Global Specs
Here are the two pages that Lisa referred to during the episode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country
Here are the Top 5 Countries by Internet Users:
- China- 772 Million
- India- 462
- US- 312
- Brazil- 149
- Indonesia- 143
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/262966/number-of-internet-users-in-selected-countries/
European Union
The EU has been leading the way when it comes to protecting people’s data and helping traditional news outlets earn back some the revenue it lost when people just starting googling it.”
- GDPR– or General Data Protection Regulation, does a number of things, including forcing companies avoid confusing terms of service, requiring companies to report data breaches within 72 hours, and allowing users to request their data be deleted.
- Link Tax– or Article 11 would force Google to pay news outlets when a story of theirs shows up on the search results. (Hasn’t been passed yet)
- YouTube Copyrights(Hasn’t been passed yet)
Top 5 Countries- Users
China
China’s Social Credit
This is more than just Internet but the relevant part here are China will soon be able to punish people (e.g. can’t take vacations or can only book coach tickets) for posting too much on Social Media or just posting fake news.
Censorship
China has the most Internet users and is famous for it’s censorship. It created it’s own answer to Google because Google wouldn’t censor the results of searches. Though that may be changing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/02/google-working-on-censored-search-engine-for-china
Home Grown but Foreign Influenced Apps
WeChat can be used for almost everything like paying bills, hailing a taxi, booking a doctor’s appointment, sharing photos and chat.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-internet.html
Eritrea
Eritrea (gained its independence in 1991) has the lowest percentage of its population online (1.1%), per http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users-by-country/
Unfortunately, in Eritrea, the Internet service is very slow. There are 5, maybe 6 Internet cafes in the capital city. It isn’t allowed to have Internet access in your home. So even if they want, they can’t afford it. And the Internet cafes are monitored by security agents, so people often don’t feel comfortable enough to read or open any website. So if one individual opens a website of the opposition, he would definitely be followed, interrogated, [and] summoned to the police station. So, out of fear, many people don’t check those opposition websites – so it is difficult to say the Internet would help our community. And unfortunately, illiteracy is still a barrier, and there is no electricity 3-4 days a week. There are so many factors at work.
https://www.ictworks.org/understanding-eritreas-exceptionally-limited-internet-access
Food for Thought
The Japanese do emoticons right as is right-side up! Visit https://www.jemoticons.com/en/ for more. But be warned there are a few categories that are not safe for work (NSFW)
