[Air-L] Facebook take on Digital Inequalities seems way too deterministic... surprised?

[David Nemer]

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.pdf

-- 
*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 at indiana.edu