From the abstract: "In the United States, digital inclusion policies designed to
introduce poor people, communities of color, indigenous, and migrants
(collectively, “chronically underserved communities” or “the underserved”) to
the economic, social, and political benefits of broadband lie in tension with
new practices and techniques of online surveillance.
While online surveillance
activity affects all broadband users, members of chronically underserved
communities are potentially more vulnerable to the harmful effects of surveillant
technologies. This paper examines specific examples of commercial data
profiling against a longer history of low–tech data profiling of chronically
underserved communities. It concludes by calling for issues of online privacy
and surveillance to punctuate digital inclusion discourse. Until this happens,
digital inclusion policies threaten to bring chronically underserved
communities into online worlds that, as Gandy (2009) argued, reinforce and
exacerbate social exclusion and inequalities." Read more
