Exclusion

An underlying theme of much of this chapter has been that of exclusion. The stage effect (Chapter 3) makes it easy to focus on the wishes, needs, interests or rights of those who are part of cyberspace. But what of those who are not?

It is worth distinguishing various different sorts of cyber-exclusion.

• Badly designed computer systems can disenfranchise their users. How often have you heard someone say 'the computer won't let me do that', or heard a tale of how a new computer system takes far more work than the paper processes it replaced? The result can be genuine exclusion: people who previously made creative contributions to their work are reduced to human robots.
  
  This sort of thing may be understandable (e.g. time pressure in development), but it is not excusable. Not only is there no technical or economic reason for it to happen - unusable systems are far more expensive in the end - but such systems devalue people.
  
  
• Cyber-access is expensive for individuals. Cyberspace depends critically on access to a computer and to the Internet. Whilst neither is very expensive compared to, say, a car or a holiday abroad, both represent an economically significant outlay for many people, and an unattainable one for some. What is to happen to people who simply cannot afford a computer? Are they less important because of that?
  
  
• Cyber-access requires expensive infrastructure. Developed countries take for granted a reliable infrastructure of telephones and computer networks, but that is not the case in developing countries. There may be some benefit in this; developing nations may be able to skip earlier technological solutions that are now superseded, taking advantage of the economies of scale created by more developed nations. For example, in some thinly populated parts of the world it may be most sensible to use exclusively wireless technology for telephone and computer networks, rather than laying lots of wire. Be that as it may, the plain fact is that a huge proportion of the human population is not remotely connected to cyberspace.
  
  
• Cyberspace is daunting. For people who have not grown up with cyberspace, it is all pretty daunting. Many people who are not prevented from becoming cyber-citizens for economic reasons are nevertheless discouraged or prevented because they do not have the confidence, skills or access to information and training to begin.

The private car has made many rural bus services uneconomic, and has underpinned the rise of out-of-town supermarkets. Both developments disadvantage those who do not have a car. By analogy, will cyberspace lead to the demise of, say, public libraries? So far, the reverse seems to be the case: public libraries are taking up the challenge of becoming cyber-centres. But the effects of technology are unpredictable, and we do well to be vigilant.

Christians have a duty to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. There is a real risk that those who are excluded from cyberspace will, almost literally, be mute, because they lack the means to speak in the new language. We devalue their humanity, and our own, if we treat them - the majority of the human popluation, remember - as unimportant.