smith has collaborated in several projects strategizing against online gender-based violence since 2005 and the Take Back the Tech global coordinating team. Based in Mexico, Erika works in the Women's Rights Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications as part of the capacity building and networking strategy team, striving to make a feminist internet a reality and raising awareness in internet rights, digital safety and against OGBV. Originally from the US, Erika has lived in Mexico for over three decades where she started training women on the strategic use of computers and the internet in the early 90's. With a Masters Degree in IberoAmerican Studies, her educational background focused on women’s social movements and she became involved in ICT as a feminist organizer and part of ISP LaNeta's user support team. She is also on the board of the interpreter and translator collective Tlatolli Ollin/Words in Movement, dedicated to providing quality translation and interpretation on social justice issues.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Apr 1, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Sohini Bhattacharya
In the eighth episode of Feminist Digital Futures, Sohini Bhattacharya joins us to discuss the power of social media in allowing public sphere participation of women and people of marginalized genders, and why we need to work towards making it a safer space. Sohini touches upon the politics of representation, how gender plays into digital literacy and access to technology, and why we need rules and norms to govern online spaces to make them more equitable.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Sohini
01:58: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
10:27: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
15:09: The importance of social media in public sphere participation
17:04: Sohini's vision of a feminist social media
20:20: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
25:39: Conclusion
Sohini Bhattacharya is an intrepid intrapreneur and social change enthusiast who has 25+ years of experience in the development sector. Currently she is President and CEO at Breakthrough, a global human rights organization working in the U.S. and India, that uses multi-media, popular culture, leadership development and community mobilization strategies to prevent gender-based violence. Prior to this, Sohini had helped found an organization working with women, worked directly with grassroots communities on livelihoods projects and built market-artisan interfaces. Before joining Breakthrough, Sohini spent 10 years at Ashoka Innovators for the Public, an international organization building an ecosystem for social entrepreneurs, first ramping up the India program and then working on institution building for Ashoka in South Asia. Sohini was also instrumental in helping set up Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) in India, an offshoot of EVPA in Asia. Sohini has interest and years of experience in theatre and dance and loves cooking, reading, handicrafts and handlooms and travelling. Sohini sits on the board of Dastkar and Kolkata Sanved and is a Trustee of Read India, a sister concern of Read Global, creating community-led sustainable libraries.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 28, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Mariana Valente
The seventh episode of Feminist Digital Futures features Mariana Valente and her thoughts on what inclusive, feminist tech looks like. Mariana unpacks how race, caste, sexuality, and other identities intersect with gendered experiences online, the tension between visibility and invisibility for marginalized communities, the heterogeneity of the Global South and why Global North solutions can't be applied indiscriminately, and the importance of creativity in both tech design and offline resistance.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Mariana
04:16: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
10:24: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
13:41: Mariana's vision of a feminist social media
18:31: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective, and opinions on platform attempts to regulate content
27:13: Conclusion
Mariana Valente is Director at InternetLab. She holds a doctorate, a master’s degree and a bachelor's degree from University of São Paulo Law School. She is a professor at Insper University. Mariana was a visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley (USA), a DAAD fellow with a certificate in German law from the LMU University in Munich (Germany), and a researcher with the Linkage Program at Yale Law School (USA). Before InternetLab, she was a professor and researcher at the Center for Technology and Society of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, and legal coordinator of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo. She is also a researcher at the Center for Law and Democracy at CEBRAP (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning) and served as Creative Commons Brazil coordinator (2019-2021). She works especially with internet policy, cultural markets and access to knowledge, and gender equality and its intersections with technologies.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 25, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Maya Indira Ganesh
In the sixth episode of Feminist Digital Futures, Maya Indira Ganesh joins us to unpack her imagination of a feminist social media and internet. Maya shares her thoughts on how the internet has changed our notion of distance, the ways in which gender is built into the design of online spaces, the fragmentation of identity across social media platforms, how justice needs to be a key part of online governance, and the need to look past existing platforms in our quest for feminist digital futures.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Maya
03:04: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
08:17: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
12:36: Maya's vision of a feminist social media
15:29: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
19:53: Opinions on platform attempts to regulate content
25:26: Conclusion
Maya Indira Ganesh is a tech and digital cultures theorist, researcher, and writer. She works across academia, arts and cultural organisations, and civil society NGOs. She is completing a DPhil that will be awarded by the Cultural Studies Faculty, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany. Her doctoral research examines the political-economic and discursive shaping of AI and autonomous systems in terms of notions of 'ethics' and 'intelligence'. Prior to this, she worked at the intersection of gender justice and digital activism. Maya lives in Berlin, Germany and on Twitter @mayameme. More about her on her website (https://bodyofwork.in)
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 22, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Cai Yiping
The fifth episode of Feminist Digital Futures features Cai Yiping, who touches upon how social media can act as a mirror for society. Yiping underscores how solidarity-building, care, kindness, and respect should be the values at the core of social media usage, that including the voices of the most marginalized also requires us to provide space for their stories without commodifying them, and that a feminist online publics will only be possible when social media ceases to function on the logics of the market.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Yiping
02:24: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere, and why social media is a feminist issue
05:35: Yiping's own experiences of social media platforms
08:53: Yiping's vision of a feminist social media
13:58: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
19:44: Conclusion
Cai Yiping is a feminist activist and researcher actively engaging in women’s movements in China and internationally. She is Executive Committee member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), a network of feminist scholars, researchers and activists from the economic South working for economic and gender justice and sustainable and democratic development. Her areas of focus include media and communications, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive rights and health, and gender mainstreaming in development cooperation. Her current engagements cover the multiple processes in the national, regional and global levels on the sustainable development agenda, ICPD 25, and Beijing+25 process. She lives in Beijing, China.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 18, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Ledys Sanjuan Mejia
In the fourth episode of Feminist Digital Futures, we're joined by Ledys Sanjuan Mejia, who shares with us why feminist social media needs to be community-led, open and accessible to all. Ledys highlights how social media can be used to build cross-border solidarities, why access to the internet is a basic human necessity, how we can enable communities to build decentralized internet infrastructures in local languages, and the need to make feminist principles a core part of tech policy.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Ledys
02:43: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
07:04: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
10:49: How social media can be a tool for feminist organising and education
14:36: Ledys' vision of a feminist social media
18:00: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
23:39: The role of funding and resources in enabling feminist initiatives
26:50: Conclusion
Ledys Sanjuan Mejia is an ecofeminist writer and digital activist from Bogotá, Colombia with extensive experience in social justice philanthropy, strategic communications and social justice advocacy. She holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and an MA in Critical Global Politics from the University of Exeter in England. Ledys is currently communications, advocacy and tech manager at FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund where she works to amplify young women, trans and intersex youth activism and issues from the Global South to donors and decision makers, in partnership with international human rights organizations. Ledys is passionate about feminist technology and freedom of speech as an integral part of care and sustainability for social justice movements.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Naomi Fontanos
The third episode of Feminist Digital Futures features Naomi Fontanos, who shares with us her imagination of feminist social media: one that is anti-patriarchy, anti-capitalism, and anti-colonialism. Naomi likens social media platforms to cyber heterotopias, emphasizes the need to de-center Global North perspectives to techno-design and governance, and urges us to rethink the core principles on which social media is built, in order to decolonize it and restructure it along feminist principles.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Naomi
01:29: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
07:48: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
11:29: Naomi's vision of a feminist social media
14:31: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
19:12: Opinions on platform attempts to regulate content
22:10: Conclusion
Naomi Fontanos is a long-time advocate of the Filipino transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, and queer (TLGBIQ) community and an advocate of feminism. She is a co-founder and current Executive Director of Gender and Development Advocates (GANDA) Filipinas, a TLGBIQ human rights organization primarily focused on the issues, needs, and concerns of the trans community in the Philippines and beyond. She graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and in 2008, became the first trans co-coordinator of Task Force Pride (TFP) Philippines, the official organizing network of the annual Metro Manila Pride March. She was part of the International Advisory Board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in reviewing the 7th Standards of Care (SOC), for international clinical protocols for safe transitioning for trans people, and was a part of the external peer review team of the World Health Organization (WHO) for its consolidated guidelines on HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for key populations in 2014. In 2015, she became the first trans Filipina to be a fellow of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the United States State Department on Preventing and Responding to Bias-Motivated Violence Against the LGBT Community. In 2018, she was named a fellow of the Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) held at Valencia, Spain. She is currently a Programme Officer of Innovation for Change-East Asia, one of seven regional hubs worldwide, spearheaded at the global level by CIVICUS Alliance, which looks to transform civil society impact, scale citizen action, and create the opportunity for a new generation of civic action to take shape through collaboration, leverage, and learning.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 11, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Marwa Azelmat
In the second episode of Feminist Digital Futures, Marwa Azelmat joins us for a conversation to share her imagination of feminist social media. Marwa touches upon the importance of the internet as a political space, why we need to enable women and marginalized communities to use technology safely, and the value of looking at locally informed approaches to platform design and governance to make social media more equitable and accessible for all.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Marwa
02:38: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
05:37: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
09:31: Marwa's vision of a feminist social media
14:29: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
20:00: Opinions on platform attempts to regulate content
25:37: Conclusion
Marwa Azelmat joined the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) as a Policy Advocacy Coordinator of the Women's Rights Programme. Marwa's work consists of ensuring that policy discussions and processes related to digital rights integrate gender, women's rights and sexual rights concerns. Among other things, Marwa has extensive experience in meaningful youth engagement in internet-related governance and decision-making spaces, and is currently chairing Transform Health's Data Policy Circle researching best data governance practices in the health field from an intersectional lens. Marwa's activism journey was captured in the AU-UN Commemorative Book on UNSCR 1325, titled “20 Years 20 Stories”, as one of 20 African women who have made an outstanding contribution in their fields to the broader Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Marwa holds a Master's of Arts specializing in Human Rights Law and an IT Engineering degree.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Mar 7, 2021
Feminist Digital Futures with Chenai Chair
In our first episode of Feminist Digital Futures, we sit down with Chenai Chair to reimagine social media and the pathways to making it feminist. Chenai reflects on how the intersectionality of our identities structure our online experiences, how cultures of policing women's bodies have assumed new forms on the internet, the importance of alternative ownership and design models for social media, and the need to center Global South perspectives when it comes to reimagining social media design and governance.
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
00:47: About Chenai
02:04: How gender and other identities affect experiences of the online sphere
04:56: Why equal access to and participation in social media is a feminist issue
08:55: Chenai's vision of a feminist social media
14:18: How platform design and governance needs to change, from a feminist and Global South perspective
18:31: Opinions on platform attempts to regulate content
21:41: Conclusion
Chenai Chair is a digital policy and gender researcher with extensive experience in work that is focused on understanding the impact of technology in society in order to better public interest in policy. Keeping in line with her objectives as a feminist researcher, her work centers on gender and data justice perspectives. She has led projects focused on privacy, data protection and AI as Mozilla 2019/2020 fellow, available at mydatarights.africa, and led the research on Women's Rights Online as the Web Foundation's gender and digital rights research manager.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research and conceptualization: Nandini Chami & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan
Podcast artwork by: Harmeet Rahal
Acknowledgements
This podcast series has been produced as part of the Feminist Digital Justice project, a joint policy research and advocacy initiative of IT for Change and DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era). The series is co-supported by the World Wide Web Foundation.
Visit botpopuli.net/podcast for more.
playlist_add
Jan 29, 2021
The Davos Diaries – Episode 4
In the final episode of The Davos Diaries, we hear from our guests on what strategies they believe civil society should adopt to counter the corporate capture of global governance, and how it's more important than ever before for civil society to demand a democratic multilateral body for digital governance. Our guests share their vision of what global governance might look like post the pandemic, and sign off with a message to Davos 2021.
Featuring Barbara Adams, Chee Yoke Ling, Harris Gleckman, Jim Thomas, Parminder Jeet Singh, Renata Avila and Roberto Bissio.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research team: Deepti Bharthur, Amay Korjan & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan, Amay Korjan & Sneha Bhagwat
Episode Navigation
00:10: Introduction
01:14: Barbara Adams on how Davos is symptomatic of larger structural problems
02:48: Jim Thomas on the value of the UN and the need for effective multilateral bodies
05:11: Parminder Jeet Singh on global digital governance and civil society in the digital sphere
08:54: Harris Gleckman on the crucial need to enforce conflict of interest principles for corporations
10:24: Roberto Bissio on the pandemic's effect on civil society's organising strategies
12:22: Parminder Jeet Singh on the lack of a democratic multilateral body for digital governance
14:51: Chee Yoke Ling on why civil society needs to track discussions at Davos
16:30: Renata Avila on civil society's future strategies
19:21: Parminder Jeet Singh on the transversal nature of digital issues
20:55: Harris Gleckman's message to Davos 2021
22:13: Parminder Jeet Singh's message to Davos 2021
23:12: Chee Yoke Ling's message to Davos 2021
23:56: Roberto Bissio's message to Davos 2021
25:01: Jim Thomas' message to Davos 2021
26:01: Renata Avila's message to Davos 2021
26:37: Barbara Adams' message to Davos 2021
27:48: Closing remarks
Visit botpopuli.net/the-davos-diaries-episode-4 for more information about this episode.
playlist_add
Jan 26, 2021
The Davos Diaries – Episode 3
In the third episode of The Davos Diaries, our guests train a closer eye on Big Tech's expansion during the pandemic, and how the digitalization of multiple sectors is allowing for companies like Amazon and philanthrocapitalists like the Gates Foundation to build policy around food systems, climate change, sustainable development and more, with a focus on profit and not people. Issues of internet governance have never really moved out of private hands or American influence, and the pandemic has been marked by a focus on tech solutionism, further entrenching the power of Big Tech. How has this moment left global governance systems open for exploit? How can civil society challenge this?
Featuring Barbara Adams, Chee Yoke Ling, Harris Gleckman, Jim Thomas, Renata Avila and Roberto Bissio.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research team: Deepti Bharthur, Amay Korjan & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan, Amay Korjan & Sneha Bhagwat
Episode Navigation
00:12: Introduction
01:00: Renata Av…
playlist_add
Jan 24, 2021
The Davos Diaries – Episode 2
The second episode of The Davos Diaries explores the concept of multistakeholder governance, and how Big Tech and large transnational corporations are influencing global governance through spaces like the World Economic Forum. Has the multilateral system lost its relevance? What are the new dynamics of how global policy is being conceptualised and executed?
Featuring Barbara Adams, Chee Yoke Ling, Harris Gleckman, Jim Thomas, Renata Avila and Roberto Bissio.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research team: Deepti Bharthur, Amay Korjan & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan, Amay Korjan & Sneha Bhagwat
Episode Navigation
00:12: Introduction
01:02: Harris Gleckman on the history and concept of multistakeholderism
05:08: Jim Thomas on multistakeholderism in food systems
07:42: Barbara Adams on why multistakeholderism is gaining prominence over multilateralism
12:05: Renata Avila on the failed strategies of civil society with respect to the digital
16:04: Yoke Ling Chee on Big Tech and t…
playlist_add
Jan 21, 2021
The Davos Diaries – Episode 1
The first episode of The Davos Diaries explores the origins of the World Economic Forum and their annual meeting in Davos. It delves into the idea of ‘The Great Reset’, as proposed by Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF, and the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and looks at the growing influence of Big Tech on global governance. How do spaces like Davos enable the corporate capture of global governance?
Featuring Barbara Adams, Chee Yoke Ling, Harris Gleckman, Jim Thomas, Renata Avila and Roberto Bissio.
Hosted by: Tanvi Kanchan
Research team: Deepti Bharthur, Amay Korjan & Tanvi Kanchan
Post-production: Tanvi Kanchan, Amay Korjan & Sneha Bhagwat
Episode Navigation
00:12: Introduction
01:15: Harris Gleckman on the WEF
02:13: Renata Avila on the WEF
03:44: Roberto Bissio on the WEF as a Billionaires' Club
07:22: Chee Yoke Ling on how the WEF operates
09:08: Harris Gleckman on the Davos agenda and the neoliberal status quo
11:32: Barbara Adams on the evolution of the WEF…
playlist_add