How Detroit residents are building their own internet:
Detroit has historically been one of the least connected cities in America, with about 40 percent of Detroit residents lacking any home internet access at all. Things are changing, though, thanks in large part to projects like the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII), a collaboration between the Detroit Community Technology Project and a network of community organizations.
EII has an ambitious goal: to strengthen neighborhoods by building low-cost, high-speed internet for the underserved communities of Detroit, to increase digital literacy, and to train residents to be "digital stewards." And against all odds, they are succeeding.
Over the past six years, EII has built and maintained an impressive internet network across large swaths of Detroit, training digital stewards from the community to set up and install wireless access points, fiber hookups and hotspots, and educating residents on how to safely and effectively use the internet.
The onslaught of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns around the country exacerbated an issue that has been pervasive for decades: the digital divide. As many Americans logged into Zoom to conduct business, chat with their family and watch Netflix, millions of others were offline and disconnected, struggling to find information about COVID-19, schedule vaccine appointments and apply for unemployment. This is the digital divide: the gap between those who have digital connectivity, and those who do not. This disparity is especially pronounced in communities of color, as well as low income communities.
[...] "Access to information is like liberty. Whenever that is restricted or limited for the sake of capitalism, it's so symbolic of oppression because people can't make up their own minds," says Shahmir. "When they don't have that information, can they really make the best decisions for themselves?"
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 12 2021, @11:48PM (1 child)
but when the letter comes, compliance won't be optional
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 12 2021, @11:49PM
And, if no one complies with that letter?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 12 2021, @11:48PM
It's just regular people putting this together. Not an army of engineers in lab coats. There are no transit levels in sight. Just regular people, carrying electronic gadgets out into the neighborhood, and setting them up.
OK, there is probably at least one STEM guy or gal involved, making suggestions for locations, and helping people to understand the gear they are setting up. But, it doesn't take a large cadre of college grads to supervise reasonably intelligent people through a project like this.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 12 2021, @11:58PM (5 children)
I look forward to future articles telling us all about the black residents of Detroit who have used this internet access to better their lives through self-education and learning, rather than just porn and tiktok.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday August 13 2021, @12:12AM
1. At least those digital stewards will know a lot more about the working of the internet, that's as guaranteed as anything that already happened.
2. while it may not be a guarantee a specific end, the contrary (absence of internet access) is a guarantee that the end will never be reached.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Tork on Friday August 13 2021, @12:39AM
Heh. Irony.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 13 2021, @12:39AM (1 child)
Oh, wait - you're saying there is some fundamental difference between black and white people's usage of the internet? I guess citations would be appropriate here. Surely you don't resent black people doing the exact same thing you are doing!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday August 14 2021, @02:14PM
Sure he does. It will reduce the available bandwidth on his favorite sites.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 13 2021, @01:46PM
Providing people with an opportunity, doesn't mean they'll take it. That goes for anyone.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @12:05AM (5 children)
Does the inner-city detroit still look like an ex-war zone?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @12:27AM (2 children)
Some areas, especially on the east side. A lot better than 5 or 10 years ago though!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @02:48AM (1 child)
I have no love for millenials and hipsters, but you lot rejuvenating the American city centers, especially in the Midwest and east coast cities (like Baltimore - ugh, what a criminal dump), I applaud yo ass.
Unlike the cocksuckers in SF and Seattle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @05:56AM
Umm, buddy? Sorry to break reality to you but 100% you have some cocksuckers in your area. If not then you have my sympathies. Or is that why you're so angry and need to shit on others? Please tell me it isn't because you're stupid enough to watch Fox News!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @12:27AM
No, all the Muslims moved out to avoid the crime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @03:51PM
No. It's fine downtown. Its art museum is top notch. Mexican town on the south side is a decent neighborhood, too.
Can't say much about the city government, but there are people there trying to make it liveable.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday August 13 2021, @12:16AM (2 children)
On Beta Colony, access to comconsoles was a fundamental right in the constitution.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @12:55AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday August 13 2021, @07:11AM
"This TV has an off switch! That's illegal!". - From Max Headroom.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @03:53PM (1 child)
Red Hook in Brooklyn set up something like this after the last hurricane. Dunno how it has fared during the coronavirus, but it worked for a while.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 13 2021, @06:04PM
Any relation to the Lovecraft story, The Horror at Red Hook?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:35PM
"Equitable Internet Initiative"
fuck your "Equity", Neo-Bolshevik scum.
"This disparity is especially pronounced in communities of color..."
So fucking what? Take you non-white asses back to where you came from. You are not our problem.
"it's so symbolic of oppression because people can't make up their own minds," says Shahmir"
oh, yeah, it's always Whitey's fault. Even when you can't make up your own mind.
""When they don't have that information, can they really make the best decisions for themselves?""
So when these monkeys chimp out it's because of their poor disadvantage, which is Whitey's fault somehow.
"By Aaron Kalischer-Coggins | May 28, 2021"
of course it's written by a subversive, anti-white Jew.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:42PM
yeah, ok. as if the White Man isn't the one who is actually showing them how to do everything, even if it happened a generation or two back. Typical Jew propaganda. Whitey is holding them down, but they are rising above it through their world renown work ethic and creativity.
When, in fact, Whitey does nothing but (stupidly) bend over backwards for non-whites while the insidious Jew blood libels and slanders him to them and the white children in the Bolshevik brainwashing centers known as public schools.