Speaker 1: I feel like there was such a push to everything
Speaker 1: digital in COVID, and now that things are kind of
Speaker 1: opening up. Even though the numbers continue to go up,
Speaker 1: it seems like we're getting more and more and more digital.
Speaker 1: I thought things would go back. People are saying, no
Speaker 1: more menus, that's over QR codes only.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you got a QR code on your table. And
Speaker 2: you know what's funny, Jimmy he doesn't have a smart phone,
Speaker 2: so when he goes to restaurants, he's out of luck
Speaker 2: because if they don't have menus to pass out, he
Speaker 2: has to hope somebody with him will let him use
Speaker 2: their phone to be able to look at the menu.
Speaker 1: It also reminds me of when people were saying we
Speaker 1: don't take cash because of COVID. But I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: y'all are in here allowing people to die maskless, but
Speaker 1: still saying you don't take cash. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: go all digital and you're trying to get rid of
Speaker 1: the cash and coins, just say that right, no have zis.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But all of those things I think are just indicators
Speaker 1: of this widening digital divide. Absolutely, and I think maybe
Speaker 1: in more places than we really lives and we really
Speaker 1: ought to talk about it. I'm TT and I'm Zachiah
Speaker 1: and from Spotify. This is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: A weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and
Speaker 2: a healthy doser friendship.
Speaker 1: This week, we're talking all about the state of internet
Speaker 1: access in the United States and how a lack of
Speaker 1: internet access affects different areas of our lives.
Speaker 2: So let's get into the recitation, all right, So what
Speaker 2: do we know?
Speaker 1: Well, I think we know many of us are using
Speaker 1: the internet every day in our work lives, but definitely
Speaker 1: also in our personal lives.
Speaker 2: Right, And I feel like everyone is online, like everyone
Speaker 2: has to be online because of the way that our
Speaker 2: culture is set up.
Speaker 1: And what we know from my episode with Christina Morillo
Speaker 1: is that there is a lot of data about us online.
Speaker 2: So true, So what do we want to know?
Speaker 1: I think we want to know who has Internet access
Speaker 1: and who doesn't. Even though it feels like everybody's online
Speaker 1: and that you have to be online, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: is not one hundred percent online participation across the United States.
Speaker 2: Right, And I want to know about the pitfalls with
Speaker 2: the internet. Everything's moving to be online. Every application. You know,
Speaker 2: you're applying for a loan, you're applying for a house, anything,
Speaker 2: you have to do it online. And so I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: because all of these things are man made, are there
Speaker 2: any biases that they have found with algorithms and just
Speaker 2: the Internet in general and how it plays a role
Speaker 2: in our day to day lives.
Speaker 1: I think we're ready. Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 2: Our guest for today's lab is doctor Nicole Turner Lee.
Speaker 3: I'm a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings
Speaker 3: Institution and I'm also the director of the Center for
Speaker 3: Technology Innovation, and I have a forthcoming buck which is
Speaker 3: on the US Digital Divide entitled Digitally Invisible. How the
Speaker 3: Internet is creating the new Underclass.
Speaker 1: It feels like so much of life is happening online,
Speaker 1: between social media, working from home, telehealth, which was booming
Speaker 1: after the pandemic. I think it's easy for a lot
Speaker 1: of us to take Internet access for granted. I don't
Speaker 1: care where you are now, they're not making menus anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a QR code for everything code.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing we have to remember is not everyone has
Speaker 1: access to the Internet, and even if they do, not
Speaker 1: all internet access is the same. Doctor Turner calls this
Speaker 1: gap and access the digital divide.
Speaker 3: We have had this divide way before the pandemic, right,
Speaker 3: there were always people who on the wrong side of
Speaker 3: digital opportunity. There was no Facebook when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: no Instagram, five to FI. So when I started in
Speaker 3: this space, I was a digital activist working in City Chicago,
Speaker 3: really training people on how to set up email accounts.
Speaker 3: And what we found during the process is that more
Speaker 3: jobs were going online. As a results of that, more
Speaker 3: people had to figure out ways to create a resume
Speaker 3: and Microsoft Office uploaded to an email account. We see
Speaker 3: now that it's gone further where you have to use
Speaker 3: certain software applications to apply for jobs.
Speaker 2: Doctor Turner Lee says that while innovation around some of
Speaker 2: these technologies and digital systems has been fast, not everyone
Speaker 2: is using or has access to the technology, and all
Speaker 2: of this was exacerbated by COVID.
Speaker 3: The pandemic revealed that if you were not connected, you
Speaker 3: could not make an appointment for vaccinations, you could not work,
Speaker 3: you could not learn, you couldn't even memorialize your friends
Speaker 3: and family members who were lost as a result of
Speaker 3: this pandemic.
Speaker 1: This is so important, right, and I think we saw
Speaker 1: this with a lot of older folks. You know, I
Speaker 1: can remember this, and this disparity, even though it's digital, is.
Speaker 2: Having very real effects on right day to day lives.
Speaker 2: I remember when the pandemic hit and there were a
Speaker 2: lot of kids that were, you know, trying to do
Speaker 2: virtual school and they didn't have internet at home, and
Speaker 2: so their parents would have to find a place where
Speaker 2: they could get internet so that they could log in
Speaker 2: and have virtual school. So there were some kids that
Speaker 2: were having virtual school in their parents' car, in a library,
Speaker 2: anywhere where they could find internet. Not just let you
Speaker 2: know that it's not just as easy as turning on
Speaker 2: your device.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Doctor Turnerlee shared even more info about how the
Speaker 1: digital divide played out in education.
Speaker 3: So at March when we had the beginnings of the pandemic,
Speaker 3: and if you all remember, around March through April, we
Speaker 3: were at peak numbers. We had to send fifty million
Speaker 3: school aged kids home from one hundred and ninety five
Speaker 3: thousand school districts across the US. And we thought it
Speaker 3: was going to be easy. We figured, hey, these are
Speaker 3: young people, they're resilient. We'll put them online and we'll
Speaker 3: make sure we give them laptops and figure that out.
Speaker 3: Two things happen as we were scurrying to get Internet
Speaker 3: enabled devices.
Speaker 4: We realized that K.
Speaker 3: Through twelve students who were in public schools did not
Speaker 3: have access to Internet enabled devices as.
Speaker 4: Part of their school ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Generally, there was no budget right before the pandemic.
Speaker 4: Not only could we not give kids.
Speaker 3: Tablets, we also found that we did not have broadband
Speaker 3: service in the home.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: Fifty million schools ledged kids sent home fifteen to sixteen
Speaker 3: million of them without internet access in the home, nine
Speaker 3: million without internet access or a device.
Speaker 1: That's so important because just because you have a device
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have access. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember the days of trying to do dial up
Speaker 1: and somebody is using the phone. Similarly, if you don't
Speaker 1: have really high speed internet access, multiple people are multiple
Speaker 1: devices trying to log on at the same time is
Speaker 1: no good.
Speaker 2: And then when you think about the impact that that
Speaker 2: has on a student, these kids were being set back,
Speaker 2: you know, in their education. So then what does that
Speaker 2: mean At the end of the school year, are they
Speaker 2: promoted to the next grade? And if so, are they
Speaker 2: behind their friends that have had access to high speed
Speaker 2: internet with no problems.
Speaker 3: And now the impact is we lost so many kids.
Speaker 3: I share the story about this fifteen year old girl
Speaker 3: in Detroit, Michigan who did not log in.
Speaker 4: Her case manager came and they put her.
Speaker 3: In juvenile detention because she failed to lock into school.
Speaker 4: It's a true story.
Speaker 1: That is terrible.
Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty it's sick. Yes, in the middle
Speaker 2: of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: And when we look at this type of stuff at
Speaker 1: a bigger scale, not just you know, one off cases,
Speaker 1: we find that the disparities in the Internet access are
Speaker 1: having disproportionate effects in minoritized communities.
Speaker 3: What we're seeing now with K through twelve students in
Speaker 3: public schools, particularly black and Latino students and tribal students,
Speaker 3: is that we're seeing that they're going to be two
Speaker 3: to three years behind when it comes to learning proficiencies.
Speaker 3: Some of those kids that couldn't get online, it was
Speaker 3: because thirty five percent of those households were sharing one
Speaker 3: device among multiple siblings. Some of those kids didn't get
Speaker 3: online because their parents were serving us Wendy's and Burger
Speaker 3: King and delivering our groceries to our doors. There was
Speaker 3: no adult to make sure kids learning and so that
Speaker 3: to me is like the most poignant moment of where
Speaker 3: we failed a particular delivery of service that is imperative
Speaker 3: to the future of this country. I don't think we're
Speaker 3: actually going to see this generation's impact until like the
Speaker 3: next two to three years, right when we're trying to
Speaker 3: fill folks in positions where the math scores are lower.
Speaker 3: So we can't break the stem divide. This is not
Speaker 3: a digital divide of shiny objects and things. This is
Speaker 3: a divide that is actually around the social mobility of
Speaker 3: certain populations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bigger than who has the new iPad exactly
Speaker 1: camera resolution? Right, I think people are not thinking about
Speaker 1: what can you do with this device? What does this
Speaker 1: mean for your portal to education access opportunity.
Speaker 2: I mean you can do a little experiment, turn your
Speaker 2: phone off for twenty four hours and see how hard
Speaker 2: things get. You know, when you want to communicate with somebody,
Speaker 2: If you needed to call a taxi, how are you
Speaker 2: doing that? If you wanted to just get information, Everything
Speaker 2: that you do is connected to the Internet, and so
Speaker 2: when it's inequitable, you can see how it can have
Speaker 2: a major impact on somebody's day to day life. We're
Speaker 2: not talking about, oh I can't get on Instagram. We're
Speaker 2: talking about can I get food? Will I know what's
Speaker 2: going on around me? Anytime something major happens. We get
Speaker 2: these alerts on our phones from you know whatever news
Speaker 2: outlets that were subscribed to. You basically won't know anything
Speaker 2: that's happening, even just down the street.
Speaker 1: And this is something that's changed over time because when
Speaker 1: we were in elementary school and middle school, internet access
Speaker 1: wasn't a huge part of school. Like there were the computers.
Speaker 1: I wanted to play May this Beacon, teach us typing.
Speaker 1: I wanted to play Oregon Trail, but that was just supplemental,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Now, having a computer setup,
Speaker 1: whether it's a laptop or a tablet, it's crucial. And
Speaker 1: so even if you have a device, there's still so
Speaker 1: much that goes into having that device connected, having internet access.
Speaker 2: During the pandemic, communities came together to increase access for
Speaker 2: those in need. Libraries, churches, small businesses, and emergency funding
Speaker 2: allowed some schools to access hotspots. But even with hotspots,
Speaker 2: there are still challenges, especially in rural communities.
Speaker 3: The hotspots have to have internet access or some type
Speaker 3: of robust network to work. And there are still pockets
Speaker 3: digital deserts with that exist within rural communities where we're
Speaker 3: not able to bring the type of hot speed connectivity
Speaker 3: or broadband as we commonly define it. Listen, telecom company
Speaker 3: is not common for you with high speed internet if
Speaker 3: they've only served five hundred to three thousand residents, because
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, the Internet was built
Speaker 3: off of the very capitalist model. But with that being said,
Speaker 3: I'm really proud that there were rural communities to try
Speaker 3: to figure some of this stuff out. I remember talking
Speaker 3: to a community in Texas where they actually deployed satellite
Speaker 3: interfaces so that the kids could get online their school.
Speaker 3: There were communities like in Roanoke, Virginia, which is very rural,
Speaker 3: where they put the Wi Fi transmitters on top of
Speaker 3: the construction signs.
Speaker 4: But once you see on.
Speaker 3: The highway that say Merge left, they actually pulled a
Speaker 3: few of those construction signs and they were able to
Speaker 3: put technology access up.
Speaker 1: It's great that some communities were able to come up
Speaker 1: with makeshift solutions to improve internet access. But doctor Turner
Speaker 1: Lee shared that black and brown communities were often left
Speaker 1: out of these local efforts. Doctor Turner Lee is now
Speaker 1: working on a project to interview about twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: residents of the Deep South about their internet access generally
Speaker 1: and specifically during the pandemic.
Speaker 3: Some of the early findings that we're getting is that
Speaker 3: people in the rural South, the Black, Latino Indigenous South,
Speaker 3: they went to hotels to get their access. And for me,
Speaker 3: that's a problem because what it suggests is that we
Speaker 3: have more work to do when it comes to deployment,
Speaker 3: but we also have more work in urban areas.
Speaker 4: We have over one million units of public.
Speaker 3: Housing here in the United States where K through twelve
Speaker 3: students lived, but yet we didn't have open Wi Fi
Speaker 3: access in much of our federally assisted housing here in
Speaker 3: the United States. So we had many missed opportunities to
Speaker 3: do the type of work to accelerate broadband adoption.
Speaker 4: And I think now we're still struggling through.
Speaker 3: That, even though we've had a two year lesson on
Speaker 3: the fact that we have disparate access among students and locations,
Speaker 3: particularly among the most vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Hearing about how the digital divide is having the most
Speaker 2: impact on black and brown communities, Native communities and rural
Speaker 2: places and public housing. It's really sad, but it's also
Speaker 2: not surprising to see the intersection of systemic inequality and technology.
Speaker 2: The people who need Internet access the most are the
Speaker 2: ones facing the biggest barriers to access and are paying
Speaker 2: the price exactly.
Speaker 1: And people that are growing up in the age of
Speaker 1: fiber don't understand that not all Internet is created equal. Baby.
Speaker 1: Do you remember dial up? When you had the phone line.
Speaker 2: To use the Internet, and when somebody would call, it
Speaker 2: would knock you off the internet, or.
Speaker 1: You could hear them talking the neighbors, sound and robotic
Speaker 1: coming through the computer. Absolutely, and that Internet was so slow.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, everybody spoiled. Nowadays, you type something in
Speaker 2: the Internet, you know, point zero zero, one second Google
Speaker 2: tells you they got the results for you. Back then,
Speaker 2: you had to sit back, have a snack, go to
Speaker 2: the bathroom, and by the time you got back, maybe
Speaker 2: half the page had loaded, you know.
Speaker 1: But we were also using way too much HTML back then.
Speaker 1: Slay movies behind your myspaceet.
Speaker 2: Our black planet was it was lit. I had these
Speaker 2: green flames. It was it was very good. I could
Speaker 2: it all that myself. We were all little coders.
Speaker 1: Man we shouldn't have given that up. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you think that that kind of Internet is no
Speaker 1: match for what we're doing these days, Like most people
Speaker 1: don't even have landlines. Now, imagine if you had to
Speaker 1: have a landline to get on the internet. I'm out,
Speaker 1: I think too fuck.
Speaker 2: And when doctor Nicole Turner Lee mentions broadbands, she's talking
Speaker 2: about high speed internet that is always on. Not with
Speaker 2: me as a kid. We're talking about from back in
Speaker 2: the day. And the term broadband is an abbreviation for
Speaker 2: broad bandwidth. And this type of connection uses multiple data
Speaker 2: channels to transmit large amounts of information. And there are
Speaker 2: a bunch of different types of broadband setups like cable, fiber, wireless, satellite.
Speaker 1: All of those things. That's the kind of Internet we
Speaker 1: need if we want everybody to be able to get
Speaker 1: on and do all of the activities.
Speaker 3: When you're not connected to the internet, you don't know
Speaker 3: what's happening online. And as a result, and this has
Speaker 3: been reserved ed, Uber may not come to your neighborhood
Speaker 3: because the algorithm knows nothing about your community, and if
Speaker 3: it does, there's not enough of you that actually use
Speaker 3: this type of technology. For the algorithm to direct itself
Speaker 3: to your neighborhood. It's a search arge for being disconnected.
Speaker 3: You can't get no discounts, you can't get no home
Speaker 3: shopping networks and delivery services.
Speaker 4: You are off the.
Speaker 1: Grid, and this provides a different context, you know, for
Speaker 1: being off the grid. A lot of times people say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be off the grid. That's my choice.
Speaker 1: I want to keep things private, but not off the
Speaker 1: grid to the extent that you don't have access to
Speaker 1: the same services that could be convenient or helpful to
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm hm. Some people they'll be like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't have a smartphone because I like to be plugged
Speaker 2: into what's going on around me. And I'm like, yes,
Speaker 2: that is a privilege that you have to be able
Speaker 2: to do that. That is a privilege because what you
Speaker 2: all are also saying is that I can pick and
Speaker 2: choose when I will plug myself back in. So when
Speaker 2: you need to send an email, when you need to
Speaker 2: book a flight, when you need to do very basic things,
Speaker 2: you have that opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's not that you have no choice, right. Doctor turner
Speaker 1: Lie says technology is like a two sided coin. On
Speaker 1: the one side, it helps us stay connected, and it's
Speaker 1: been leveraged for activism, climate change, and artificial intelligence helped
Speaker 1: with our COVID vaccine development. But she says there's also
Speaker 1: another more sinister side.
Speaker 3: Then there are those of us that go online. We
Speaker 3: watch our movies, we buy our dresses, we look for really.
Speaker 4: Cool hair for our braids. Hello, we do all that.
Speaker 3: We get our packages at our door, our groceries delivered.
Speaker 3: Sometimes we even find love online.
Speaker 4: Well, guess what.
Speaker 3: All that stuff that you're doing is connected to your
Speaker 3: digital profile.
Speaker 2: And we talked about this kind of data in Lavity
Speaker 2: five Don't Get Hacked with Christina Morillo. The more a
Speaker 2: company learns about your online behavior, the more there algorithm
Speaker 2: can predict future behavior. And Taylor, they're marketing to fit
Speaker 2: your profile for real. It seems like they know exactly
Speaker 2: what you want when you want it, yes, and this
Speaker 2: can lead to algorithm bias.
Speaker 3: And this type of market stall balance has lent itself
Speaker 3: to digital surveillance. And why that's important for people to
Speaker 3: know is that we know that computers do not discriminate.
Speaker 3: They just don't wake up as hardware and say hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be racist today. The people who are
Speaker 3: behind the programming and execution and evaluation of these technologies.
Speaker 3: First and foremost lack the rich diversity of folks that
Speaker 3: are part of the broader population of these United States
Speaker 3: and our global world. We're not getting those models made
Speaker 3: by us to reflect our lived experiences. But most importantly,
Speaker 3: and my friend doctor Renee Cummings at the University of
Speaker 3: Virginia says this, the data that these models are relying
Speaker 3: on are traumatized because they come with a series of
Speaker 3: baked in historical and systemic injustices. Things like the over
Speaker 3: incarceration and the rest of black people get baked into
Speaker 3: models that then make decisions on whether or not you
Speaker 3: should be released or detained, or the use of mugshot
Speaker 3: data for facial recognition technology, which denies our ability to
Speaker 3: be seen not as criminals.
Speaker 1: It's really a vicious cycle of the same old discrimination
Speaker 1: being reproduced and reinforced in new technology. Now, the thing
Speaker 1: we have heard about and probably experience is that, you know,
Speaker 1: for people with darker skin, you're going to put your
Speaker 1: hand under the sink to get the automatic water. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. You got to show this side of
Speaker 1: your hand, you know, But it doesn't stop. There multiple
Speaker 1: studies have shown that there is a demographic gap Asian
Speaker 1: African American Native American people are misidentified and given false
Speaker 1: positive rates in these kind of monitoring studies all the time.
Speaker 1: There was also a federal report that confirmed the same thing.
Speaker 1: I feel like one hundred times more likely that's not
Speaker 1: a Rounding era dog like that's.
Speaker 2: You might as well just say it ain't happening, right.
Speaker 1: It feels intentionally helpful.
Speaker 2: It feels not good, not useful, right.
Speaker 3: And that's what we have to be really careful in
Speaker 3: terms of the evolution of these technologies and also what
Speaker 3: we believe about what people say on these platforms. You know,
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, foreign operatives use technology to convince us not
Speaker 3: to vote, the greatest form of voter suppression ever experienced.
Speaker 3: But the problem we had nobody to tell and no
Speaker 3: recourse because his technologies are pretty much unregulated.
Speaker 2: This is such a good point that I feel like
Speaker 2: it's so important to remember. It's like you're either digitally
Speaker 2: invisible and paying attacks on one end, or you're hyper
Speaker 2: visible and surveilled in paying attacks on the other.
Speaker 4: You got it. Look, I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 3: I like it when I get marketed my black high
Speaker 3: heel shoes, or when I get my little recommendation to
Speaker 3: go check out my local consignment shop, but I don't
Speaker 3: like it, as Latanya Sweeney at Harvard suggests, when they
Speaker 3: can identify by my name La Kwan Lakeisha Jose that
Speaker 3: I'm a person of color, and therefore I get higher
Speaker 3: interest credit card offerings or more predatory services. That's the
Speaker 3: type of trauma that these systems rely on, and that's
Speaker 3: where it's so inescapable, you know. And what we find
Speaker 3: is that this algorithmic amplification, half of us don't even
Speaker 3: realize that this is happening to you because it's so
Speaker 3: opaque as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, very very true, very very real.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break, and when we come back, we'll
Speaker 2: talk more about what people are doing to make the
Speaker 2: Internet a more accessible and equitable place.
Speaker 1: We're back, and before we get into the episode, let's
Speaker 1: talk about what's coming up next week. Next week we're
Speaker 1: celebrating National Oyster Day and talking about oysters in aquaculture
Speaker 1: with Bill Walton. You won't want to miss this one.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to the lab. We've been talking to
Speaker 2: doctor Nicole Turner Lee about the digital divide and algorithm
Speaker 2: bias and how it can further disenfranchise marginalized communities.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about algorithm bias in previous labs, but
Speaker 1: the algorithm bias we were talking about then was the
Speaker 1: ability to return objective information, like based on things you've
Speaker 1: searched before, what Google or Duck Duck Go or whoever
Speaker 1: sends back to you. But we're thinking about algorithm bias
Speaker 1: and digital bias through a different lens today. We're considering
Speaker 1: how the way you move on the internet, what people
Speaker 1: know about your company's websites, how that affects your ability
Speaker 1: to access different tools, how that affects your ability to
Speaker 1: move through in the physical world based on digital accessibility. So,
Speaker 1: now that we've identified some of these issues, gaps, disparities,
Speaker 1: how do we address them? What's next? What's the policy
Speaker 1: approach and what needs to happen.
Speaker 4: I always tell people I think it's two tracks. One
Speaker 4: is the technical track.
Speaker 3: So we definitely need people who look like the lived
Speaker 3: experiences of the subject, mirror those experiences, understand them, have
Speaker 3: empathy for them, who know what it's like to be
Speaker 3: a black woman who changes your hair, and then can
Speaker 3: put that technical cadence into the creation of facial recognition
Speaker 3: technology that we use to open our phones, because if
Speaker 3: you're not in the right light, or you changed from
Speaker 3: straight to brains or something like that. You know, we
Speaker 3: need people who can come with those real, authentic understandings
Speaker 3: of how we developed technology that's more inclusive, representative, and equitable.
Speaker 1: Remember when your phone didn't want to unlock the other
Speaker 1: day when you looked at.
Speaker 2: It, Yep, it's because I changed my glasses. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got like thirteen pairs of glasses. Changed my glasses,
Speaker 2: said you're a stranger. Stranger danger, wouldn't open my phone,
Speaker 2: and it happened again. There was one time where I think,
Speaker 2: when I set up my facial recognition, I have my
Speaker 2: natural hair out, and so I think it recognizes that.
Speaker 2: So when I have braids or if I have any
Speaker 2: type of anything different, it won't recognize me.
Speaker 1: That's wild.
Speaker 2: The second track is giving those who developed the technology
Speaker 2: compliance frameworks.
Speaker 3: What I mean by that, it's a wild West because
Speaker 3: people feel that they can break previously litigated and.
Speaker 4: Settled civil rights laws.
Speaker 3: When Facebook decided that it was okay in the case
Speaker 3: where they actually committed housing discrimination to check off the
Speaker 3: boxes of people that they wanted to market to. That
Speaker 3: was a violation of the Fair Housing Act. You cannot
Speaker 3: check people off. You check people in, but you cannot
Speaker 3: check them off. What we see when it comes to
Speaker 3: algorithmic hiring where now we see companies using algorithms to
Speaker 3: do pre screenings, and we're learning as researchers that that
Speaker 3: forecloses on the ability of black and Latino applicants to
Speaker 3: get past the pre screen stage because guess what, Well,
Speaker 3: a computer who haven't developed it said, you have to
Speaker 3: look them in the eye, and you're going to look
Speaker 3: them in the eye enough times, you gotta smile a
Speaker 3: little bit. You got to do these things that are
Speaker 3: very European to actually get into the door. Well, guess what,
Speaker 3: that's a violation when there's not transparency about that.
Speaker 1: In May of this year, the EOC that's the United
Speaker 1: States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, released guidance on employer use
Speaker 1: of algorithms and artificial intelligence and hiring processes.
Speaker 3: The same thing with voice assistant technology. We're seeing legislation
Speaker 3: when it comes to eighty eight compliance or being able
Speaker 3: to have the appropriate understanding of people's accents that actually
Speaker 3: go into those technologies. So on the technical side and
Speaker 3: the policy side. They really have to work hand in hand.
Speaker 2: And this just takes us back to our lab on
Speaker 2: linguistics with doctor Bah when we talked about linguistic profiling
Speaker 2: and discrimination based on the way someone speaks.
Speaker 1: And I get to hear this kind of discrimination in
Speaker 1: technology about whose accent or whose way of speaking is
Speaker 1: recognized and is able to be translated because when you
Speaker 1: all call us, we have a service that translates your
Speaker 1: voicemail into text so we can read it. And Baby,
Speaker 1: my Southern folks, I can't tell what y'all are saying. Okay,
Speaker 1: Google doesn't know. Now when I listen, I know exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying because you're speaking my language, but Google
Speaker 1: translating is saying, no, ma'am, no sir, We have no clue.
Speaker 1: Same thing for my voicemail.
Speaker 2: Same thing, because you know, we do transcripts for each
Speaker 2: episode so that the folks of the Death or Heart
Speaker 2: Offare community can still be a part of the Dope
Speaker 2: Labs community. When it's trying to transcribe the key and
Speaker 2: I's voices, it doesn't know who's who, which I find
Speaker 2: appalling because I am not from that level of South Okay.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.
Speaker 2: They're complimenting, and it doesn't know what we're saying. And
Speaker 2: this is supposed to be really advanced technology. You're supposed
Speaker 2: to just plug it in and it's supposed to just
Speaker 2: trans exactly.
Speaker 3: There's a place for policy and legislation to come in
Speaker 3: and sort of prescribe different norms.
Speaker 4: As you said, it's a wild West. But here's the problem.
Speaker 3: We as a community have so many issues that what's
Speaker 3: happened is these technologies intersect with voting rights, they intersect
Speaker 3: with policing, they intersect with healthcare, they intersect with education,
Speaker 3: and they intersect even with government benefits.
Speaker 4: In the state of Florida, they.
Speaker 3: Use facial recognition technology for the verification of unemployment benefits.
Speaker 3: I just said, it don't work well on some folks.
Speaker 3: So there are thousands of people waiting for the unemployment
Speaker 3: while they're being evicted simply because they cannot be verified
Speaker 3: by the public sector use of that technology. So we're
Speaker 3: not just talking about technologies that are standalone. We're talking
Speaker 3: about embedded systems of oppression that come with costs that
Speaker 3: we really just have to pay attention to. Look, people
Speaker 3: can't be on Facebook lightly look at Bab, look at man,
Speaker 3: look at Mab.
Speaker 4: There's more to it.
Speaker 3: Your photo is being great for something else, and something
Speaker 3: else and something else. And by the time you get
Speaker 3: to these economic and social opportunities, people know more about.
Speaker 4: You and your distinct variables than ever before.
Speaker 2: All these aspects of life that we're talking about are
Speaker 2: so important to feeling like you can thrive in this world.
Speaker 2: We ask doctor turnerly if she had any advice for
Speaker 2: folks about how interact with the Internet in order to
Speaker 2: protect themselves in their online presence, and how we can
Speaker 2: overcome some of these biases that are completely out of
Speaker 2: our control.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, this is not the European Union or
Speaker 3: other places where they have strict privacy legislation that provides
Speaker 3: some federally uniformed values when it comes to what companies
Speaker 3: can collect and not collect about you. You know, my
Speaker 3: grandmother told me they ain't nothing in this world that's free.
Speaker 4: Baby.
Speaker 3: There's a trade off when we get these services to
Speaker 3: a certain extent for free to get into the garden.
Speaker 3: You know, it comes with our reciprocity of information. Your
Speaker 3: ability to post a few photos on a social media
Speaker 3: network or set a text message more and more we're
Speaker 3: seeing just aggressive surveillance, both from the you know, policing
Speaker 3: perspective as well as the community perspective and now the
Speaker 3: private sector perspective. When it comes to that information.
Speaker 2: My friend says this all the time. Say Zee, if
Speaker 2: something is free.
Speaker 1: You're the product.
Speaker 2: Exactly you on the show You're money old?
Speaker 1: Yes? Are you on discuntrapped to a styrofoam traye? Okay,
Speaker 1: we're paying with our data.
Speaker 3: The bottom line is people have to understand that these
Speaker 3: inequalities exist and that you're not giving away your data
Speaker 3: for free.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 4: I have a fifteen year old.
Speaker 3: I don't know half of the stuff that she's on
Speaker 3: because I'm not up on discord and all these other
Speaker 3: things that she'd be doing. I'm like, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: I don't know, But guess what, I need to educate
Speaker 3: myself on those things because when she shows up mything
Speaker 3: or she's involved in an inappropriate conversation, I got to
Speaker 3: know what that conversation is. So parents, we got to
Speaker 3: step up our game. Okay, we have to get on
Speaker 3: the ball about how these technologies work.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of new technologies and internet services popping
Speaker 2: up all the time. Remember a few years ago before
Speaker 2: TikTok blew up.
Speaker 1: I barely remember before TikTok. It feels like it's always around.
Speaker 1: BT is gonna be the new thing.
Speaker 2: Before TikTok and after TikTok things move fast. But it's
Speaker 2: still important to stay educated on how these companies are
Speaker 2: mining and using your data. Don't just accept all the
Speaker 2: cookies when you get to a new website, because your
Speaker 2: digital profile stays with you.
Speaker 1: And that's wild to think we're just accumulating all these
Speaker 1: I imagine. I know they're not chocolate chip cookies, but
Speaker 1: just imagine a long sail of every cookie you've ever accepted,
Speaker 1: just following you around as you browse on the internet.
Speaker 1: You know, the way I'm burning through sites, Okay, the
Speaker 1: way I'm typing in www dot into my browser. What
Speaker 1: does that mean for the future?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: How will I be able to maintain any shred of privacy?
Speaker 1: We asked doctor Turnerley what her vision for the digital
Speaker 1: future looks like and what she's excited about.
Speaker 4: We need to.
Speaker 3: Move people from just being consumers of the technology. The
Speaker 3: greatest breakthrough of innovation has been the ability of people
Speaker 3: with a great ideas and not necessarily degrees to create
Speaker 3: new ideas that can run off of internet networks. There
Speaker 3: is a stage of technology that has lowered the barrier
Speaker 3: so that you don't have to just be in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3: You can be in Silicon Alley getting stuff done. You
Speaker 3: could be in Silicon Harlem. These are the creators of
Speaker 3: the twenty first century, and a lot of those people
Speaker 3: look like us. And so I would just say to
Speaker 3: people who are listening, don't be afraid of the technology.
Speaker 4: The train has left the station.
Speaker 3: Embrace it, but don't be just consumers of it. Be
Speaker 3: folks that can look at that technology and take that
Speaker 3: idea you sat on for twenty thirty forty years and
Speaker 3: make it happen because you could do it with an
Speaker 3: Internet connection, some broadband web at home, and a hotel
Speaker 3: at your school stoop. And that's what I think is
Speaker 3: so wonderful, because I know if we write the right
Speaker 3: script around this, we'll get more people on the production
Speaker 3: side than on the consumption side.
Speaker 1: That's such an important point as we think about access
Speaker 1: to technology and the type of financial mobility and social
Speaker 1: mobility that leveraging these networks provides. If you don't have
Speaker 1: access to the network. You don't even know how to
Speaker 1: move around on it. It's going to be very hard
Speaker 1: to think of ways to create new systems and the
Speaker 1: next wave of technology. And so not only are they
Speaker 1: missing out on being consumers, it increases the barrier to
Speaker 1: being a producer in the future.
Speaker 3: We have to understand that the technology has come and
Speaker 3: it's here to stay. We want everybody in this country
Speaker 3: to have first class digital citizenship. That means we have
Speaker 3: to demand digital justice. Means that we have to have
Speaker 3: equitable deployment. It means that we have to have the devices.
Speaker 3: This is a civil right, all right, y'all.
Speaker 2: It's tign for one thing.
Speaker 1: What's our one thing this week? Tt our one.
Speaker 2: Thing this week? We have a joint one thing. It
Speaker 2: is doctoring a cold turner Lee's book. It's called Digitally Invisible.
Speaker 2: So head over to her website. The link is in
Speaker 2: the show notes to find out where you can get it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's it for Lab seventy two. What is your think?
Speaker 1: Did this lab help you realize that it's deeper than
Speaker 1: just access to social media? Call us at two zero
Speaker 1: two five, six seven seven zero two eight and tell
Speaker 1: us what you thought or give us an idea for
Speaker 1: a lab you think we should do this semester. That's
Speaker 1: two zero two five six seven seven zero.
Speaker 2: Two eight, And don't forget that there is so much
Speaker 2: more to dig into on our website. There'll be a
Speaker 2: cheap keep for today's lab, additional links and resources in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 2: Check it out at Dope Labs Podcast special thanks to
Speaker 2: today's guest expert, doctor Nicole Turner Lee.
Speaker 1: You can find her on Twitter at Dr Turner Lee
Speaker 1: and learn more about her work at www dot d
Speaker 1: r n I c O. L Speaks dot com. That's
Speaker 1: doctor Nicole Speaks dot com.
Speaker 2: And you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Blab Podcast.
Speaker 1: TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore T s.
Speaker 2: H O and you can find Zakiya at z said So.
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Ownmedia Group.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Jenny Radlimask and Lydia Smith of Wave
Speaker 1: Runner Studios.
Speaker 2: Editing and sound design by Rob Smerciak.
Speaker 1: Mixing by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 2: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 2: Sugier from Spotify. Creative producers Miguel Contreras and Grace Delia.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Borison, yasmine A Fifi, Kamu, Elolia,
Speaker 2: Till krat Key and Brian Marquis, Executive producers from Mega
Speaker 2: Own Media Group, all Right T T Show, Dia and
Speaker 2: Zekiah Wattley