Facebook take on Digital Inequalities seems way too deterministic... surprised?
Dear all, Last night Mr. Z released a report called "Is Connectivity A Human Right?" with an attempt to come up with a plan to provide internet access to all of us. The title of the report gave me some hope on the content of his plan, but after reading it, I was, again, frustrated but not surprised. He is mostly concerned in spending money to improve the internet infrastructure and defray the costs with data plans, arguing that the internet is the "foundation of the global knowledge economy." I do see the value in investing money on internet infrastructure, since it is a big factor that keeps the digital inequalities so evident, but as we all know, it is just another factor... what about digital literacy and situated education? As I'm doing fieldwork in the slums (favelas) of Brazil, I finally see how Facebook became THE THING over here... and everywhere. People don't care about the "internet", web, emails... they only want to get on Facebook. It became very interesting when I started analyzing their behavior on the social networking site. It is mostly chatting, sharing and liking. The chat is in a horizontal way (they are chatting with people who belong to the same social class / community), but the stuff they share and like are completely vertical, the stuff come in English and/or from higher (and more educated) social classes and/or ads and pages suggested by Facebook. I have several informants who are illiterate and spend all their afternoons in the Telecentros and LAN Houses sharing and liking these things that they don't really understand. (Naive mode on) I honestly still don't know why Facebook wants to have everyone on the Intenet (mode off). My hunch is that they could (want to) turn those in social and economic disadvantages into mechanical turks and content consumers... Facebook does collaborate with local cellphone carriers... in Brazil Oi and Claro customers don't pay to get on the SNS on their mobile phones. So why don't Facebook start collaborating with local programs to develop digital literacy and critical thinking among the people that "can't buy data plans"? Anyways, I don't want to sound repetitive because people in AoIR and Community Informatics lists are well aware of such deterministic approaches and how they are not effective... but I'd like to invite everyone to think of ways to bring different views into places that can make a difference like Facebook Here's the link of the report: https://www.facebook.com/isconnectivityahumanright/isconnectivityahumanright... -- *David Nemer* PhD Candidate in Social Informatics School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Editor of the Social Informatics Blog - http://socialinformaticsblog.com http://www.dnemer.com dnemer@indiana.edu
Not surprising. By the way, since the petition to the United Nations to consider conectivity a human right, to its proclamation, just pased one year. To get the same status to the potable water it took 15 years... Alejandro Tortolini 2013/8/21 David Nemer <dnemer@indiana.edu>
Dear all,
Last night Mr. Z released a report called "Is Connectivity A Human Right?" with an attempt to come up with a plan to provide internet access to all of us.
The title of the report gave me some hope on the content of his plan, but after reading it, I was, again, frustrated but not surprised. He is mostly concerned in spending money to improve the internet infrastructure and defray the costs with data plans, arguing that the internet is the "foundation of the global knowledge economy."
I do see the value in investing money on internet infrastructure, since it is a big factor that keeps the digital inequalities so evident, but as we all know, it is just another factor... what about digital literacy and situated education?
As I'm doing fieldwork in the slums (favelas) of Brazil, I finally see how Facebook became THE THING over here... and everywhere. People don't care about the "internet", web, emails... they only want to get on Facebook. It became very interesting when I started analyzing their behavior on the social networking site. It is mostly chatting, sharing and liking. The chat is in a horizontal way (they are chatting with people who belong to the same social class / community), but the stuff they share and like are completely vertical, the stuff come in English and/or from higher (and more educated) social classes and/or ads and pages suggested by Facebook. I have several informants who are illiterate and spend all their afternoons in the Telecentros and LAN Houses sharing and liking these things that they don't really understand.
(Naive mode on) I honestly still don't know why Facebook wants to have everyone on the Intenet (mode off). My hunch is that they could (want to) turn those in social and economic disadvantages into mechanical turks and content consumers...
Facebook does collaborate with local cellphone carriers... in Brazil Oi and Claro customers don't pay to get on the SNS on their mobile phones. So why don't Facebook start collaborating with local programs to develop digital literacy and critical thinking among the people that "can't buy data plans"?
Anyways, I don't want to sound repetitive because people in AoIR and Community Informatics lists are well aware of such deterministic approaches and how they are not effective... but I'd like to invite everyone to think of ways to bring different views into places that can make a difference like Facebook
Here's the link of the report:
https://www.facebook.com/isconnectivityahumanright/isconnectivityahumanright...
-- *David Nemer* PhD Candidate in Social Informatics School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Editor of the Social Informatics Blog - http://socialinformaticsblog.com http://www.dnemer.com dnemer@indiana.edu _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Alejandro Tortolini http://dooid.me/aletor
participants (2)
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Alejandro Tortolini -
David Nemer