Advocacy in Technology and Society/Who's Online? Building the next 30 years of the Internet

Topic Summary

This week's topic was broad overview of early internet ideals, the state of the internet today and who has access to it, and whether or not internet should be a public utility. We discussed what percentage of the world and of the United States is online, disparities in service in New York City specifically, how "healthy" the internet is, and what it would take to make the internet a public utility - meaning everyone could access the internet.

For this class we read:

• Hacker Practice by Gabrielle Coleman and Alex Golub, which takes a close look into the world of hacking and dispels some of the prevailing notions attached to hacker profiles.  A cultural, ideological perspective is offered.  Keywords of the article included: computers; ethics; hackers; law; liberalism; moral genres; and technology. Hackers were described in broad terms across multiple genres and not restricted to the limitations ascribed by society. The traditions of liberalism as applied to the computer world were examined carefully. The article gives three examples of hacker ethical practice.  The first was crypto-freedom rooted in principles of privacy and self-reliance. Free software was the second and a natural extension of the first’s principles.  The last is the hacker underground. This refers to ideals that realistically cannot be achieved and are considered a show of defiance to established institutions. Government crackdowns on hackers surged in the 1990’s for computer related fraud. The FBI made some of the subjects a top priority. This became a time of turmoil. Protests and conventions like HOPE (hackers on Planet Earth) were born. In the hacker community, a culture developed from diverse personalities, practices, moral codes, and ethics. Questions of connections between property rights and human freedoms, individualism and collectivism, and self-development and human flourishing. These issues will continue as technology is central to a sense of self and existence. This is at the heart of hacker culture.  

• History of Creative Commons, which talks about copyrighting. “Creative Commons was created to help address the tension between creator’s ability to share digital works globally and copyright regulation.” They share that in 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) was passed that makes a copyright term equal to life of creator plus 70 years. They argue that copyright ending is important for works to move into public domain - especially in age of internet. “All creativity and knowledge builds on what came before, and the end of a copyright term ensures that copyrighted works eventually join the pool of knowledge and creativity from which we can all draw to create new works.” In 2002, a non-profit organization called Creative Commons was formed and created Creative Commons licenses - "a set of free, public licenses that would allow creators to keep their copyrights while sharing their works on more flexible terms than the default “all rights reserved.'" This basically made copyright automatic. The idea behind Creative Commons was "to create an easy way for creators who wanted to share their works in ways that were consistent with copyright law."

• The 2020 Internet Health report, which provided an analysis of multiple subtopics like a physician performing a battery to assess a patient.  A sample of some of those topics are spotlighted as follow: Human health was a big part of the internet health for 2020. The country was shut down and the internet was the lifeline for all America during the peak of the global pandemic. But not all had access, even to a cell phone. The big seven tech companies consolidated more power and their profits soared. But it was surprising to see a large number of tech employees speak out concerning the injustices existing across all segments of the tech industry. The algorithms were of major concern. Digital rights advocates voice major opposition to the internet shutdowns in authoritarian countries—the splinternet. A people’s movement evolved led by protests around the world. There were calls for democratic freedoms and protections for Black people. The year 2020 was the year of racial reckoning. This demonstrated the connection between the health of the internet and that of the people. There was a need for balanced regulations. This balance would preserve liberties and affordability. The world began to learn what was already known; technology is not colorblind. Searches for people of color displayed negative information such porn, different from that for whites.  The internet was white centric. The MIT Media Lab demonstrated that Amazon’s facial recognition software was extremely biased. The report goes on for pages highlighting disparities. It provides a good foundation for in-depth case studies and analyses.

During class, we talked about early internet ideals, who is online today, and the internet as a public utility.

Early Internet Ideals

"Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off. You can’t propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it." - Tim Berners Lee (1991)

• Tim Berners-Lee outlined protocol for the first public "internet" plan in 1990.

Early internet ideals revolved around decentralization, net neutrality, bottom-up design, universality, and consensus.

• Decentralization is the idea that there is no single, central authority of the web or central controlling node.
• Net neutrality means that if two people pay to connect to the internet at similar quality levels, they will be able to communicate at the same level.
• Bottom-up design means that code was not written and controlled by a small group of experts but was developed publicly with maximum participation and experimentation encouraged.
• Universality means that all computers must speak the same languages to each other so that everyone, regardless of identity or location or resources, can publish on the internet.
• Consensus simply means that everyone has to agree to use universal standards for them to work.

These early ideals gave rise to current approaches such as Open Data, Open Government, Open Access, education, and Free Culture & Creative Commons.

Who's online now?

According to data from the International Telecommunication Union ( ITU ) World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, made available through the World Bank DataBank, in 2019, 56% of the world was online (defined by having used the internet in the past 3 months). As of 2021, 37% of the world had no connection to the internet. Using the interactive data visualization tool, you can observe a steady increase in the percent of the population online beginning around 1995, with a more steep increase from 2018 upwards. In 2019, 89% of Americans had used the internet in the past 3 months, logging on from various types of devices. We expect this number to continue to rise as the world went online during COVID-19 to learn, work, and connect with each other.

Internet as a Public Utility

As a class, we discussed the reasons for rapid or slowed connection to the internet and the noted on the timeline when smart phones and internet-connected devices became common and available.

We focused specifically on New York City as a case study and discussed the disparities in service in NYC. For example, according to the NYC Internet Master Plan, 40% of NYC households lack the combination of home and mobile broadband. 18% of NYC residents lack both home AND mobile broadband. 46% of households living in poverty don't have broadband at home. In groups, we explored four different organizations/plans to create universal broadband service in NYC: Red Hook Community Wifi, Internet Master Plan, LinkNYC, and Mesh NYC.

Insights

Early internet ideals centered the idea that everyone should be able to access the internet equally but as technology has progressed, this has not been the case. As the data from above shows, there are large percentages of the population who are still not able to access the internet. It is important to note that access does not signify quality. This means that even though a majority of the world's population has access, the quality of internet service people are accessing varies greatly.

Many of view the internet as a given, especially with such a high percentage of the population using it consistently. We know that the internet is necessary for things like applying to jobs, paying bills, and connecting with loved ones. So, the idea that not all American's have access to the internet might feel foreign to some. We can, and must, address this by making the internet a public utility. Even for folks who do have access, the quality of that access differs depending on a variety of variables (see the Internet Health Report). This is an issue of power and privilege; those with enough money to afford the internet are able to access it, and those without the income to afford the internet cannot. Who holds money and wealth is directly tied to white supremacy and oppression, which means that folks with the most privilege (i.e. white, cisgendered men) are more likely to have more wealth and income and therefore will have the best access to the internet. These are also the same individuals who control the internet. According to the 2020 Internet Health Report, there are seven companies that control the internet and these seven companies are part of the ten largest companies in the world; most of these companies are controlled by white, cisgendered men.

"It's understandable that many people feel afraid and unsure if the web is really a force for good. But given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can't be changed for the better in the next 30. If we give up on building a better web now... we will have failed the web." -Tim Berners Lee (2020)

When imagining the next 30 years of the internet, we must push back against the ways that the internet has been used for control and violence. This means that the internet must become a public utility to expand access and ensure quality. We must advocate to combat the specific ways that the internet is used to harm marginalized groups of people such as women, queer folks, Black folks, Indigenous folks, and all people of color.

What does advocacy look like here?

Surveys of the advocacy work indicate that access is the issue of the day. Within this space, supporting guaranteed access to broadband services seems to be a common interest developing from multiple sectors ranging from environmental justice organizations to housing rights initiatives. This evolving common theme among multiple types of social justice organizations provides an opportunity for a united campaign platform to push for broadband access rights. Access to information is at the heart of social justice movements.

Class readings provided detailed ideas to increase internet access. They included a call for municipalities to provide internet access and the FCC to declare broadband as a public utility. Both avenues could be promising.

Another option is for government bodies to play a role in compelling broadband service providers to deliver access to all within controlled jurisdictions. For example, the City of New York licensed Verizon as a vendor to roll out broadband cable in certain parts of the city. As part of that agreement, the city required that provider to guarantee connections to remote neighborhoods.

The bottom-line is that broadband access is essential for government public policy given the ongoing of the pandemic. Thus, it seems like the government has a key role and an important interest in ensuring broadband for all, at least on this basis alone. There are however many more reasons for the government to guarantee access, like an educated electorate. Following the works calling for access should prove to be interesting.  

Additional References

1. Public Knowledge: We Already Knew Broadband Should Be a Public Utility. The Pandemic Made It Obvious.

• This article explains that during COVID-19, the rapid migration of services like healthcare, vaccine coordination, education, and social connections has made Broadband an increasingly essential part of everyday life.
• A survey showed that eighty-seven percent of people found the internet important during the pandemic; fifty-three percent found it necessary for critical and everyday tasks.
• The FCC has ample justification for instituting telecommunication regulations (under Title II) of broadband services similar to those of water and electric services, which include moderating profit incentives. The FCC has broad powers to prevent digital redlining, unreliable services, inequitable practices.
• Congress’ fifty-dollar, monthly subsidy to low-income families for broadband services during the pandemic acknowledges the need for government action on this issue.  

2. ACLU: The Public Internet Option

• This article by the ACLU argues that the public should be guaranteed equitable, trusted, and accountable broadband service providers that respect free speech and net neutrality principles. They make it clear that municipalities are arguably better positioned to fill this role as they do with water and electricity.
• They argue that within this advanced information age, it is critical that the internet is established as a public utility and not subjected to the FCC’s politically charged regulations of private companies.
• Low-income and rural communities should have the same access as other communities; households with incomes below $20K, African Americans, and Hispanics had the lowest broadband utilization rates. Municipal systems could ensure equity in the distribution of broadband and public Wi-Fi services across all income levels and communities.
• They state that the public should organize, demand, and create this pathway.

3. DataReportal: Digital 2022: Global Overview Report

• This report was published January 26, 2022 by Simon Kemp. It provides an incredibly comprehensive overview of the state of the global digital world as of January 2022, in both SlideShare format and as a written report with notes on how they acquire their data.
• Some key takeaways from the report are: As of January 2022, worlds population is at 7.91 billion. 57% of the worlds population lives in urban areas. 67.1% of the world’s population uses a mobile phone. The global total has grown 1.8% over the past year; 95 million new mobile users since January 2021. Global internet users are at 4.95 billion. Internet users have grown by 192 million over the past year, but because of research and reporting restrictions due to COVID growth trends might actually be higher. 4.62 billion social media users in the world as of January 2022, equal to 58.4% of worlds population. This has grown by more than 10% over the last year; 424 million new users joined social media in 2021 and they include in-depth analysis of different social media platforms and their usage. Internet users have more than doubled over the past decade.
• The number of folks without internet (“unconnected”) has dropped below 3 billion for the first time - which is a milestone - but Kemp highlights there is plenty of work to do. More than 1 billion people are offline across Southern Asia. Almost 840 million people are offline across Africa. More than 400 million people are offline in China, even though China accounts for 1 in 5 of the worlds “connected” population. 1 in 4 people across “lower- and middle- income countries” are unaware of the existence of mobile internet.
• Looking ahead, Kemp says we should pass the 5 billion internet user milestone in 2022. We should expect to see regulation and taxation of cryptocurrencies. Wider reach of digitally distributed culture (i.e. shows, movies, etc from other places in the world). And finally, a convergence across digital activities and more immersive content experiences. The report ends with a sweet inclusion of which pets (dogs or cats) rule the internet.

4. Popular Mechanics: Future of the Internet

• This article was published September 30, 2021 by Matt Blitz. The article provides an assessment of what the future of the internet will be, based on professionals in the field. The article feels very futuristic but is grounded in conversations with folks engaging in this work which makes these futuristic claims more real.  
• Within the next quarter century, our digital presence will be ingrained as part of the physical world. The web will be part of the real world. There are folks who state the internet will be “pre-loaded in our consciousness.” Verbal and auditory communications will be favored over typing messages.
• As we discussed in class, privacy and surveillance will continue to be at the forefront as privacy continues to decrease for the sake of convenience.
• While there is a lot of optimism around the future of the internet, there are conversations around the potential implications of expanded and ingrained internet and technology. How and who will regulate technology is up in the air - as governments are often behind on tech solutions and decisions will need to be made on a global scale.
• It leaves the reader with lots to consider regarding potential futures of the internet and technology.