Who is welcome online?

Everyone deserves equal opportunity to access the Internet, and to use it to improve their lives and societies.

The strength of the open Internet is the ability of its users to shape the Web itself and thereby shape society. Like society, the Internet grows stronger with every new voice.

But there are many barriers that prevent the full diversity of the world from being reflected online. More than half of the world is still without Internet, and even people who do have access may be limited by factors like high cost, unreliable connections or censorship.

Language is also barrier, since Web content is predominantly in English, even though people who don’t speak English outnumber those who do.

There are other ways technology is skewed to reflect the unconscious biases of their creators thanks to years of inattention to diversity. Take for instance, how algorithms can perpetuate racial stereotypes in targeted advertising, or how languages like Hindi, Urdu, and Bangla are difficult to type on a standard computer keyboard.

Skip to data visuals

Healthy

Today, over three billion people are online. There are now more Internet users in emerging economies than in developed economies, which is a big step towards increasing the diversity of voices online. That’s worth celebrating. Mobile phones have put the Internet within reach of more young people, women and rural areas than ever before.

Universal Internet access in Least Developed Countries by 2020 is one of the United Nation’s new Sustainable Development Goals. Countless policies need to change to get billions of people online in three years, but the fact that Internet access now registers broadly as crucial to development, or as a human right in some contexts, is progress.

The free, crowdsourced online encyclopedia Wikipedia continues to be a free fountain of knowledge to the tune of 16 billion pageviews a month in 284 languages.

Dynamic technology and innovation hubs communities in developing countries are expanding to develop online services and businesses that meet local needs.

Unhealthy

Despite great progress in Internet adoption worldwide, access is not equally distributed. People living in wealthier countries have far greater access, and it is well documented that Internet adoption is slower for women than men almost everywhere in the world. Lack of skills and awareness of why the Internet is valuable is one of the principle reasons people don’t get online.

At worst, the Internet can reinforce and exacerbate existing inequities, divisions and discriminatory practices—and may even introduce new threats. Online harassment is a growing plague. Women in particular are targets across a range of platforms, as are minorities everywhere. This inevitably leads to mistrust and retreat from the Web – which in turn depletes diversity online and harms the health of the Internet overall.

Several governments are trigger-happy about temporarily switching off all or parts of the Internet with reasoning ranging from national security, to cheating on school exams, but ultimately threatening human rights and causing significant economic losses. In 2016, there were 51 intentional Internet shutdowns in 18 countries, according to AccessNow.

Prognosis

The obstacles in the way of making the Internet accessible and welcoming for all are numerous, and won’t be overcome by waiting. It will take sustained action. As more people come online, we need corporations, governments and civil society to work together to develop better broadband policies, and new business models for equitable access.

We also need new practices and incentives for local content creation and visibility, and ways in which users themselves can play a stronger role in contributing to the Web, in whatever language, format or medium that is most locally relevant.

And in response to the trolls, mobs and haters who undermine respectful civil discourse online, we need a combination of community action and technological solutions. Hatred, racism and bigotry can be stomped out online at least as well as offline.

The goal of digital inclusion presupposes that being connected is positive. We all bear responsibility for ensuring this is true for everyone.

Data visuals

Access

Number of people online

Half of the world is still offline.

3.3 billion people are online. That’s a lot, but we need more policies to bring rich and poor online affordably and in meaningful ways. People who only have mobile Web access, can’t as easily do things like write essays, apply for jobs, or other things that can influence economic growth.

Countries

Internet penetration rate

Big digital divides persist, especially in the least wealthy countries.

Internet access is skyrocketing in some regions, but poor, rural and marginalized populations are least likely to benefit. Unless policies change fast, only 16% of people in least developed countries will be online by 2020.

Affordability

Number of people who can afford to go online

58% of people in the world can't afford an Internet connection.

Affordable” is widely agreed to be less than 5% of GDP per capita for entry level broadband services, but even that is a steep price for the slow and unreliable Internet in many countries. Also, the lowest percentages of women online are in countries where mobile Internet costs the most.

57.8% of the world’s population cannot afford broadband Internet service

39.5% of the world’s population cannot afford Internet on their phone or mobile device

Languages

Internet users by language vs. content

Chinese is the second biggest language on the Internet in terms of users, but only 2% of Web content is in Chinese.

Only some of the top 9 languages for Web content (English, Russian, German, Japanese, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese) correlate with the number of users. Most languages on the Web are underrepresented.

Percentage of internet users

Percentage of internet content

custom-chart-english English Russian German Japanese Spanish French Portugese Chinese Arabic

English

Online dominance of English

52% of all websites are in English, even though only 25% of the global population understands English.

The percentage of content in English decreases only slowly now, but used to be as high as 75% of all webpages in 1998. When people can read, experience and create content in their own language, Internet health improves.

Censorship

Internet freedom

Censorship is alive on the Internet.

Internet freedom is in decline for the sixth consecutive year, according to democracy watchdog Freedom House in the US. Their 2016 report ranks the majority of 65 countries studied as either “not free” or only “partly free”.

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Sam
Guest
Sam

I noticed something that makes me rather confused. India: inflation and class gap massive, and yet it’s still approximately $4 USD a month for a top notch cellular connection with unlimited data usage. USA: middle class alive and well in most areas. Approximately $20 USD a month for a generously lousy connection. Want a better connection? You’ll have to buy a hugely expensive phone and than pay approximately $60-$80 USD or more for cellular service of equal quality. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but more US citizens need to take note of this; our telecos are screwing us all over.… Read more »

Astik cherenga
Guest
Astik cherenga

Chinese is still on the web what about Hindi Still need to go along way to make the digital India.

TrekkieJonny
Guest
TrekkieJonny

There is also map bias. The map used in these graphics is the Mercator projection. It greatly distorts the size of land masses the further you get from the equator. For example, Greenland looks to be of equal size to Africa which is acutally 14 times great in area then Greenland. I would sugest using the Gall–Peters projection. Much better representaion of land area.

Dark Flare
Guest
Dark Flare

How does this change the data?

R. A. Daza Jiménez
Guest

¡Qué bueno! Al menos alguien pone de relieve el _inmenso_ centralismo que atraviesa todo el internet. Me asombran los comentarios aquí abajo, parece que todo el mundo está contento con las páginas que no les dicen ni mu en inglés. Páginas como http://www.telegraaf.nl/, http://news.sohu.com/, o http://www.elespectador.com/. Supongo que les dejan muy felices cuando no incluyen _ni una palabra_ en su idioma (NO ENGLISH, MAN). Pretender que “lo que no entiendo no lo necesito” es de suyo absurdo: si esa fuera la posición general, la ciencia no existiría. Es, palabras más, palabras menos, la misma posición que encuentro en mi país… Read more »

R. A. Daza Jiménez
Guest

A little precision: Do you recognize Morocco’s abduction of Western Sahara as legitimate? Another maps in this site shows Western Sahara just as a line besides Morocco with no coast at all. Is it Mozilla’s official position? See the small characters in this map: http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/dpko/minurso.pdf

John Doe
Guest
John Doe

You’re wrong !
Western Sahara is Moroccan .

Cvine
Guest
Cvine

It’s by territorial occupation:

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Stephanie Burckhard
Guest
Stephanie Burckhard

Loved it! Thanks for the hard work, design and time. <3

Samantha Moan
Guest
Samantha Moan

There’s nothing wrong with algorithms wanting to know someone’s race. Your ” racial stereo type” opinion is influenced by the cultural Marxists new age developers that are replacing “web accessibility” with “inclusion”. You’re not reinventing the wheel or making it any moral with a “cultural objective”. We are all different and that’s the beautiful thing about diversity. Diversified algorithms embrace people’s individuality and react to it based on the particular target audience. For example, a non-white Facebook user whom once lived in the Middle East mentioned on their Facebook that also searches for Beef in Google Maps may be more… Read more »

Liana
Guest
Liana

I love that most of the comments are by people with white-guy names talking like they are g*d d*mn world travelers that understand the intricacies of the English web-content issue. No one is blaming English speakers for anything, and you shouldn’t be blaming non-English countries for this problem either; the whole idea is to recognize the issue because a more diverse Internet benefits everyone.

Zac
Guest
Zac

I am in an Asian country right now, and these people don’t feel like they’re short on internet content at all. They just don’t have hundreds of websites for every thing. Something that this project isn’t taking into account is that there are a lot of websites that are banned/illegal in the east as well. This is just a result of other countries’ cultures as well as the fact that there are only about 3 million people in the US that know Chinese while there are over a billion websites on the internet. Every Chinese speaker in the US would… Read more »

zcyzcy88
Guest
zcyzcy88

– English
100% of all the programming languages are based on English, and 100% of all the programmers understands English.

– Chinese
There are tons of content are not allowed Search Spider to get it, such as WeiXin and TaoBao.
I am sure, I am a Chinese people.

Zac
Guest
Zac

There is nothing from stopping the Chinese from making websites or translating content. Chinese learn English starting in elementary school. They can read English websites just fine, I’m sure.

Nick
Guest
Nick

The main reason this is important is because so many people claim that the internet provides universal access to all people, when this information displays that this is not the case. Not everyone is one the internet and their cultures are not all represented to benefit them. Therefore, the things that occur on the internet cannot be viewed as representative of the entire globe.

Zac
Guest
Zac

What is is that the Chinese need from western websites, though? They have access to the internet. They can make websites. They just don’t. They aren’t interested in it. It’s like how South Korea has the world’s fastest internet, and the highest percentage of people with access to the internet. Yet, all South Korea uses the internet for is kakao and video games. The only reason we have so many English websites is because we have so many useless websites. Does something like buzzfeed need to add Chinese? Do the countless adult websites on the internet that are illegal in… Read more »

Maki Nishikino
Guest
Maki Nishikino

Why is this a problem? Practically every developed country in the world teaches English as a second language. Most of what’s online is garbage anyways, unless you’re deeply concerned that people in Zimbabwe don’t have enough Minecraft let’s plays and reaction videos on Youtube catering to them. There’s probably more articles online complaining about why the internet has too much English in English than there are in any other languages. The whole “52% of the internet is in English and 25% of people know English” is skewed for numerous reasons too. Such as poor literacy rate in developing nations, the… Read more »

Jacques Cousteau
Guest
Jacques Cousteau

“Chinese is the second biggest language on the Internet in terms of users, but only 2% of Web content is in Chinese.”
Might this have something to do with the restrictions that the CCP places on internet use? No, probably not. It’s probably that English supremacy is linguicist.

Jacques Cousteau
Guest
Jacques Cousteau

Consider that the majority of languages of the world have no writing system. Should we say that the state of language is unhealthy?

Steve
Guest
Steve

Gosh what have I missed,
Poor = no surplus money, little food, poor or non existent medical Care…
Generally, Internet costs money, it is not a necessity for survival.
Therefore it is irrelevant in the scope of a poor person’s existence.
Make the Internet cost nothing, and the time cost will still get in the way.

Policy is not killing the spread of the internet to poor areas, economics is.
You have to invest in people and develop some infrastructure for them to work in.
Having a PHD and living in the jungle might not be too great, but put a PHD in a city…

Caroline
Guest
Caroline

Providing free internet would also enrich and educate the poor to enable them to a better life. I learn all kinds of things from the internet such as gardening and agriculture which would be important to the poor as a means to food and ways to be successful in that endeavor or building knowledge. The poor aren’t educated and being educated doesn’t mean you have to have a degree.

Anirudh
Guest

For most poor people living in third world countries, everyday is a battle for survival. They don’t care 2 hoots about internet as long as they can manage 2 get 2 square meals every day. I totally agree with Steve “Policy is not killing the spread of the internet to poor areas, economics is.”

John Michaelson
Guest
John Michaelson

“When people can read, experience and create content in their own language, Internet health improves.”

So what’s stopping them from doing so? Nothing I’m aware of.

Jim Lahey
Guest
Jim Lahey

The legend for the maps is the wrong colour: http://i.imgur.com/1vF81gL.png

Solana Larsen
Admin
Solana Larsen

Thanks, we’ll take a look at fixing.