Issues that matter
Two-third live in ASIA
The Internet is broken!
The Internet and the World Wide Web were designed with decentralization in mind, and equal access to and participation by all the people. Over the years of its evolution, it’s fair to say that those goals for a an open, universally-accessible and decentralized Internet and the “dWeb” (decentralized web) have failed as the Internet has become a tool for propaganda, (mis/dis)information and even is been used widely for violating the privacy of individuals.
The most linguistically-diverse countries are the biggest threats to diversity
Asia, which is known for its ethno-lingual diversity is also home to two-third of the world’s indigenous peoples. That is 260 million people! However, these communities are extremely vulnerable to a wide range of risks of being neglected/targeted—politically, socially and their rights and social injustice. The knowledge commons reflects this neo-colonization—majority of the content on the Internet ignores the facts that matter about the underrepresented communities. Let’s look at Wikipedia.
The knowledge commons is inequitable!
Wikipedia is still the sum of "some knowledge" and not "all the knowledge" yet.
Participation of women, LGBTQI people, indigenous and other marginalized groups are almost negligible on the Internet in general and Wikipedia/ Wikimedia projects in particular.
- “The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimation“. Aaron Shaw (2013)
- “Decolonizing the Internet – 1” and “Our Stories: Our Knowledges“. WhoseKnowledge? (2018)
- “Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors“. Vice. (Nov 8, 2017)
- Have you yet tried to find the gaps on Wikipedia? Try now if you haven’t!
