Tech Won't Save Us - Technology of the Oppressed w/ David Nemer

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Paris Marx is joined by David Nemer to discuss how residents of Brazil’s favelas reshape technologies developed in the Global North to serve their needs, and how technology alone does not solve social oppression.David Nemer is an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies and in the Latin American Studies program at the University of Virginia. He’s also the author of Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil. Follow David on Twitter at @DavidNemer.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris’ new book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation is out on July 5! It’s currently on sale at Verso Books.Ahead of hosting the World Cup, Brazil forced thousands of favela residents from their homes.Grace Blakeley recent spoke to David Adler about Colombia’s election and the use of TikTok.Dan Greene wrote The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope and Lindsay Ems wrote Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet's Margins.Support the show

But it's not about us deciding what is good for these people. How about bringing those people to the table where the decisions are being made? Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks. And before we get into this week's episode, I wanted to let you know about something exciting that's happening for me in less than two weeks now. My first book, Road to Nowhere, What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation, will be released in North America and Europe on July 5th by Verso Books. The book is the culmination of many years of writing about transportation and technology, as well as researching that topic during my master's degree at McGill University in Montreal. And it does several things. It digs into these visions that we've been presented for the future

of transportation by the tech industry over the past decade or so, whether it's ride hailing services or autonomous vehicles, micro mobility companies, and even electric vehicles, because Tesla has been really involved in that part of the auto market. I look at the promises that were made about all of these kind of tech solutions to transportation and how they really failed to follow through on what they were promising and the real issues that they present for creating a transportation system that better serves everybody, in particular, the people who really need better mobility in our cities and even beyond them. But the book also goes beyond that.

It looks at the histories of automobility and of the tech industry itself, particularly in the United States, to illustrate how they were shaped by capital and the need to turn a profit at some point and how that affected the kind of transportation system and the kind of technologies that we have actually received from industry as a result because they had a very different set of goals that they wanted to achieve than the ones that maybe we would want to have as a result, because they had a very different set of goals that they wanted to achieve than the ones that maybe we would want to have as a society if we were thinking about how technology and transportation would serve the public good, so to speak. And that means that even beyond criticizing these visions for transportation from the tech industry, the book also has a criticism

of the car dependency that has kind of been forced on us over the course of many decades and how if we really want a better transportation system that works for everybody, we need to push back against that and envision a different kind of transportation system that is focused more on collective mobility, collective transportation, whether that's public transit, whether that's cycling. And that also includes walkable communities where people can actually afford to live instead of just being pushed out as their communities become more accessible. So I'm really excited about the release of the book. I have a link in the show notes if you want

to find out more about it. You can obviously order it from any major bookseller where you'd usually buy your books, but I'll let you know that at the time I'm recording, and hopefully it's still true at the time this episode comes out, the book is 20% off if you buy it directly from the publisher, directly from Verso Books, and I'll have that link in the show notes as well. This week my guest is David Nemer. David is the author of Technology of the Oppressed, Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil, and he's also an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies and in the Latin American Studies program at the University of Virginia. In this week's conversation, we obviously discussed David's book and the implications and

the role of technology in Brazil's favelas and the way that the people who live there use them. Because these technologies are entering a space that is often quite different from the one that they are developed in and the one that they are often imagined they'll be used in, you know, because many of these technologies are developed in the global north, in, you know, California or Seattle, where the people who are developing them and the locations where they're being developed are quite different from the favelas of Brazil and the conditions that they'll be used in there. And so it's then very interesting to see how the people in the favelas then relate to those technologies, how they kind of alter the technologies and change their uses in ways that actually work for them, and that allow them to try to empower themselves

through those technologies, even if the way that they use them is quite different from how they were initially imagined. So we cover a whole range of issues in the conversation from access to the internet, to the actual hardware that people are using, to the spaces where people access these technologies and the internet itself, and to the use of social media and so much more. So this was such a fascinating conversation. I was so happy I was able to have David on the program to discuss this with me, to explore some more of what's going on

with technology in Brazil. So I really hope that you enjoy it as well. Just a reminder that if you enjoy this conversation, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also share the episode on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would enjoy it. And if you want to support the work that goes into making the show every single week,

that ensures I can keep making the show free for everybody, you can join supporters like Zoe from Oakland by going to patreon.com slash techwon'tsaveus, where you can become a supporter. Thanks for listening and enjoy this week's conversation. David, welcome to TechWon'tSaveUs. Hello, Paris. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you. You have this fantastic book that was published recently, recently translated from Brazilian Portuguese, of course,

Technologies of the Oppressed, which really digs into the way that technologies are used in the favelas of Brazil, and what we can learn from that, as we have these like larger conversations about technology and the role that it plays in people's lives, whether it can solve social oppression, and all of these sorts of things, right, like very important topics. And so, you know, I think that many of the listeners will certainly have some familiarity with Brazil, but might not be familiar with the favelas in particular, you know, what goes on there. Maybe they saw stories around the time of the Olympics, you know, about police clearing favelas

in Rio, and you know, the violence that was associated with that. But maybe they don't know very much beyond it, right? So I was hoping that we could start with, you know, some general explanation of that. What are Brazil's favelas? How did they come to be? And why were you interested in focusing your research on what was going on in those parts of the cities? Yes, this is a great question to start off. So favelas are what we call an area of social abandonment. Basically, the state, the private sector, society as a whole have completely forgotten about these areas and to provide to these areas. And these are the areas that are basically the backbones of the cities. They are the spaces that provide the human

resources to make the cities to work, basically. But yet, we still manage to exclude and oppress those who reside in these areas. So favelas, we can say in a very general way, they're usually found on hillsides. This is because back in colonial times, flatlands in Brazil were prime lands because of farming, cattle raising, and all the things that were bringing profit to the colonizers. Once the enslaved laborers in Brazil, for example, were set free, nothing was given to them, no reparation. They were set free with empty hands. And of course, when all the flatlands were already occupied, then the only thing available for some sort of occupation were the hillsides because they were not seen as prime land. Which is so ironic because nowadays when you go to Rio de Janeiro, the best views that you get of the city is from the hillsides.

And that's where they are. I'm sure that the listeners have seen clips from City of God or Elite Squad, these movies. They bring some sort of loyal portrait of what happens in the favelas. Like I said, it's a place where the state has completely turned their backs on them. So because there's this void of presence, then other groups take over that void of presence. Organized crime, for example, cartels. Unfortunately, right now we're facing an issue with the militias, especially given the current government that we have, that we're understanding there are some ties between the central power of the country with militias that reside in these spaces. But it is a place, although it's known to be a place

where oppression is materialized constantly, but it's also a place of resilience, of community building, of everyday struggle to make do and to survive. And this is what I try to show in the book. Like, how can we show a face of favelas, but not, you know, a face that we see in the newspapers that, you know, if you shake the newspaper, blood will drip because that's all they can talk about. And this is this way of sticking to stereotypes as if it's just a place for criminalities or cartels to reside. But how about we spend time talking about the people that actually also make that place work? What are the practices?

What are the engagements that they have to do throughout their life journey to basically survive and maintain hope alive? Because it's one of the things that I've realized through this research is that if they give up on hope, they're giving up on life. And this is the last resource that they have to maintain their hopes alive is to keep fighting. So this is what I try to do. And the lens that I bring here is through technology.

So instead of seeing technology as the destination for some sort of empowerment or liberation, I bring technology as a site of struggle. They're constantly negotiating with present oppression, but also oppressions that happen within online spaces and how they are able to appropriate that technology to make the technology work for them or maybe find some ways of liberation. Even if it's just a small kind of liberation, this is the way that I try to paint favelas through this lens of technology. Yeah, you know, I think your book provides like a really important, you know, for people who certainly aren't familiar with favelas as well, to really kind of humanize the people within them and to show that, you know, these are communities where, you know,

there's a whole load of things going on. You can't just reduce it to, you know, the violence or the stories that you might hear in the media that, you know, likes to portray them in a particular kind of way because they are this low income population, this, you know, traditionally oppressed population, as you say, this racialized population formerly enslaved in many cases as well. Before we move on to that point about technology that you were just getting to, I wanted to ask one final question about the favelas before we move on, because you mentioned that these are often located in the hillsides of the Brazilian cities, not so much on the flatland, the places that were inhabited beforehand.

Are the favelas in Brazil more fluid? Does the space that they occupy move around as the kind of, I guess, wealthier area, the wealthier population demands more land and starts to move up those hillsides in the desire to expand their footprint and the part of the city that they control? Or do the favelas tend to remain quite static in the area of the city that they occupy? We've seen both movements happening. For example, in Rio, it becomes very obvious when the favela of Rocinha is expanding. The favela of Rocinha, for example, is larger than my hometown in Brazil, Viclaudia, where I did this research. And then as, you know, the hill is in a finite space,

then they have to expand and then they keep moving forward on the flatlands towards the plotlands. And that's where you see the encounter of richer neighborhoods and the favelas touching. So it's basically when we say that the hill touches the asphalt. So you see lots of tensions happening when that encounter happens because it keeps shifting the border. And of course, as the favela expands the border into the city, the city as a space of exclusion doesn't appreciate that. So they push back. So it's this constant coming and going where, unfortunately, because of power struggles, the favelas tend to lose the space.

For example, during the Olympics in 2016, basically the government completely vanished a community called Villa Olimpo, which was a favela where they basically destroyed every house there so they could build the stadiums and things to promote the Olympics. And nothing was given back to the families that were expelled from those spaces. So you do see that movement on both sides. It is fluid in a way that they will have to find a way to survive. Like that struggle is part of also the territory expansion because, you know, population is expanding. We tend to focus on population expansion in the city.

But when we look in the favelas, that's where we have the more dense population concentrating those areas. Then the urge to have more space is there. So that's why you can see more of that struggle happening on that side. But yeah, so that fluidity happens on both sides. I appreciate that explanation and, you know, the insight that you've given us into the favelas, what goes on in these spaces and, you know, the conflict that exists in Brazilian cities between the people who occupy those spaces and how they're portrayed and, you know, the conflict that exists in Brazilian cities between the people who occupy those spaces and how they're portrayed by, you know, the people who don't and

live in other parts of the city. So as you were saying, you know, your research really focuses on how technologies are used by residents of the favelas, in many cases to push back against various forms of oppression that they face in their everyday lives. And I want to talk about examples of that, obviously. But to foreground your work, you discuss a concept called mundane technologies. Can you explain what you mean by that and why it's important to framing your work and interpreting how technologies are used by favela residents? So that concept, I got to that concept because as I was getting into the theories about, you know, technology for development or how marginalized communities are, quote unquote, given technology, it's never given in the sense that they can use technology however they want. So most of the digital inclusion programs come with a set of prescription of how the poor should use the technology. So basically, the policy said, if we're giving, we're sponsoring

a program to give technology to the poor, then they have to use a technology to access encyclopedias. They can only do this for educational purposes. They cannot spend time wasting their time on Facebook or on YouTube. But the question is, why? Why does it have to come with this sort of agreement or enforcement or prescription? Why can the poor or anyone access technology however they want? Why can they use technology for their own pleasure? Why does it have to be following these very instrumental rules of how to use technology to sort of fulfill some sort of agenda that whoever is sponsoring these programs want them to accomplish? low inclusion programs have failed because those who are setting those guidelines, those prescriptions have no idea what is going on in the ground of where, you know, these people are using the technology. So they set expectations away from the field. And once those programs hit the field,

of course, people would not use how, you know, how these programs were originally designed. So contrast happens right there. They struggle. And of course, you know, the programs fail. And once again, the oppressed or the poor are left empty handed because somebody failed them again, not that they failed the program. So by looking at mundane technologies, I'm looking at the everyday uses of technologies, because those are the uses that matter in their everyday life, right? And even if you were to focus on innovation, so I tend to drive away from innovation because one, innovation takes forever to reach those places, but innovations are developed with not these people in mind. They're developed with folks,

you know, white cisgender men in Silicon Valley and how they are expected to use these technologies, not us. Like if you look at the geographies of technologies and bring a Tesla, you know, Teslas would never be able to, you know, drive a mile in those spaces because Teslas were not used for those spaces. And by looking at the favelas, we're talking about 90% of the world, right? And then here we are thinking that Elon Musk is, you know, the bomb, that Teslas are the number one innovations in the world. But no, they cannot serve 90% of the population. So this is why like I drive away from this idea of innovations from Silicon Valley and look into the ways that

these people have struggled and use this technology to make it mundane from them. And instead of focusing on the tech per se, I look into the relationship that these people have with this technology, because these technologies are fluid as well. So it's this exercise of boundary objects and how people will use the technology according to their needs. It's how they shape their technology to make the technology work for them. And by making the technology work for them, that's where we see they struggle. Because to make them working for them, it's not a given. It's not easy.

It requires struggle, engagements, effort, lots of knowledge, especially situated knowledge that is very much located in the geography of the favelas. So I drive away from that innovation and focus on the everyday because that's the technologies that matter the most. And again, it's not about the technology per se, but how they use the technology, how they appropriate the technologies. Yeah, I absolutely appreciate that. And certainly a dig at Elon Musk is always welcome on the technologies. Yeah, I absolutely appreciate that. And certainly a dig at Elon Musk is always welcome on the show.

And exactly. So this is, I mean, recently we had Elon Musk coming to Brazil saying, you know, I have the best technology to monitor the Amazon. And we're all like, no, we already have a better technology. So don't come here saying that you can know,

you should tell us what to do. And one thing that I found particularly interesting is that he said he can connect Brazil. And by connecting Brazil, we'll solve the problem, all the social problems in the world. And this is exactly what my book tries to fight against. It's not just by bringing technology, it's not just by dumping computers or even Wi-Fi signals that you're going to solve the social problems, because these social problems are rooted in much deeper social issues than just a cable to connect to the internet. Yeah. Now, I appreciate you bringing up that example because one of the things that stood out to me as I was reading those narratives

and he's using them more generally with Starlink, the company that he has with the internet satellites and you can connect to the internet that way. And that's one of the narratives that he's pushing with it, right? And it stood out to me, I don't know if you're familiar with Dan Green's work and the book that he wrote last year, I believe it was, The Promise of Access, but he drills into that narrative and how it originates kind of in the Clintonian neoliberal period when they're privatizing the internet and the idea is we're going to gut the welfare programs, but now the internet is going to be here and you with all these ways to overcome, you know, social oppression and, you know, the barriers that people face in their lives still continues to this day and is utilized by people like Elon Musk. Yes. And this is something that I try to tell in this book. So in the book, I'm talking about these telecenters and land houses, which are computer community centers or computer technology centers, where it's focused mainly on the community. The telecenters, for example,

were sponsored by the city as a social program. And these centers were beyond just computer labs. These were places where the mothers who had to work all day could leave their kids safe and sound with friends and they could, you know, engage in homework, play games. It was also when shootouts, when shootouts would happen, they would find shelter in these spaces. And also a lot of peer learning would happen there. So people would go and help each other in how to, you know, sign up for the social driver's license, because in Brazil, for you to have a driver's license, you have to go through driving school, which is expensive.

And there was these programs that you can apply and find funding for this kind of stuff. And how to study for the university entrance exam. So there was a lot of this peer learning, community building, information sharing that was way beyond the original idea of the TELUS Center. And of course, by the end of my field work in 2013, there was a election for mayors in the city. And one of the proposals of the mayor who actually won, and he actually,

unfortunately, deployed his ideas, was to end with the telecenters because they were a waste of resources of the city. And instead of doing that, he would bring open Wi-Fi signals to the favelas because everybody's on their phones. You know, no one needs 1990s style desktops and play. These are old technologies that no one uses. So he actually moved on with this idea because one, you know, it's about cutting costs and using that money for something else. And of course, when we're thinking about cutting costs, social programs

that serve the poor are the first things to go. So he got rid of the telecenters, implemented some Wi-Fi antennas in those spaces. But again, it's this idea that, one, everybody has the media literacy to use the technology in ways that will help their everyday life. Second, it's this idea that everyone has a phone. That's not true. Even nowadays, with the pandemic, we saw the educational slash digital divide that we lived, even in this country, the US or in Canada as well. Right. There was this issue. So, no, people are not on the phones, on the computers. Second, this idea that everybody's on the phone is also wrong because, OK, it's fine if we're exchanging WhatsApp messages or liking things on Instagram. But when it comes to writing a CV to engage with your school homework, to do things that require more of a computing capacity, then phones won't do anything, not even tablets, right? Tablets don't even deliver that good experience.

So once again, the poor were failed by policymakers because they thought that, you know, by just bringing this magical Internet, things would just happen. But things just don't happen. It requires a lot of struggle and effort. So one of the things that I hope to do with this book is to explain, listen, even though we think that we're so modern that everybody's on phones, that's not the case. We still need to have these safe spaces for vulnerable populations to engage with technologies in safe ways that will promote learning, community building, empowerment, liberation, you name it. But you need first these

safe spaces and, of course, availabilities. Because technology in itself will not teach humans how to use technology. You need other humans. You need that sort of engagement to exchange how to use the technology that will better serve your community. So hopefully the book will try to pass this message on. I'm so happy you brought that up because I did want to ask you about the telecenters and the land houses. And I think that the comparison and the explanation that you give is so important, right? Because you were talking about how so many of these technologies come from the global north with these ideas of what the global south will do with them, right? But even in what you're saying,

it's not even just that example of like a really long distance and these ideas of how people use technology being wrong. But even within the one city, having the mayor being so unfamiliar with how people in the favelas are using technology and their needs and what they actually need access to technology for, it shows how it's not just someone from the US thinking about what should happen in Brazil, but even within that Brazilian city, the mayor just having no connection to what is actually necessary there. And to pick up on what you were saying about the telecentres, I found it really fascinating. Obviously, as I was reading what you were writing

about it, I was also thinking about Dan Green's work and how he talked about the libraries were transformed with this idea of the internet. But even in the telecenters, there was the idea that the kind of goals and the metrics that they were using to measure its success were all around, you know, particular economic metrics, whether people were applying for jobs and whatnot, and not considering, as you were saying, the role that these spaces were playing in the community, where they could be safe places, where they could be community spaces, where they could be places where people learn about technology. I wonder, you know, you were describing how they were removed, which is very unfortunate. I wonder, can you talk a bit about the role that they played in

the community in providing this kind of space for people and this, these learning opportunities. And you also talked about the land houses, which you didn't really expand on in that answer. After the telecenters closed in 2013, I believe you said, did you find that the land houses stuck around and kind of grew as a result? Or did they also struggle to, you know, maintain the users that they used to have. Yes. Just to close on the issue with the mayor. So this is to show the social divide that we have in the city. These favelas that I studied, they were on the center of the island. So we thought it was an island. It was right there.

It was not in some faraway area. It was right there. And yet, even the mayor had no idea what was going on. And this was one of the motivations that I had to do this kind of work in these marginalized areas, because people like that mayor, people like me, are part of the group that are making the decisions for these people in these areas. One, it's wrong because they should be the ones taking decisions for themselves. But if I can engage in a work that will help bring light, not to the favela people, but to the people in my bubble to see how things work there, to kind of like include them in

the decision-making process, then hopefully these people will have better experiences, not just with technology, but with everything else. But with the land houses, the land houses are spaces that I absolutely adore. So in Brazil, if we're thinking about the global digital inequality, of course, Brazil is in a lower place if compared to Europe and the US. So broadband took forever to get to Brazil. It took a while. And when it arrived in Brazil, it was too expensive,

even for upper middle class. So land houses started popping up in all kinds of neighborhoods, rich neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, as this business that could afford this broadband so people could access fast internet no matter what, no matter where. And also they were seen as gaming centers because Xbox, PlayStations are expensive in the country because of importation taxes and all these things. So even rich families couldn't afford,

you know, in the early 2000s. So this is how land houses were conceptualized in a nutshell. It reminds me a lot of PC banks in South Korea. And actually, it was a concept brought from South Korea to Brazil. So as broadband became more available in richer neighborhoods, then as you can imagine, the need for land houses were dying away a little bit. And rich families were not happy with the fact that, you know, their kids were spending too much time in these, quote unquote, gaming centers where nothing happens. It's just a bunch of disoccupied, you know, kids playing games, not doing anything productive, again, which was wrong. So these families and these groups lobbied several policies that made the lives of land houses really hard in those spaces. For example, land houses were

not allowed to stay in some cities. They were not allowed to stay about a mile away from school. We had to be more than a mile away. And in the book, I'm showing how land houses were instrumental for kids to engage in their schoolwork, for example. So anyways, with the availability of broadband, with policies that made the lives of land houses really hard, then they disappeared from Brazil. But they disappeared in these upper middle class neighborhoods because, unfortunately, when you look into Brazil, you look into the spaces. You don't look into the favelas. But in the favelas, they were flourishing still. When I did my fieldwork, I was really surprised to see the land houses prevailing because they still served as a space of connection to the internet. But also this community space where people came to print their CDs.

They came to burn CDs, to cop flash drives from each other. Unfortunately, in Brazil, for you to visit a relative or a friend in jail, you need to have a clean criminal background. So they would go to these spaces to print those background checks. And it was interesting because they started to work as the ISPs, the internet providers of those spaces, because the internet providers of the city refused to invest in the infrastructure. I think that speaks a little bit with Dan Green's work,

because he talks about how these infrastructures were privatized, but no investments were made to continue the work of expansion. Same thing in Brazil. The infrastructure was privatized, but these companies never spent money in investing and expanding these infrastructures, especially in places like the favelas. So they didn't. So the land houses, for example, I talk about the case of Gustavo, where he was able to sign up for internet in his uncle's house, which was at the border of the favela in the city. And then he brought about 500 meters of cable up the hill, you know, connected through Linksys routers. And until he gets to the top of the hill and

connects to the land house, he's able to expand and sell that service to to the folks around his land house so yeah so it was placed for connection this place as the internet service provider and i was already sensing that it was already resignifying their business again i saw an increase of computer ownership and the ability to sign up for some sort of Wi-Fi signal that they had over there. And the need to use the computer at the land house was decreasing. However, that didn't mean that the land house was less important because the land house was becoming this repair center for the field, which I think it's brilliant because it shows how much of that mundane technology,

you know, about the needs, the uses of the community that would dictate how this certain technology will be used. So, of course, if you talk to somebody in Brazil from a rich neighborhood and talk about land house, they're going to roll their eyes and say, oh, this is so 1990s. But then if you go into favelas,

the land houses are flourishing because you're able to reinvent themselves to serve the community. So in 2013, they're mostly about internet access, but now it's mostly about technology repair, technology, even like business, like to sell and resell technology from the communities. So they are alive, they're flourishing, and they're reinventing themselves. I think that's

the most beautiful thing about land houses. I love that. I think it's a great example of how these things can change and evolve to serve the needs of the community, right? Which is, you know, really key and incredibly important. You brought up repairs there and how these spaces serve as, you know, providing repairs to the community. It made me remember one of the examples that you gave in the book of people's use of the keyboards, right? And how we're all used to using these QWERTY keyboards. It seems completely normal. It's like what we grow up using in school, we're trained to use, no problem, right? But for a lot of the people in the favelas, when they encountered the QWERTY keyboard, it was like the first time that they had done so.

And it seemed really foreign and like not an obvious way to assemble a keyboard. Like, why wouldn't it just be alphabetical? Then it would be easier to find the keys instead of having this weird arrangement that was made up for typewriters, like, you know, a couple hundred years ago or whatever. So, you know, I found that to be really interesting, especially when we think about the importation of technologies developed in the global north

to other parts of the world. And even, you know, technologies that exist and whether just because they work in one space doesn't necessarily mean they work in another space. But you also talked about how repair was an important way for some of these people who were unfamiliar with technologies to get more familiar with them, to become more personal with them, to, you know, develop a greater understanding of their use and their familiarity with them. Can you talk a little bit about those relationships, I guess?

Yes. The first time that I saw this was with the keyboard. As you mentioned, they hated a QWERTY keyboard because it never made sense for them. It doesn't make sense to us either. But because of historical reasons and because we were around typewriters, then the keyboard makes a little bit of sense right now because the QWERTY keyboard that was designed so keys wouldn't get jammed on the typewriter, then it was translated to computers, then yeah, so let's stay with this design. Over there, typewriters were never part of the reality. So they cannot even relate the QWERTY layout to a typewriter just because it was never part of their everyday life.

So, of course, they took that with a very critical approach. They wouldn't just take it in, but they would externalize their frustration in hopes for a better technology to serve them. Right. So one day in a focus group, we decided to break the keyboard. And I said, you know, I've noticed that you guys don't like this keyboard. We have all the rights to hate this. But if you were to design something, what would you design? And it was interesting to see them like breaking the keyboard, breaking the pieces apart and building the keyboard that they would appreciate the most. And the alphabetical order was the one that they appreciated the most, just because, one, that's how they are used to organize things.

So ontologically, that's how they see the world. And this is how they organize the world around them. So it makes perfect sense. And one thing, though, because the computers there, the keyboards, were so overused that the ink on the keys would fade away quite constantly. And because they had no idea about the QWERTY layout, it was very hard for them to guess which key, which letter went where. So of course, on an alphabetical keyboard, because they know how the layout would work and how they were organized, then let's say if the key

C would fade away, but that key that fade away is between B and D, of course, they will know that that key is a C. So it's all about engaging critically with technology that people like us, and I'm including you too, Paris. I'm sorry if I'm being over here, but we take it for granted, right? We don't have this critical assumption of the role of technology in our lives like they do. And the reason, I talk about this. We tend to blame the poor for misinformation because of lack of access to education. But misinformation doesn't really

have anything to do with formal education, but rather about how you want to enforce that world you want the other ones to believe. They want to first make sure that whatever is passed on to them, they can trust that. And if they can trust that, they can pass it on. That's the same thing with the keyboard. They didn't trust the query layout. And because of that, they never felt invited to use the computer. So then when they were able to break the keyboard and build that trust and see that, yes, the keyboard can also work for them,

then they started trusting the keyboard and the computer even some more. My good friend, Lindsay Ams, her book just came out called Virtually Amish. And she talks exactly about this. The Amish are not anti-technology. It's just that they're very critical of the role that technology will have in the community. Then they can judge whether or not to adopt the technology. This is exactly what I saw in the favelas. It's a place of vulnerability. Every other new oppression could cause massive,

you know, destruction. So they have to be careful with the things that they take in. So technology is not different. Even the keyboard, right, the keyboard can sound so inoffensive or, you know, couldn't really hurt anybody. But even in these spaces, it's seen as a potential threat. So they engage in very critical ways. Now, I think it's such an important point. And, you know, I really take what you're saying, right? Like the critical approach to technology is something that we should be fostering instead

of just, you know, blindly accepting the technologies that are pushed at us and, you know, believing that they are going to help us. And I would just say, I think it's completely okay that you included me in that category because, you know, the QWERTY keyboard is completely normalized to me. It's something I never really questioned. And the first time I came across the French Azzurri keyboard, I was like, what is this? This is so weird. Why would they ever use a keyboard like this? Right? Because I was used to the one that I had. So yeah, I completely get that. Now, you know, you started to talk about, you know, misinformation and things like that. I wanted to start to shift our conversation to talk about what these people in the favelas were doing online, right? Because one of the things that you noted in the book,

and that I've heard from other countries as well, is that Facebook for a lot of people was kind of like the internet, because you have these zero rated services. So if they're on their phones, it's easy to connect to Facebook, or it's free to connect to Facebook. So you don't need to have, you know, special plans or pay extra money because Facebook is there. And so naturally, things happen through Facebook, because that you're incentivized to do it that way. And that is how people end up connecting. And so I guess there are a couple points about this. First of all, you talked about how they use Facebook in a way to provide different accounts of their lives, and they would see in Brazilian media, as we were talking about before, right, So that they could share what it was like for them as they were experiencing their lives and to show the kind of the vibrance in the favelas and in their community, which I think makes total sense. But then at the same time,

on social media, there were also these kind of divides where it wasn't just people in the favelas using Facebook, it was people in the rest of the city or the rest of the country as well. And sometimes they could be judged for the ways that they used it because it wasn't the same way that someone in an upper class or a middle class neighborhood might. So can you talk about the role that Facebook played and how they used those networks in ways that worked for them. Yes. Facebook, just like another piece of technology in the favelas, was seen as a site of struggle. So you saw a lot of struggling happening there. It was interesting to see how they were afraid of posting public messages on their timeline.

Back then was the wall, right? They didn't like to post photos. They were not very explicit with their opinions like they wouldn't post long texts they would be very much resharing content or posting silly things memes things that wouldn't be very controversial and this was due to two main reasons one as you as you mentioned, they were really afraid of having folks from the upper classes watching what they were doing, what they were posting and started making fun of them. And the reason why they feared that so much was because before Facebook, we had Orca in Brazil, which was huge. And this is exactly what the upper classes did on Orca. They started building

communities that were specifically geared towards making fun of the poor and how the poor cannot use technology. They don't know how to use technology or even the lifestyle of the poor, not only on the social media, but there was these websites geared towards making fun of how poor people use the technology. So that pushed them away from fully engaging, for example, with Facebook. So they were very careful with the things they would post because they didn't want to be a motive to be made fun or to be laughed at. The second one is during that time, the favelas where I did my research were in critical times

because as you mentioned in the beginning, Brazil was preparing the country to host the World Cup and the Olympics. The country decided to do this thing called pacification, which was meant to pacify the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo, but actually there was a violent act of social cleansing of those who lived in the favelas, specifically in Rio and Sao Paulo. Some drug lords that managed to run away from that crazy process,

they came to Victoria because of the proximity, and then they wanted to keep up with their businesses. So the favelas in Victoria were once in peace with their treaties, with the cartels knowing where to go. With the new incomers, then they put themselves in a war, in a drug war. So people were really afraid of what was going on outside on the streets. So they really feared to post things online that would call attention of these people and they feared the retaliation. So they wouldn't post like opinions about what was happening on the field. They wouldn't really post their life conditions on social media because,

you know, social media is something that we expose ourselves a lot. They were really reserved. That doesn't mean that they stopped there. They understood these limitations, but they found ways to engage in technologies that would still fulfill some of the needs that they wanted to expose themselves. They wanted to show where they were, show their opinions. And for that, for example, they would not go on the wall publicly, but they would engage on Facebook chats. So Facebook chats became the number one feature of the platform that they would engage with. And selfies became such a powerful means of communication and also to realize personal emotions. And that one is one of the favorite cases that I talk in the book, it was how they were able to encapsulate dense and complex messages in a selfie for an intended audience. But those who were outside this intended audience couldn't

really read what was going on. So I'll tell you a case here, if I could. One day I was in a land house and this woman, I think in the book, I call her Jacqueline. And I'm sorry if I can't remember the names because every time I write these stories, I change the names for anonymity issues. So she comes in. She's like crying. And then she posts a selfie of her crying. And then I talk to her, try to see what's going on. And then five minutes later, I see somebody at the door of the land house looking at his phone and looking at her to make sure that the person that he was looking at the phone was actually her.

And he calls her outside. So the moment's very tense. And I'm like, oh, bummer. You know, it's something very intense is happening right now because I knew they weren't friends because she was somebody that I was talking and I knew for quite some time at that time. And then they talked for a little bit. And then she comes back rolling her eyes. And I'm like, Jacqueline, is everything OK? And she's like, did you see what just happened?

I'm like, no, I'm a little tense about it. Tell me what's going on. So that guy belongs to the cartel. And he said, if this photo was because of the shootout that just happened, if it was, then if I'm crying and if I'm sad, then I should leave. I don't need to stay because to send the message that this is a violent space, they don't want that. And then I'm like, oh, I mean, basically this is what she was trying to do. But I said, what did you say? I said, well, I said that I had a fight with my boyfriend. This is why I'm crying. So I'm like, and he bought it? And

she's like, yeah, of course. So that was like mind blowing because to the cartels, to the people who didn't know her, she had a fight with a boyfriend. But to the friends, to the people who knew her and people like me, we knew that she was complaining about the life situation that she was experiencing at that moment. And after that moment, I started to realize why people would post selfies. It was always this double meaning. And I'm like, I've never seen anything like that. And it's brilliant. And that shows, you know, this media resilience that they developed

that is so meaningful to their mundane lives, to their everyday lives. Selfish was also a part of a way to overcome illiteracy. Unfortunately, they rely on public education. Public education in Brazil is very problematic, not very well invested. So then this kid, Rodrigo, he was 13 years old. He couldn't read or write. And the mom had to work all day. So after school, the mom would leave Rodrigo in the telecenter. And then every other hour, he was supposed to get on Facebook, post a selfie, and the mom would access Facebook from her workplace and acknowledge that he was there, safe and sound, and click on like. And after the like, he would, you know, he could like close Facebook and do something else.

But it was a very interesting dynamic because for those watching them, watching, you know, his Facebook page, probably thought that Rodrigo was a very narcissistic kid. But in fact, he was just checking in with his mom. And the mom, with the like, wasn't enjoying the photo, but it was acknowledged that she saw that he's okay and he can go back to whatever he was doing, you know, playing in the waiting room with the friends or whatever. So selfies was something that really, like, really blew my mind in terms of how these mundane technologies are so differently used in different contexts. There are so many great stories like that in the book as well, like great

anecdotes of the way that people are using these technologies and engaging with them. Like it's one of the great parts of the book because you instead of just like, you know, having you describe what's happening, like you actually get like a look into how people are using it. And yeah, it's just great. We were talking about how Facebook was zero rated. And so that meant that it was an application that was easy for people to access. They didn't have to worry about paying extra. So naturally, virtually everyone was using it, right? Another one of those applications was WhatsApp. And in the book, you describe how WhatsApp was really important for Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro,

who, you know, the far right president who took power in recent years and is certainly going up for reelection this year, and other new right movements that were associated with them that were opposing the, you know, traditional, I guess, center left rule of the Workers' Party in Brazil, but, you know, also had ties back to the dictatorship or, you know, at least like those people and things like that. But you talked about how WhatsApp was really important to that campaign and to building momentum for that kind of politics. I was wondering if you could talk about, you know, how that played out, the disinformation that was shared through WhatsApp. And do you see something like

that happening again in the lead up to this election or have the dynamics changed? Yes. So the way that disinformation happened in Brazil was mainly focused on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is in 96% of its smartphones in the country, and 90% of the people there who's got access to a smartphone use WhatsApp as their main mean of communication. So WhatsApp is this universe that everything is on there in Brazil. Bolsonaro did something really, I hate to say this, but innovative, because WhatsApp is a peer-to-peer platform and it's encrypted, meaning that for you to receive or send a message, it requires deliberate human action. So somebody is actually sending you something and for you to read it, of course, it requires your own action to do so. So WhatsApp does not have an algorithm to curate and distribute misinformation how Facebook does or Twitter does. So in the absence of an algorithm on WhatsApp,

Bolsonaro's campaign or those who were interested in electing Bolsonaro created what I call in the book the human infrastructure of fake news that replicated this behavior of an algorithm. So it worked like a pyramid where at the very top, you had people who created this misinformation. On the middle part, you had those who distributed and curated information across different groups. So groups with family members, soccer fans, churchgoers, all these different groups that went beyond just being politically interested, you know, talking about politics. And then at the bottom, you had those who consumed misinformation

that by consuming, they also helped spreading. So I got into four WhatsApp groups that were geared towards promoting Bolsonaro. And in those groups, that's where I realized that there was an infrastructure or an organization orchestrating misinformation across the board. And the more groups I immersed myself into, I realized the same structure. At first, I thought that these groups were self-motivated or organically motivated, but then down the investigation, as I talk in the book, I realized that no, they were actually being paid to behave like this algorithm that was producing and curating misinformation across WhatsApp.

So all kinds of misinformation was happening and because of the encryption component of WhatsApp. It was very hard for one, for WhatsApp to do anything about it and even the authorities in the country to do anything about it. It was hard to trace basically. So this is why in 2018 he caught, I wouldn't say caught everybody by surprise, but caught everybody with their hands tied in terms of doing something about at that moment. You know, 2004 years later, we're back in the same scenario where misinformation is still

running without much measures to contain it. Of course, platforms are trying to play this role of, yeah, we're doing something, but at the same time, we need to respect freedom of speech. You know, I call it BS on that because it's not freedom of speech, it's money. As we know, misinformation are usually tied with hate speech or fear speech. And these are the speeches and the content that generate most engagements, which is equal to monetization and money for these platforms.

So they will do something just for PR, but then at the bulk, they won't do anything because it's part of their revenue. WhatsApp, I mean, what can you do, right? Like they have been actually good with mass messaging on the apps, but they've been able to block these accounts. But in terms of identifying misinformation and doing something about it, it's just the architecture that doesn't allow. And this is something that they love to hide behind. You know, they're like, oh, it's encrypted, we can't do anything. YouTube also plays a major role. We don't see much coming from them.

Telegram is the new big player now because now Telegram is actually the WhatsApp of 2018 in the sense that there's no restriction. So they have channels that are unlimited in terms of members, number of members. And, you know, Pavel Durov is just a copycat of Elon Musk. He thinks he's the king of free speech. And because of that, he won't do anything because this is his ideal. But he doesn't understand how his ideal actually can be the instrumental of, you know, communities and people like those that I talked in the technology of the favelas. So not a whole lot of new stuff happening, unfortunately.

Yeah, which is not a surprise, unfortunately. I think it's really interesting to hear that. And you say, you know, unfortunately, you know, Bolsonaro was kind of innovative in this. And I feel like, sadly, we see that from a lot of these kind of insurgent right-wing movements, like how Trump used Twitter to his advantage and Facebook ads and things like that, right? In a way that the Democrats weren't as up on. And then, you know, it seemed like that they had to catch up on later. I don't know if you know much about this or have been paying much attention to it. So if not, we can leave the question and I can move on. But one of the things that has stood out to me, and that I was talking to David Adler at Progressive

International about recently, was how TikTok has become really important in Ecuador and Colombia in their elections. I wonder if you've seen that also serve an important role in Brazil as well, heading into the election later this year. Yes. TikTok has been an interesting platform in ways that it's a platform for creating content, but it's not where people access that content. So for example, if you look, Instagram is huge in Brazil, right? So if you look into the reels of Instagram, you can see TikTok's watermark. So people are not creating these videos on Instagram, but they're creating on TikTok and then exporting those videos to Facebook, Reels on Instagram, and WhatsApp and Telegram because it's easy to edit the videos.

Once you export them, they become very compressed and light, so it's easy to transfer. If I were to call this an impact, this is the impact that I've been seeing so far. TikTok is getting very big in Brazil. TikTok is investing in its expansion in the country. Of course, as any other platform that is becoming big, there will be some sort of impact during the elections, but I wouldn't put TikTok right there with even Facebook and WhatsApp. Facebook is still the number one platform in the elections. But I wouldn't put TikTok right there with even Facebook and WhatsApp. Facebook's still the number one platform in the country. We tend to focus too much on the new bright app. So this is why people are paying a lot of attention to Telegram and TikTok,

which I think they should. But let's not forget where the aunts and uncles of Brazil are getting their misinformation. It's still on Facebook. It's still on WhatsApp. And this is important to mention because this new Bright app is something that people like Mark Zuckerberg loves because they can put the blame on them. That's exactly what happened January 6th. Actually, Trump called out people to go to D.C. on Twitter. It was not on Parler. But of course, Parler got all the blame because, you know, all this crazy speech and discourses that happened there. It shouldn't be happening, but it was happening there. So Twitter was very happy that Parler got all the blame for the things that happened January 6th, but it was all orchestrated and organized on Twitter.

So this is something that Facebook kind of appreciates with these new apps, like, you know, let Telegram get all the heat, let TikTok get all the heat because of the new things. But that's where the real impact is happening, to the point that the Supreme Court in Brazil banned Telegram for two days because Pavel Durov refused to respond to the requests of taking down content that is part of the internet laws that we have in Brazil. It was not wrong. It was the right thing to do. But at the same time, that brings the attention to Telegram and these new apps. And we tend to forget where the real misinformation and orchestrations

are actually happening which is the the old platforms yeah i think that's a really good point about how the old platforms really like when the new ones get the attention so it's not on them and all of the harms that they've been causing for a long time and are still causing david this has been a fantastic conversation i want to end by asking this you know we've talked about many aspects of the book certainly there are many more that we could go into and that people should read fantastic conversation. I want to end by asking this, you know, we've talked about many aspects of the book. Certainly, there are many more that we could go into and that people should read the book to find out more about. But what does your work on the use of technology in the favelas tell us about what's really necessary to address these social issues that they have, the oppressions that

they face, and what role does technology have to play in that? Because I assume it's often not the central one. Right. So what I try to do in this book is to show that social issues are rooted in other social issues, not in technical issues. Technology here will only amplify the already issues that we're facing. And of course, in vulnerable populations, disamplification is more harmful in those places where we tend to find some safety net and find some protection. By looking into the ways that people use technology, and technology here, I'm framing as a social actor, we're seeing their everyday life. We're seeing their everyday struggle. We're seeing how to turn the light on. It's not just to flip the switch. It requires deliberate act of repair to make that light to come on. And the real question that I ask at the end of the book is,

one, why do they have to be resilient? Why do they have to resist? I mean, resilience and resistance are beautiful things, but it sets them back when having to compete with folks that don't have to be resilient, but the technology was made to support from day one. So for those people who are, you know, engaged in this market competition, for them to get where, you know, people outside the favelas are, they have to walk 10 steps. And by walking these 10 steps, they're already tired. So they in this market competition for them to get where people outside the favelas are. They have to walk 10 steps. And by walking these 10 steps, they're already tired. So they cannot keep up in the market or whatever competition they're involved.

So for us to make real change, we can't just step outside and say, OK, we need to make equitable technology. Let's try to develop the new best things for these people. But it's not about us deciding what is good for these people. How about bringing those people to the table where the decisions are being made? And this is not just for technology, for any kind of policy, any kind of design and development, so they can dictate what is best for them. So then instead of having to rely on resistance on resilience, they can start from day one and join the promises of emancipation that technology can actually bring. So this is the kind of message that I try to bring in the book and the challenge that I leave for the next generations. And I think you do it really

well. As I said, I would highly recommend the book. I think it the next generations. And I think you do it really well. As I said, I would highly recommend the book. I think it's just such a fantastic look into, you know, this aspect of the use of technology in Brazil and in the favelas, and really does kind of help you think about technology and its role in a different kind of way and seeing it in a different setting than the setting that many of us, you know, in the global north, certainly middleclass people would be familiar with. So David, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for talking to me about your book. I really appreciated it. Thank you so much, Paris. This has been an absolute pleasure talking to you about the book. David Nemer is the author of Technology of the Oppressed, Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil. He's also an assistant professor at the University of Technology of the Oppressed, Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil.

He's also an assistant professor at the University of Virginia. You can follow David on Twitter at David Nemer. You can follow me and at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is produced by Eric Wickham, and it's also a part of the Harbinger Media Network, which you can find out more about at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you want to support the work that goes into making the show every week, you can go to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.