PORTRAIT:KATECOPELANDILLUSTRATION:GUSTAVO PERGOLIHow a lack of access to a ordable information
helped to radicalise Brazil“A non-neutral,
economically
divided internet
will create echo
chambers”
re-internet, analysts found
that patterns of behaviour
clustered in geographic areas.
Anthropologists and human
geographers studied the clusters of
culture that formed within isolated
social groups – whether in rural parts
of the UK or tribes in remote Asia –
and found patterns about how they
structure their days and lives. Social
psychologists recognise that finding
yourself in one of these tight-knit,
isolated communities predicts what
you will believe.
Armed with this knowledge, many
observers and experts predicted that
access to all the world’s information
would create silos of opinion that we
now describe variously as feedback
loops, echo chambers and filter
bubbles. There are other aspects of
human behaviour that scientists have
predicted will have a profound impact
on our society. One of these is, what
will happen if a system is set up that
charges for different access to all the
world’s knowledge? Recent events in
Brazil could offer us some insights.
Not long ago, two reporters from
The New York Times went to Brazil to
investigate a proposed link between
messaging service WhatsApp, video-
sharing site YouTube, and the rise
of far right presidential candidate
Jair Bolsona ro. They discovered
that the poorest Brazilians – whose
political revolution helped to usherin Bolsonaro – had fallen into a swirl
of misinformation and conspiracy
that supported the far right line, and
was a specific result of an unevenly
distributed information network.
Internet access is expensive in
Brazil, and many mobile phone
operators throw in unlimited access
to the WhatsApp app for free as a
contract sweetener. Even if you can’t
afford an internet plan, which means
no YouTube or Google, you can still
connect for free in the closed social
groups you form via WhatsApp. And
whatever passes through that silo
becomes your news diet.
Illiteracy in poor communities
is incredibly high, so text isn’t the
primary form of communication.Instead, video clips snipped from
YouTube (too expensive) are uploaded
to WhatsApp (free), where they’re
viewed and shared.
According to the authors, the
Brazilian YouTube ecosystem
had been hijacked by conspiracy
theorists who jumped onto issues
of interest to the poor communities,
and they created compelling and
algorithmically tasty content that was
fed into the WhatsApp closed groups
without context. And because these
users weren’t able to check for veracity
on Google (too expensive), their news
diet became unbalanced. The authors
drew a direct link between a two-
tiered, unevenly distributed access to
information and the rise of fear and
rage against opponents of Bolsonaro.
The internet is already positioned
to service our desire for silos of
opinion, which we know can lead to
changes in behaviour. A non-neutral,
economically divided internet will
create echo chambers of manipulated
and unverifiable information that
will continue to have real-world
consequences. We are devastatingly
predictable animals, after all.A L E K S
KROTOSKI
Aleks is a social
psychologist,
broadcaster
and journalist.
She presents
Digital Human.COMMENTCOMMENT
P
THE PERILS OF UNEQUAL
INTERNET ACCESS
PORTRAIT: KATE COPELAND ILLUSTRATION: GU
How a lack of access to a ordable information
helped to radicalise Brazil“A non-neutral,
economically
divided internet
will create echo
chambers”
re-internet, analysts found
that patterns of behaviour
clustered in geographic areas.
Anthropologists and human
geographers studied the clusters of
culture that formed within isolated
social groups – whether in rural parts
of the UK or tribes in remote Asia –
and found patterns about how they
structure their days and lives. Social
psychologists recognise that finding
yourself in one of these tight-knit,
isolated communities predicts what
you will believe.
Armed with this knowledge, many
observers and experts predicted that
access to all the world’s information
would create silos of opinion that we
now describe variously as feedback
loops, echo chambers and filter
bubbles. There are other aspects of
human behaviour that scientists have
predicted will have a profound impact
on our society. One of these is, what
will happen if a system is set up that
charges for different access to all the
world’s knowledge? Recent events in
Brazil could offer us some insights.
Not long ago, two reporters from
The New York Times went to Brazil to
investigate a proposed link between
messaging service WhatsApp, video-
sharing site YouTube, and the rise
of far right presidential candidate
Jair Bolsona ro. They discovered
that the poorest Brazilians – whose
political revolution helped to usherin Bolsonaro – had fallen into a swirl
of misinformation and conspiracy
that supported the far right line, and
was a specific result of an unevenly
distributed information network.
Internet access is expensive in
Brazil, and many mobile phone
operators throw in unlimited access
to the WhatsApp app for free as a
contract sweetener. Even if you can’t
afford an internet plan, which means
no YouTube or Google, you can still
connect for free in the closed social
groups you form via WhatsApp. And
whatever passes through that silo
becomes your news diet.
Illiteracy in poor communities
is incredibly high, so text isn’t the
primary form of communication.Instead, video clips snipped from
YouTube (too expensive) are uploaded
to WhatsApp (free), where they’re
viewed and shared.
According to the authors, the
Brazilian YouTube ecosystem
had been hijacked by conspiracy
theorists who jumped onto issues
of interest to the poor communities,
and they created compelling and
algorithmically tasty content that was
fed into the WhatsApp closed groups
without context. And because these
users weren’t able to check for veracity
on Google (too expensive), their news
diet became unbalanced. The authors
drew a direct link between a two-
tiered, unevenly distributed access to
information and the rise of fear and
rage against opponents of Bolsonaro.
The internet is already positioned
to service our desire for silos of
opinion, which we know can lead to
changes in behaviour. A non-neutral,
economically divided internet will
create echo chambers of manipulated
and unverifiable information that
will continue to have real-world
consequences. We are devastatingly
predictable animals, after all.A L E K S
KROTOSKI
Aleks is a social
psychologist,
broadcaster
and journalist.
She presents
Digital Human.COMMENT
P
THE PERILS OF UNEQUAL
INTERNET ACCESS