Abstract
Web access is coming soon to almost everywhere, including the world’s most remote communities.
Google guru and executive chairman Eric Schmidt predicts that everyone (all seven-plus billion of us) will be connected by 2020. Schmidt and his co-author Jared Cohen paint a world of promise in their latest book The New Digital Age, but others have interpreted their vision as naive, undesirable, or impossible.
It’s easy to look at current growth rates in internet use and dismiss predictions of ubiquitous access as absurd. But real technological improvements, coupled with shifts in infrastructure, development and behaviour, will undoubtedly change how we express ourselves in the coming years. More communities – long isolated and marginalised by political, geographic and economic constraints – are already communicating in ways that were once thought to be impossible. How will technological shifts in the next five years continue to enhance freedom of expression?
What hinders freedom of expression most dramatically is often not censorship but other disadvantages
Leila Janah is founder and CEO of Samasource, a non-profit business that gives digital work in the form of microtasks to thousands of disadvantaged young people and women around the world. She says: “What hinders freedom of expression most dramatically is often not censorship but other disadvantages. The internet, however, has started to level this playing field – every piece of hardware with a wi-fi connection is a tool with which anyone can teach and learn, dream and plan, seek workers and get hired.”
A fundamental shift around technological development patterns is already shaping how local communities interact. Ken Banks, who founded kiwanja.net and Frontline SMS, and who has worked in mobile development for more than a decade, predicts that Western NGOs will soon no longer dominate the information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) sector. Banks says communities will play a greater role in developing tech solutions to problems as more local organisations and digital aficionados learn to program.
Ushahidi’s mobile internet modem BRCK, currently under developzment, is a good example of local innovation expanding access to communications in Africa and beyond. This modem doesn’t need a constant power source, so it works better in countries with unreliable supplies. Kenya-based Ushahidi is already well known for its open-source mapping software used to monitor elections and crises around the world. Ushahidi plans to ship the first lot of BRCKs in November 2013 to its Kickstarter backers who helped fund its development (read Ushahidi’s Heather Bond in Index on Censorship’s December 2012 issue, http://ioc.sagepub.com/).
Despite growth in the number of local companies like Ushahidi, some argue that “digital colonialism” is likely to control ICT infrastructure in many developing societies for the foreseeable future. As Cecil Rhodes connected Africa with railway tracks in the late 19th century, Chinese companies are now laying fibre-optic cables and competing for telecom contracts to serve the continent’s billion inhabitants. Some of the big US companies are also working to spread internet access to once unreachable communities.
But certainly some of the current innovations are really starting to take off. Project Loon is a new Google initiative that uses solar-powered balloons to deliver internet access to the world’s remotest regions. The balloons create a new network which people in remote locations can connect to using a special antenna. Google started testing the project in June with several balloons in rural New Zealand. Resembling giant jellyfish, the balloons fully inflate as air pressure drops and they approach 18,200 metres above sea level. If successful, Project Loon aims to bring fast and affordable internet to areas well beyond the reach of traditional cables.
An already successful initiative but one that still holds great promise for connecting more communities in the coming years is the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. This wireless communications standard, sometimes called “wi-fi on steroids”, is used to cheaply bring broadband access to remote locations and developing cities. WiMAX networks have expanded rapidly across Asia and elsewhere in recent years and are expected to reach one billion users by the end of this year, and many more by 2020.
ABOVE: Innovations should bring connections to remote parts of Africa, and bring additional facilities as railways did in the 19th century.
Credit: Intraprese/iStockphoto
Many new advances in mobile and online computing have the potential to create jobs for those in poverty
Aleph Molinari, founder of the Mexico-based non-profit Fundación Proaccesso, is optimistic about technology’s role in advancing free expression but worries that governments will hijack innovations, using mass surveillance and censorship in the name of national security to suppress dissent. “When used appropriately, technology can be used to build relationships in communities, foster positive communication, and politically empower people,” he says. Janah agrees with Molinari but says there is still a long way to go. “Many new advances in mobile and online computing have the potential to create jobs for those in poverty – they simply aren’t yet being used to do so.”
ABOVE: Google Loon balloons will help web access take off
Credit: Lighter
Education for all
Beyond technology and infrastructure, shifts in online education will continue to improve freedom of expression. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) like Coursera, Udacity and edX are already attracting millions of students from all corners of the globe, eager to learn hundreds of subjects. Clarissa Shen, vice-president of Strategic Business and Marketing at Udacity, says that more collaboration between MOOCs, NGOs, governments, universities, and industry leaders will be necessary to make education accessible and affordable for everyone. As these free and inexpensive classes expand, and more people find reliable internet access at home, in cyber cafés or on mobiles, the digital divide and its implications for literacy, income and opportunity is expected to shrink.
The United Nations argues that high-speed internet is necessary for achieving development goals, and its special rapporteur on freedom of expression has described internet access as a right. As digital technologies improve and expand, new voices will inevitably come online. But increased internet access will not necessarily enhance freedom of expression. As the Edward Snowden leaks made clear and as Molinari warns, states and corporations can use our online communications against individuals. The same Chinese companies setting up Africa’s infrastructure are also competing to sell security and surveillance expertise to regional governments. New and old internet users alike are being warned to be wary of how rapid changes in technology affect fundamental rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
In the coming years, the quality of digital access in terms of openness, speed, neutrality and freedom from surveillance and censorship should be considered as critical a concern as the ubiquity of access. The digital divide cannot be bridged if repressive state and corporate policies produce chilling effects and restrict the willingness or ability of individuals to express themselves freely.
At a Google event on free speech earlier this year, Schmidt described how technological innovations are enhancing voices and opening new spaces for dissent. Ensuring that dissent outweighs the repression that can follow will be one of the greatest challenges facing digital freedom of expression through 2020 and beyond.
HORIZON SPOTTING: Five digital developments expected to enhance free speech
WiMAX: Affordable Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access networks are expected to reach one billion users by the end of this year, and many more by 2020
MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses will deliver high quality interactive education to millions more people in the coming years
BRCK: Durable mobile internet modems will keep people online when traditional internet connections and electricity fail
Cheap smartphones: The sub-US$100 smartphone made internet access affordable for millions. But as technology improves and production costs drop, a sub-$50 smartphone could expand internet access to millions more
Project Loon: Innovative private ventures like Google’s Project Loon are likely to deliver affordable internet access to the world’s remotest regions
