According to several posts published these last days, social media could increase divisions and discrimination between internet users instead of creating equality…
Danah Boyd writes about how a Facebook profile can be used against a potential candidate by future employers, thus creating discrimination :
Should employers have the right to discriminate against you because of your Facebook profile? One might argue that they should because such a profile reflects your “character” or your priorities or your public presence. Personally, I think that’s just code for discriminating against you because you’re not like me, the theoretical employer.
Then, The Economist explains how social networks can be assimilated to ghettos when they keep their members from communicating with other communities :
A generation of digital activists had hoped that the web would connect groups separated in the real world. The internet was supposed to transcend colour, social identity and national borders. But research suggests that the internet is not so radical. People are online what they are offline: divided, and slow to build bridges.
Finally, Cyceron, on his blog, writes (in French) about how new media create a new dominant elite in the society, making the difference between those who know how to use new (social) media and those who don’t…
On retrouve avec le web 2.0 toute cette utopie dangereuse du possible qui rejette implicitement dans le camp des fainéants ou des inaptes, tous ceux qui ne prennent pas le train de la technologie. […] En réalité, les nouvelles technologies consacrent surtout l’avènement d’une nouvelle classe dominante : ceux qui les maîtrisent.
Will they prove to be right ?
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