On accessibility, digital social networks and cultural diversity

Interview given by the researcher Lucas Anjos, for the June 2016 edition of the Observatório de Diversidade Cultural bulletin. Read the whole interview below:

A recent ethnographic study at the University College London sent nine researchers to different places around the world, such as Brazil, Italy, China, and Turkey, in order to observe how people relate to technology and other people through the internet. Each researcher stayed for 15 months and the results, in the forms of books, audio, and videos, are being divulged online and will eventually compose the course “Why do we post?”.

Among various facts, the study shows how the population from different countries interact with the networks in different ways according to their specific norms and cultures. In India, for instance, one usually creates two profiles: one for interacting with people in their household and another for general purposes. Brazil, on the other hand, was marked in the study by the case of a young evangelic who became friends with a candomblé believer. According to the study, this relationship could only exist due to the social networks.

Through this dense observation and description, such ethnography ponders on ways to use social networks and, in that, raises questions about cultural diversity, privacy, mediation and types of communicative social interactions. However, these observations could only be made because of accessibility to social networks. This condition led us into the following questions: is there enough individual access in the world to analyze cultural diversity?

What defines having access to the internet nowadays? To what degree are accessibility to social networks and cultural diversity related? In order to clear up these matters, we invited IRIS (Institute for Research on Internet and Society) founder and president Lucas Costa dos Anjos. Created in Belo Horizonte, IRIS, through seminars, courses, chats and research, exists in order to study and understand the impacts of the internet on the contemporary society: its developments, dynamics, norms, and patterns.

1) In order to access social networks, it is necessary to have access to the internet. For that, a technological device, such as a computer or a smartphone, is needed. However, there are citizens in the world which don’t possess integral access (lacking the internet or the device) while others have constant access. This situation makes the accessibility concept a little cloudy. Could you define it for us?

Accessibility is still one of the biggest contemporary challenges. The price of internet enabled devices, such as smartphones and computers, did shrink in the last years, in light of the popularization of these technologies and the decay of some patents. However, the access cost is still very high, especially in developing countries. The African continent has one of the biggest access costs.

Access, however, doesn’t simply mean being able to connect to the internet. Do connected persons know how to use apps, sites, and other application provider services? Are they informed about matters of safety, data privacy, online rights to image and privacy, freedom of speech limitations, amongst other very improtant aspects of online life? The answer to such questions is usually “no”, which raises worries related to how effective the inclusion really is.

2) Facebook has 1.6 billion registered people and Twitter has 320 million users. Considering there are 7.3 billion people in the world, is it pertinent to say that a considerable part of the world population has access to the networks?

I’d analyze this information carefully, since users, in social networks, don’t actually represent the number of physical persons on the social networks. Twitter, for example, is known for containing various bots which raise the number of followers of other users, spam, etc. Facebook, on the other hand, is a social network which doesn’t have the same adherence in all societies. In Brazil, it is high, while in China (where Facebook is censored) it is low.

I believe that what’s more important than the number of people on social networks is verifying how many of those are current internet users (almost 3.4 billion, according to recent data of the Internet Live Stats) and how they’re distributed around the globe. Despite representing almost 50% of the world population, only 10% of this number is located in Africa. Besides, there are gender differences in accessibility (men usually have more access to the networks, according to the International Telecommunication Union), as well as differences in access quality, price, and freedom of speech online.

3) In what way does this result affect the notion that digital social networks promote equality among its users? According to IRIS’s studies, is this affirmative pertinent in the contemporary reality?

The internet surely potentializes the exercise of political rights, democratizes the access to knowledge, facilitates the organization of users according to their interests, amongst other aspects of online life. In social networks, it is possible that these democratic rights and exercises become even easier to develop, since the users get, in a way or another, the opportunity to say what they think and express their political preferences. This raises, relatively, the equality between users online, because the network use itself doesn’t depend on social class, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

However, it’s necessary to keep in mind that not all social networks work in the same way and that different users will use different platforms in different ways. Facebook, for instance, uses an algorithm that limits the content showed in accordance with the interests of users, or to the subject of the page which posts such content. In other words, even if all users (individuals, organizations, companies, etc) have a voice, it doesn’t mean all of them will be heard. It is possible that these social networks frameworks cause more homogeneity in discourse among similar users, in true online “bubbles”, in which people only hear what they want. In these contexts, there is less debate between users with diverging opinions and even more radicalization of discourse.

4) How is the right to internet access considered around the world? And in Brazil?

Increasingly, internet access is being considered a human right, including in policies of the United Nations, in the UNPD (United Nations Program for Development) and in the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). In Brazil, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet considers internet access “essential to the exercise of citizenship” (article 7). This is an extremely advanced legislation, with its merits recognized by several countries and international organizations. It’s like a “constitution for the internet”, which established basic users rights and principles for the internet in Brazil.

In general, internet accessibility is considered a sign of economic and social development, so most countries have begun initiatives toward raising the percentage of the population with internet access. However, what’s observed are resistances to the access ways, since some countries censor content, amongst other manners of limiting a free and neutral access. In China, sites like Google and Facebook are simply forbidden. In Russia, there is surveillance of sites and users which promote online LGBT debates. If the navigation is limited like that, then the access isn’t effective.

5) Do you believe such policies are in accordance with the politics of production and maintenance of cultural diversity?

The architecture of the internet, along with the development and democratization of new technologies, diminishes the distance between users and promotes more access to cultural production and publishing tools. Without as many middle entities, such as labels, publishers, etc, it is possible that users produce and publish their own music, books and other sorts of cultural products, besides disseminating and keeping habits of their cultures.

The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity recognizes this characteristic of the internet and social networks in order to “promote linguistic diversity”, “facilitate the electronic circulation of endogenous cultural products”, and “access digital resources for education, culture, and science”. In other words, the internet, for corroborating and dynamizing the communication between users, is a facilitator in producing and maintaining cultural diversity online.

6) To what degree does the access do digital social networks contribute (or not) to the global cultural diversity?

For its open, plural, diversified and collaborative character, the internet and social networks can also be platforms for the exercise of identity and cultural diversity online. As long as informed, critical and conscious, the access results in more participation in cultural production movements, be it as a spectator or as a producer of it.

Access the Observatório da Diversidade Cultural bulletin here.