Printed courtesy of Poor News Network and authors Guillermo Gonzalez and Gloria Esteva
I am the co-teacher of the Voces program and a migrant scholar myself and as I heard Gloria speak I realized that her words and the fact that we were even there was the actualization of what POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork(PNN) along with other individuals and organizations were fighting for through testimonies in the public comment portion of the meeting of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on net neutrality at Stanford University last Thursday. Gloria’s words resonated the powerful voice of migrant raza communities and other poverty scholars that otherwise would not be represented at this meeting. Continue reading The FCC Bus: One Person’s Story→
Network Neutrality — or “Net Neutrality” for short — is the guiding principle that preserves a free and open Internet.
Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination. Continue reading Net Neutrality 101→
This June Field Poll by CETF updates digital divide statistics in California. Specific demographic markers exist for lack of Internet usage and they are:
* Non-citizen status
* Lack of English fluency
* Disability
* Poverty
Government-imposed online censorship has become increasingly prevalent over the past few years. And the current legislative trends from governments around the world point to a future filled with blocked websites. But simply stopping this from happening is only one part of the battle. When censorship does happen, we need a sign that clearly tells us that that’s the reason for a site’s inaccessibility.
Enter Tim Bray, a software developer at Google who has proposed a solution: a “451″ error code that displays anytime you visit a site blocked by the government. The number 451 is in honor of late author Ray Bradbury whose science fiction classic Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1950, warned of a dystopian world defined by government-imposed censorship (in the form of burning any house that contains books). Continue reading Fahrenheit 451→
Media Alliance joined 38 organizations to call for political debate moderators to ask candidates how they plan to improve high-speed Internet access.
The over three dozen signers include a diverse group of national civil rights groups, technology policy advocates, media advocates, and community organizing groups concerned with the fact that approximately 34 million Americans still lack access to high-speed Internet, and the consequences of this divide. Continue reading What Will They Do About The Internet?→
Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny, poet, poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist and lecturer is the founder and executive director of POOR Magazine/ PoorNewsNetwork (PNN), the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America. Printed courtesy of the author and PNN (Poor News Network).
The walls of the conference hall auditorium were white and tall and engulfed the humans who sat in rapt attendance. I sat quietly, in panel after panel, afraid to move or make too much noise as tech-embedded words like, White space, Bit Torrent, Net Neutrality and Blogosphere floated past my ears. They bounced off the walls and knocked up against my head like thick steel rods, knocking my fingers off their tenuous hold onto the edges of the digital ravine, which seemed to grow sharper and taller with each obtuse reference to a technology I had never had the time, privilege or the access to learn in all of my 38 years of poverty and homelessness. Continue reading The Low-Access People: Tiny Grey-Garcia’s Notes on the NCMR→
A series of studies by John Dunbar and Jacob Fenton at the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University on the links between poverty, rural life and lack of broadband access.
The digital television transition, completed successfully by the United States on June 12, 2009, is generating a large flow of electronic waste as consumers continue to upgrade their televisions. We all want to recycle responsibly, but how? Continue reading DTV Help Centers Team Up To Deal With E-Waste→
