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DIGITAL ETHICS IN BRIDGING DIGITAL DIVIDE

Article · April 2009

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Subhajit Basu
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DIGITAL ETHICS IN BRIDGING DIGITAL DIVIDE

Dr Subhajit Basu FRSA

Vice-Chair BILETA
Associate Professor
School of Law
University of Leeds
Leeds, LS2 9JT

Tel: +44 (0)113 3435031 I Fax: +44 (0) 113 343 5066
Email: s.basu@leeds.ac.uk I www.Leeds.ac.uk

The digital divide disempowers, discriminates, and generates dependency. The question
is how to deal with the problem of the digital divide? The politically intriguing idea of
implementing a generic and adaptable model for ‘bridging digital divide’ clashes with
the understanding that each country and region has its peculiarities, constitution, and
legal and political framework. The idea is just unrealistic. It is not a matter of imposing
legislative measures, strict regulations or empowering some controlling organisation.
One of the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society was to build a
global consensus around a core ethical values and principles for the information society.
Genetics has bio-ethics; doesn't wisdom also demand that we develop digital-ethics? ICT
has already posed fundamental ethical problems, whose complexity and global
dimensions are rapidly evolving. Technologies are not only tools but also vehicles of
affordances, values and interpretations of the surrounding reality, like hermeneutic
devices. The objective is to formulate universally recognised principles and common
ethical standards for bridging the digital divide. In this presentation, I have far more
questions than I have answers. Because these are the issues, we typically avoid when we discuss
DD. I will not be able to give a list of potential solutions because I do not have one. However, I
will give the reasons why I have the questions. Our information society is creating parallel
systems: one for those with income, education and literacy connections, providing plentiful
information at low cost and high speed: the other are those without connections, blocked by
high barriers of time, cost and uncertainty and dependent upon outdated information. Hence it
can be expressed the DD is nothing but a reflection of the social divide. The question is what the
best strategy to construct an information society that is ethically sound is? Most people have the
views that ICT and underlying ideologies are neutral. This Technology has become so much
naturalised that it can no longer be considered as anything other than being useful, even when it
has the potential to change the critical developmental priorities of a country profoundly.
Investment in ICT will not produce growth in developing countries unless complementary
policies support it. ICT for development holds significant promises, yet this is only a belief, and
although some do argue that it is quite a credible opinion, still it remains an idea, as we have
repeatedly seen from ICT4 Development impact reports. The divide exists because there is an
error both in focus and approach as policy makers in this field started with a wrong approach
and continued working with the logical framework of a previous social paradigm, where society
never participated in the decision making process. I argue that Since the DD is a problem
affecting individuals rather than pre-established whole communities, solutions can be more
efficient if they are grassroots-oriented and bottom up? What we need is a more balanced
approach to promotions of social goals through devices such as universal service obligations
and recognising country specific requirements (greater voice for developing countries in
international regulatory agencies). It is more about proposing policies of promoting national e-
strategies in developing countries, prioritising ICT in aid funding, improving connectivity, and
building human capacity.

In an earlier paper, I suggested technological “leapfrogging” will enable the poor to catch up. As
latecomers, developing countries can embrace existing technologies developed elsewhere and
skip intermediate stages allowing them to save on considerable costs of development. However,
now I feel that there is more to this argument: There is a fundamental duality: technology “for
development” and technology “in developing” countries. Two streams represent diverse sets of
objectives, which are currently being conflated and even used interchangeably. Developing
countries need to promote their technology. As premature standardisation can become
impediments to technological innovations in these countries and can be counterproductive. ICT
promises to change the world around us, what does that mean? Information society as we
understand is dominated by an arguably narrow range of ideological viewpoints. It can cause
new forms of colonialism that must be prevented, opposed and ultimately eradicated. However,
unfortunately, what we are witnessing is different notions of cyber colonialism, a colonising of
cultures by a diverse array of western ICT ideologies. We know there is a ‘divide’ because we
were told so.

The concept of Discourse Analysis of Colonialism first developed in Edward Said’s 1978 work
Orientalism. Said argued that Western discourses construct the “orient” as “other”, and
represented as primitive, dependent upon the Western expertise and in need of being
controlled. This is entirely analogous to the way developed countries are now dictating and
dominating the ‘information society’ with its expertise of ICT about the developing world. It is
hard to deny the role of these cyber superpowers and control in the creation of a technological
“other”. The ‘other’ lacks what is assumed to be the more efficient collection, exchange, and
distribution of information to which those with the necessary hardware, software, and technical
skills have access. These disparities are far from coincidence and are largely attributed to the
unfair international economic system, which, it can be argued, benefits the developed countries
at the expense of the less developed countries. We are thinking about bridging the divide but
at whose terms? The question is the relationship exploitive where one party likely to be
advantaged more than the other as the relationship unfolds? Alternatively, is it reciprocal in
which each party benefits to a similar degree? How do we determine this? It can be fairly
easily demonstrated: If the developing countries continue to depend on the developed
countries for expertise and control, can we say that we have managed to bridge the
divide? Before the Internet, the global agenda and public debates within territorially defined
political spaces were mainly set by Western transnational media agencies. They were tools used
by the dominant centres of power to manufacture consent and shape the contours of public
ideology for their interests. Regarding ICT, it is again a relationship which many in the
developing world realise that they have little options but to utilise the technology from within
the operating ethos and intellectual structures fostered mainly by American techno-visionaries.
So an uneven relationship exists. Have we superimposed ICT ideologies of west upon the
‘Rest’? As I said before Information society is about individuals (information only becomes
useful and hence valuable if and only if the individual understands that information).So the
usefulness and the value is ultimately dependent on what gets disseminated. Paradoxically,
across political and cultural contexts abundance of information provided by the Internet has not
necessarily created an abundance of usable knowledge. It is clear that the digital divide is a
multifaceted social problem, requiring a multi-faceted intervention. Nearly all related studies
agree that the fundamental solution lies beyond a mere consideration of information availability
 and infrastructure; they call for governments to interfere with the deep-rooted factors which
have directly or indirectly caused this situation. The technological power available is enormous.
It is also growing relentlessly. Our Moral responsibilities towards the world and future
generations are therefore equally significant. Unfortunately, technological power and moral
responsibilities are not necessarily followed by ethical intelligence and wisdom. We are still like
children, light-heartedly and dangerously toying with a marvellous universe.

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