The digital gender gap is multifactorial in Latin America and as long as countries fail to address discrimination against women, inequality will be reflected in the digital space, excluding them from access to opportunities and enjoyment of their rights.
Email surveillance, blocking of websites with content that is awkward for governments, or the interruption of services such as WhatsApp are symptoms of the threat to freedom of expression online, according to Latin American activists.
Young people in Cuba are anxiously awaiting an acceleration of the informatisation of society, which is apparently moving ahead at the same pace as the current reform process, “without haste, but without pause,” according to the authorities.
Italy has finally joined the restricted club of states in the world that have chosen the constitutional path for regulating the Internet – or at least has taken a significant step in that direction – by adopting a Declaration of Internet Rights.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will include targets for information and communication technologies, such as strengthening the Internet. And Latin America will be behind from the start in aspects that are key to increasing its educational and medical uses, bolster security and expand bandwidth.
In a major paradigm shift, the German government is now placing its bets on digitalisation for its development cooperation policy with Africa, under what it calls a
Strategic Partnership for a ’Digital Africa’.
Challenges to advertisers and marketers arose in the past century. Critics deplored the role of cigarette marketers who exploited the aspirations of women by associating smoking with liberation.
There has been robust growth in Internet access and usage over the past few years and Africa is now primed to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities that Internet can bring to people across the continent, according to Kathy Brown, President and CEO of the
Internet Society.
For most Syrian women, the war has been a disaster. For some, it has also been liberating.
Maria Eugenia Calle, a local official in this Andean agricultural community, recently saw the Internet for the first time.
"After graduating, I joined the thousands of other graduates on the list of the unemployed. Then I read about a project that offers a technology incubator for youth projects, applied, was accepted and now I’m no longer on that list!
Waters have receded in Serbia after the worst flooding the country has seen in 120 years, and something new has surfaced, apart from devastated fields and property – censorship of the internet.
As India votes in its 16
th general election Apr. 7-May 12, the youth, comprising nearly half the country’s 814 million voters, could prove decisive. And the internet is being used increasingly to target youth in the world’s largest democratic exercise.
Turkey is waiting to see if President Abdullah Gul will ratify the government's controversial Internet bill, which opposition parties, civil society and the international community call a major restriction on freedom of expression.
Mobile
broadband services are seen as a key tool of development communication the world over, but people in rural Asia and Africa say telecom companies should cater to their needs and not simply impose technology on them.
Only 16 percent of Africa’s population of over a billion is online. But as Internet and mobile phone connectivity grows rapidly, the continent wants to join forces with Asian powerhouses to change its digital landscape.
Deep in the forests of central India live the Gond tribals, an almost forgotten lot, neglected as much by the state as by mainstream media. Many cannot read or write. But thanks to a new technology, and the rapid spread of mobile phones through India, they are now picking up their cell phone and making their voice heard.
First, it was Youtube. Now, if the government of Sindh has its way, it could well be goodbye to Skype, Whatsapp, Viber and Tango for the people of this province in southeastern Pakistan. At least for the next three months.
The scandal around the under-age prostitute that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi allegedly had sex with is not about just that one girl: an estimated 10,000 under-age girls become victims of sexual exploitation every year in Italy.
If you can’t beat them, at least innovate. That seems to be the lesson that Pakistan’s Awami National Party (ANP) has drawn from its predicament.
The Pacific Islands have some of the lowest rates of Internet penetration in the world, yet tech-savvy urbanites are behind the emergence of a number of social media sites dedicated to generating public debate and demanding government accountability. However, without real action, online forums speaking truth to power are constrained in impacting political and social reforms in the region.