Different people, digital world

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Different people, digital world

• PSI 2007
• Kaido Kikkas

This document uses the GNU Free Documentation
License (v1.2 or newer).
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People are different

• Differences vs stereotypes
• Minorities based on race, ethnicity, worldview
  etc
• Different stereotypes by location
• Yet some groups face almost universal
  stereotyping perhaps the most visible example
  is people with disabilities (PwD)
• The litmus effect PwD as an indicator

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(No Transcript)
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Back to the society

• People with disabilities from Sparta to today
• Segregation vs integration
• Former Eastern bloc 'society of universal
  happiness', no sub-standard people
• Gradual return to society during the nineties
• NB! At first, both sides were unprepared
• The road goes on

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The Circle revisited
Distance education
Extra means of access
Low level of education
Limited access to different parts of society
_at_
Low level of employment
Limited role in society, neglect
Low social status
Powerful, accessible medium
Telework
Means of politics and PR
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Some notable initiatives

• http//www.empowermentzone.org (1996-2000) the
  first widely used all-round online resource for
  disability activists
• The Access symbol campaign and others leading to
  accessibility becoming an integral part of W3C
  activities
• Web validating W3C, Bobby and others

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Example Estonia

• 1992 first computer courses at TUT
• 1995-2001 first Estonian server especially
  targetted towards people with disabilities
  community emerges
• The Old Town talker (chatroom) 1995 hosted by a
  man with a profound impairment
• 1995 Rehabilitation Technology Lab at TUT
• around 2000 - E- and M-services make many
  formerly inaccessible services usable the
  broadband and WiFi breakthrough
• 2000-2003 the THINK FP6 project
• 2006 - http//liikumisvabadus.invainfo.ee

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Communication?
hello!
hi, man!

• side A ltgt channel ltgt side B

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Example small talk or scandal?

• A sentence Man, you suck hard! is
• used in an informal conversion between buddies in
  a sauna after a sixpack
• said in a phone conversation
• said in instant messenger
• sent by E-mail
• sent by fax bearing a corporate letterhead
• sent as an official post with all requisites by
  the President of Estonia

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Differences

• time
• direction
• capacity
• filtering
• The secret of Internet a mixture of very
  different communication measures

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We become our messages

• On the Internet, height, weight, race, and gender
  may be unknown. Beauty doesn't impress us, nor
  does ugliness appall. We become our messages,
  purely and simply
• Barrett Wallace 1994
• But works only when people are honest!

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Hackers again

• No record about MIT hackers with disability
• Yet, had they existed, they would have likely
  been treated as equals (see also the case of
  12-yo Peter Deutsch). Levy's Hacker Ethic, rule
  4
• Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not
  bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or
  position.
• Similar views are also seen at the writings of
  Raymond and Himanen

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Other features of the Net

• A bit skewed from day one (not many normal
  people among the founders)
• Filtering of prejudices
• the dreaded First Impression verbal rather than
  visual
• Allows playing out the hand
• Accelerates deepening of personal contact
• DANGER does not say when to stop beating

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What if a girl meets a guy

• ... who is using a wheelchair
• in 'real life', it takes some courage to even
  think about any closer relations
• in the cyberspace, it is up to him
• can start 'playing out' with the disability fact
  and get the same results as offline
• can try to hide it will get busted on real
  contact
• can 'play other cards' first the perceivedly
  negative feature will lose a lot of its meaning

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Vox populi, vox Dei

• Citizen participation has grown much easier with
  networks especially for those unheard before
• All those social software tools from community
  portals to blogs and wikis
• Examples from Estonia
• The picket of Estonian PwD in November 2006 was
  largely coordinated online and was quite
  successful
• the apartment scandal in February 2007 reversed
  due to large publicity

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Conclusions

• Digital world has its threats, but it has given
  lots of new tools for minority groups
• Internet is different by nature
• the Net as a form of rehabilitation?
• again the place for the Hacker Ethic

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Homework

• Find a good example of inclusion / empowerment
  from the web and write a review to your blog