I took this from Scholars Strategy Network and posted it verbatim below. The title is a bit misleading, as most of the article is more directly about Net Neutrality. It's impact on communities of color, the poor, and those who live in rural areas is not integrated well. Regardless, the information on Net Neutrality is important.
by Roderick Graham, Rhode Island College
Advanced technologies spread unevenly to different groups of Americans, with low-income people and minorities lagging behind whites on most measures of access and usage. But recently African Americans and Latinos have been narrowing the digital divide. A 2010 study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project showed that minorities are increasingly active purchasers of Internet enabled phones; two years later, another Pew report documented that minorities are outpacing whites not just in mundane activities like talking on the phone and texting, but also in more sophisticated applications like Internet-banking.
But progress toward closing America’s digital divides could be stalled or reversed by adverse federal government regulations or restrictive interpretations by the Federal Communications Commission. The regulatory details at issue are quite specific, but they have potentially momentous social consequences.
Property Rights and Internet Flexibility
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996 protects the intellectual property rights of inventors and entrepreneurs who create new computer hardware and software programs and content. Producers typically use embedded codes to prevent the copying or modifying of their products, and federal law makes it a crime for users to get around – or “circumvent” – such codes to make modifications beyond those allowed by the original producer.
WHY MINORITIES AND LOW-INCOME AMERICANS HAVE A BIG STAKE
IN A FREE AND OPEN INTERNET
Advanced technologies spread unevenly to different groups of Americans, with low-income people and minorities lagging behind whites on most measures of access and usage. But recently African Americans and Latinos have been narrowing the digital divide. A 2010 study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project showed that minorities are increasingly active purchasers of Internet enabled phones; two years later, another Pew report documented that minorities are outpacing whites not just in mundane activities like talking on the phone and texting, but also in more sophisticated applications like Internet-banking.
But progress toward closing America’s digital divides could be stalled or reversed by adverse federal government regulations or restrictive interpretations by the Federal Communications Commission. The regulatory details at issue are quite specific, but they have potentially momentous social consequences.
Property Rights and Internet Flexibility
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996 protects the intellectual property rights of inventors and entrepreneurs who create new computer hardware and software programs and content. Producers typically use embedded codes to prevent the copying or modifying of their products, and federal law makes it a crime for users to get around – or “circumvent” – such codes to make modifications beyond those allowed by the original producer.
