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Safersisters: Feminist Digital Security Hints in gifs!

#cybersecurity #data protection #digital security #feminisms

Coding Rights launches a collection of gifs for women and non-binary people to nail tech apps, gadgets and habits

On our cell phone we set dates with our crushes, store our nudes or family photos, have secret conversations, keep our phonebook, information about visited locations and carry much more things than what would possibly fit into our purses or bum bags. Even so, very few sisters take the steps to protect them.

It is to improve our technology habits with simple digital security tips that Coding Rights has just launched Safersisters (Safermanas, in Brazilian Portuguese and in Spanish), a campaign based on scripted Gifs that provide tips on how to avoid incidents and reduce online vulnerabilities usually faced by cis women, travesties, trans and non-binary people.

The idea is to encourage all of these people to become a Safersister. By ‘all’, we mean sisters of all ages and tastes, women. A SaferSister can be anyone who gets information from and communicate through cell phone applications, downloads and uses computer programs to sort out online various aspects of their everyday life, people who love innovation but do not forget to be cautious and diligent when needed. The Safersisterhood 🙂 acknowledge the value and sensitivity of their personal data and take good care of them because that ultimately is a form of self-care.

Our goal is to protect sisters from annoying people who spend their time and energy threatening to post our nudes, stalking and tracking our every step just to bully us, stealing our passwords to try to trash our social media or using any technological (and psychological) tools to commit acts of gender violence.

In recent years, several feminist collectives have been producing excellent online security material with a holistic approach and yet many sisters have no access to those gems and end up leaving the door open for attacks. We believe that gif-format tips and links to those useful resources will spread in different platforms and social media. That way, sisters will have no trouble in spreading the good news and helping one another in situations of distress.

Considering that not all is good in the hood, we hope the gifs will specially help sisters who have been more vocal about reproductive rights, sisters in the black people movement and sisters who work to advance LGBTQIA rights, in short, groups who have constantly suffered hate attacks, which also escalate online.

First hint: Chat apps!

Which is the most secure chat app?

Second hint: keeping PASSWORDS secure!

#SAFERSISTERS don’t repeat passwords 😉

Fourth tip: hacking hate speech!

Hate speech is not free speech
Privacy settings: have you reviewed yours?
The latest trend in the hater scene is Zoombombing. But there in the room, you’re the boss!

Coding Rights will always publish the new themed gifs under the hash #Safersisters in our social media channels (FACEBOOK, TWITTER and INSTAGRAM). To receive directly on your cel, follow our Telegram Channel. We’re also on GIPHY and YouTube. The ones to follow will explain how to protect nude photos, how to prevent the misuse of location data by creepy stalkers, how to choose a period-tracking app that does not leak the inners of our wombs to the cyber world, what to think when we use dating or taxi apps and even how to escape sexist ads that haunt us for days. All gifs will be produced in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Enjoyed it? We also want to hear any suggestions, inquiries and ideas the sisters may have. The more engagement, the greater the chances of us having a healthier safer approach to new technologies. Because the most important thing is:

ANYONE WHO IS NOT A # SAFERSISTER TODAY MAY EASILY BECOME ONE OVERNIGHT 🙂

To receive the next gifs, you can join our @SaferSisters channel on Telegram, check our channel on Giphy or follow us on Youtube, FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

Safersisters team at Coding Rights:
Joana Varon, concept and script
Carol Monteiro, script and communications strategy
Clara Juliano, design and illustrations
This work has been developed with support of Mozilla Media Fellowship